Here's a quick Christmas photo I did for my friends in the Rimbey family. You'll recognize Ben from various other photographs and blog posts I have made.



The past two weeks have been some of the busiest I have ever experienced. With work, Help Portrait (blog coming from that later tonight) and my Grandparent's 65th wedding anniversary party, I am a very tired man.

Light Testing

My good friend Ben came over this evening and I asked him if it was okay for me to take some photographs as light tests in preparation for Help Portrait this coming weekend. I'm very excited about that event and am very happy to be able to be a part of it.



Of course, the iPhone



and the creeper.

Texas part 1

Hello y'all. I have been in Texas for a few days visiting my girlfriend, Ashley. So far we have been around Austin and San Antonio, and tonight we are going to see New Moon. We'll see how that one goes.

Anyway, I've been really enjoying a vacation where I don't have a ton of stuff to wrap up. I get to kick back and relax until Monday when all that madness begins again.



Flying has always been difficult. I've had ear problems since I was a little kid and I was in fear of being in excruciating pain as I'd remembered, so the night before I did some research. Research=posting questions on Twitter and Googling a lot of things. In the end I put my faith in a pair of ear plugs that are supposed to reduce pressure in your ears during the pressure changes. Worked like a dream.




Ashley and her family hold down the house with five dachshunds (weiner dogs) and they are all super adorable and each have a lot of personality.



That guy there is known as Bumper. He's the most recent addition to the family. It's strange having small dogs around because I am used to this guy.



Ashley works from 3 to 6 Monday-Friday so I am spending a lot of time at this little coffee shop in Seguin called Chiro Java. They have a chiropractor in-house. Too bad the doctor is never in. I wouldn't actually have anything done, I really don't like when people touch my back, random fact.



This is the side of the very building in which I am sitting. (Chiro Java.)



The next building over



To wrap up the trip, tomorrow we're going to San Antonio and out to dinner with Ashley's parents and some family friends (of whom I'm supposed to be afraid. Nerve racking!) Sunday will be Fiesta Texas, which I'm told is a Six Flags-esque place, or maybe even an official Six Flags.

Oh and I have been eating a lot of Skittles

More Like the Movies

This is at very least the fourth photo session I've had with these guys. They are really cool guys and we tend to have a lot of good photos.







Sounds like my next session with these guys will be next February, after they've recorded their new album and will be in need of some new promotional photographs.

These were taken in my basement studio, which is, at maxiumum, 15' squre. I really would like access to a studio where I didn't have to shoot super wide in order to get 5 guys in a frame. Hopefully have something in the works on that situation, and I'm hoping to get the wheels turning on that soon.

Words Versus Pixels

In the back of my mind I always have this feeling about how I'd like to express myself. I'm not deep enough to make photographs my self expression, and that's not my goal. The goal of the photographs is to see what the subjects are saying, not me. At least for now.

I've always enjoyed writing things, and in eighth grade I tested for English at the level of a college sophomore. I never really tried much in my writing classes though, because I saw no good come from it. Words would get typed, printed and graded, end of cycle (rinse, repeat.)

Recently I've noticed that writing has been a good way to give myself an ultimatum. Whether it be with a daily to do list, writing on a white board for overall goals or quotes I enjoy, or random sticky notes places all over my iMac.

Maybe I was looking too closely for some kind of reward for writing. I wasn't looking for personal happiness, but recognition. Lately I have been trying to rid stresses to make my personal life a little bit more enjoyable. My girlfriend Ashley, even though she probably doesn't realize it, helped me realize that I want to start "using my words" to push my creativity, and relax a bit from it as well.

All in all, I hope that I can keep up with writing things here and elsewhere for my sanity, organizational purposes, and fun.

Senior-Melissa

Melissa is a senior in High School and a girlfriend of a brother of a friend. Yep.

I woke up the morning of the day and saw snow. Everywhere. Luckily, by the time 4pm rolled around it was mostly gone, but it was still pretty cold out. Kudos to Melissa for toughing it out!

Keepin' Busy

The last two days have consisted of a photo shoot during a pillow fight, visiting Minneapolis College of Art and Design to see Dick Durrance speak (which was AMAZING,) and a shoot down by the river. In a van, down by the river. Get it? It wasn't really in a van though.

10/13
Originally this shoot was going to be outside at a park, nothing too special. Day of, I get a text from the vocalist saying they bought two feather pillows and are going to cut them open and smack each other with said pillows, and I am to photograph it.



