dancin the night away

kept meaning to post these up...from a fundraiser dance event i shot last friday...this is another one of those, shot it before things, so i was trying to do something/see something different, and i made some frames that i liked...that being said, here they be

i went to the stage while people had a cocktail hour before the event started, and got something as the dancers rehearsed...which is what ended up running in the paper

sometimes a slow shutter speed makes the image

and cool lighting falling just in the right place doesn't hurt

i was trailing along behind a group of dancers to try and get names, and my off exposure ended up making for a good still life with the quote...
"The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now."
-- Bill Cosby

laying down tracks

out in search of snowscape pix today (without getting my car stuck, thankfully), and on my way back to the car from shooting along the river i made a self-portrait next to my solitary track of prints.....kind of makes me wonder, do the paths we choose define us or confine us? guess it all depends on where you end up....and whether or not you like it there

still lovin the lensBABY

haven't forgotten about my lensBABY - bought this gerbera plant for New Year's, and despite my better efforts to maintain it, the dryness of my house has won out - my pretty buds are drooping and drying (at least the plant is still alive, so maybe I'll get lucky and have new blooms!), but being one to find a different kind of beauty in things dead and dying or decaying, i pulled out the lensBABY over the weekend and made some frames

all work and no play....

more kids...

trying to keep my eye out for InSight pix while on assignments - shot this one of kids at their lockers near the end of school day today...it's pretty simple, but i kinda like it

last week, i had an assignment to shoot kids at the middle school making and setting up luminaria around the school property as part of a historic neighborhood event...while we were waiting for it to get dark enough to light the bags, some of the kids stayed outside (in the very blustery, very freezing cold!)...this girl flopped down on the hard ground and as her friends surrounded her broke out into a tremendous case of the giggles...i wish i were a kid again, when even if you are deathly cold, you can seemingly ignore it because you're just too busy being silly with your friends and enjoying where you are!

the Clint Eastwood connection

went out to make a portrait of a local man who furnishes antique autos to movies and TV - most recently he supplied the vehicles for the new Clint Eastwood film Gran Torino - while the Torino was still out in L.A., he had the gangsta car and the old Ford pickup that were in the movie. The guy offered to take a picture of me in the truck, which Clint drove all the time in the movie....so, now i have sat in the very seat Mr. Eastwood sat in....bring on the fame!

a new year!!!

it being a new year, i'm going to get off to a good start and get posting! so much has happened in this crazy profession, it's hard not to feel a little depressed and worried, but i was thinking last night that it's also a good incentive to take yourself more seriously and really think about where you're at, whether you're doing the work you'd really like to be doing and got into this for in the first place and how you can be doing that if the answers come up a little short - whether that happens where you're at now or someplace else....

really i just came on here to wish everyone a happy new year, with hope that things, however they pan out, will not spell an end to the spirit of the work we do - maybe it just won't be in quite the same format - but if the quality and character of this work goes away, that would be a tremendous loss, not just for those who do it, but for people in general - maybe that facebook group "don't let newspapers die" should rethink itself and focus more on not letting journalism die....

okay, i know i'm pretty much preaching to the choir here, so i'll stop blathering on....

again HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!!!