Mana's wedding

I shot my first wedding in a long long time. The last time I did a wedding, film was the norm and I was using a Metz flash the size of a garage. The highlight of the wedding was the father pulling out a shotgun to get a real 'shotgun wedding' image for his family to share for years...I told myself I'd never do another wedding again.

Things are different now. Digital makes the stress seem much easier to deal with - instant feedback is way better than thinking about how fast you can get back from the lab to see the images.

I haven't edited the 700+ photos from the wedding yet, but so far I like the results. The ceremony was a huge challenge and the only images I'm not 100% happy with. The sun had set just as the ceremony began, we were outside on top of a moving boat, with city lights gliding by behind us and a tinge of sunset. Behind everyone was 200' of emptiness - a nice void of anything that could create any depth.

Here is one of my favorites and one of the reasons I take photographs.

A great face

lemongrass

Hard drive mining

I have so much digital material now I keep forgetting where everything is. The more I scan and save, then edit and save, then re-edit and save, the more I leave digital artifacts that started within one context and ended in another. They aren't like prints that get bent and scratched and thrown away - they are there in pieces - scattered about on drives and CD's and emails and web content.

Jesse Bernstein

A film company is looking for material as they finish up a documentary about Jesse Bernstein's life and work. They asked me to scan some images I had from when he visited Anna and I in Olympia. I won't deny it was a trying few days and by the end I was glad to drive him - at a moment's notice of course - to Vancouver BC.



At some point, Jesse hurled a fifth bottle out the window on I-5 North.

Chris' Glass Piece

I did another test project today with my lights. My friend Chris sent me a glass piece a few years ago and I've always loved it. The difficulty was capturing a bit of the mood of the piece as well as lighting it without too many hot spots, etc.













I tried first to capture the whole piece with some constrasting light. I wasn't satisfied with capturing the texture of the glass - was getting too much hot light. A softbox or another source to reflection would have been good but considering my living room / dining room table was my backdrop and I didn't have any other reflectors, I went for mood. Here is a close up.

John visiting

I'm using every opportunity I can to bug folks into standing for me. I had about 2 minutes after I got the lights set to take 7 frames. There are actually 2 strobes going on but the one behind John to the left was on 1/8'th power and just wasn't making an impact.