I am pretty sure that I have found feathers in my laptop bag, camera bag and everything else. Also, I'm sure I'll find them for a long time.





Anyway, I saw Dick Durrance speak later that night. It was really awesome, there were a lot of people watching and his story was fantastic. Back in the day he was going to take a camera down the Danube River with a couple of friends. They decided to pitch it to National Geographic, they took it and eventually hired him as a staff photographer. Nat Geo doesn't have staff photographers anymore, and I'm pretty happy I was in the same room with someone who shot an extremely well known cover for the best mag around. I can't find the photograph online, but I'm sure you've seen it.

I head home, pet my dog for awhile and then I think I'll try to sleep. I decide to watch the Annie Leibovitz documentary Life Through a Lens in it's entirety, and didn't get to sleep until about 6:00am because I had so many ideas flowing through my head. And maybe it's because I had to Rockstar Guava energy drinks that day. Hopefully next summer pans out to everything it could be.

My next shoot was supposed to be at 8:00am, but seeing as how I went to bed at 6:00am and turned my alarm off when it went crazy at 7:00, it was delayed. It would've been a bigger deal but it was for my good friend Ben and his musical project Something Satellite.











I certainly love doing what I do.

Hunt for Inspiration

Lately I've been finding myself searching for inspiration. It's easy to find on the internet, but for myself to get truly inspired, I have to physically see something that I can touch, things that other people have created. It helps me set goals and gives me motivation.

Luckily for me, I live a little less than an hour North of a beautiful city, Minneapolis. This city holds so many great things and it is a very architecturally beautiful place. The past week I've spent about 3 days just driving around Minneapolis mid-day. If I had picked a different time, there would be tons of traffic and it would have been frustrating. Mid-day Minneapolis is the ideal city for me.








Oh and my dog sometimes helps me out

Angela

senior photos taken for my niece, Angela. it's weird that she is my niece because she is pretty close to me in age (she's 17, i'm 21.) she's graduating, therefore i am was given the deed of taking her senior photos.

welcome back.

so my last blog post on this blog was made roughly 5 1/2 months ago. that's quite the absence, but i'm back. i've tried various other avenues for blogging (tumblr, wordpress) and for some reason i can't seem to find one i am happy with. eventually i will have to buy one or have one made, but that's pretty low on the to do list. i have to actually start blogging before that becomes an expense.

so here i am, it's almost 3 in the morning, i'm watching locked up raw on MSNBC and writing a blog.

life has been pretty busy lately, and i really like it that way. i have gotten a promotion at levi's and i'm working 40 hours/week there, going to school full time (all my classes are online,) and shooting as much as possible when i have a day to breathe.

this blog is going to become a huge priority for me because i definitely need a place to throw out words i have, whether they are relevant or not. i have an online publishing class that is really focusing on blogging (most of our assignments are blogs,) so hopefully i'll be able to get into the groove of things.

photo update tomorrow,
much love

"I hope you're doing okay."

yeah, it's been a week for my family and i. i woke up this morning to my mom coming into my room bawling. her best friend's son passed away last night. she spent the day there comforting her friend, my mom would do anything for this lady.

last monday my uncle (my mom's brother) went into the hospital to have his kidney removed because they found cancer in him. the surgery went pretty well, (they severed an artery but were able to catch it before anything horrible happened.) he's going to be getting out of the hospital either monday or tuesday and we can only pray the spots on his lungs and liver somehow disappear.

earlier this week a distant cousin of mine passed away, and he will definitely be missed. he's the kind of guy that walks into a room and the mood brightens because of the personality his body language has.

wow. life is such a confusing thing. we pray that these things get better, but sometimes the will of God isn't the same as our prayers. all day all i could think about was my mom's friend, linda. she's that lady who has been in my life since i can remember, and has always been one of my mom's closest friends. her son had some pretty rough times, but recently things were getting better, but now he rests.

i'm sitting here, typing this, and i just put my hands to my head. that's all i can even think to type right now. pretty close to speechless. please pray for linda and her family, and my family too if you've got the time.

sheesh

last week was insane with school, had to do 4 papers and a test, now this week I have an exam and a powerpoint due, a little exhausting but that's what happens when you take 15 credits and you're not used to school.



did a little shoot with my friends in trace the skyline last week, they are continuing their band as an acoustic project instead of full band, they're heading out on tour this week for two weeks, check their myspace for the dates www.myspace.com/tracetheskyline