Climbing with Chelsea

        "Climbing is dangerous" says a sign posted all over the place at Wild Walls, Inc, Spokane's best climbing gym. I love photographing in there, even though you are dealing with low light and a mix of about 3 or 4 different light sources.






















      Somedays I go in and the place will be packed. Other days I go in and the place is empty. I when in the other day and there was a few people climbing. A lot of talking between climbs. But over in the bouldering corner there was 1 girl bouldering. Bouldering is a form of climb with no rope, because it is low enough to the ground that a fall will not kill you. It normally includes short, difficult, powerful moves to complete a bouldering route.

  I photographed her for awhile, and realized she was very good. She knew what she was doing and was performing some awesome and powerful acrobatic moves. Great for beautiful photographs. During one of her brief resting moments I went over and introduced myself and made sure she didn't mind being photographed, and showed her some of the images I had taken. She didn't mind...as long as I made her look good. Her name was Chelsea, and she worked at Wild Walls. She also said that she wasn't climbing that well today. "Yeah, Right?", I thought to my self. Looks pretty good to me.

         Why black and white? There are a couple of reasons why I made these photos B/W. One was the lighting. Without some kind of flash, it is very dark in there. I was shooting at around 4000iso. Which made the images very grainy. I thought that the black and white made it grittier and therefore more intense and had more impact. Also, with all the different light sources, you had a lot of weird greens and yellow cast on the skin and the wall. It's just a lot easier to deal with in true monochrome.

        In closing, I'd just like to say that Wild Walls is one of my favorite places to photograph in town. It is just a laid back, relaxing place. I've never met a grumpy person there. Everybody just has a good time. I'd also like to thanks Chelsea for allowing me to photograph her.

Camping trip : summer 2013

      This August I got to go on a short trip with a couple of fellow photography students. I don't get to go on many photo trips to the woods like this, so I was pretty excited. I began to try and think of the type of photos that I would be looking for. The above photo is an example of "flowing water". I wanted to try and take some long shutter speed to make the water look, I don't know how to say it, but, "misty"? I succeeded a little, but I feel I needed a filter to cut some of the light to get the shutter speed I want. In short, it was to bright out. I wanted to try these water shoots to try and visably make time slow down. It seems our lives are moving so quickly that we forget to stop and see the beauty around us and how beautiful thing are when you slow down.


   







 Well, I know what your saying, "This isn't nature!" Maybe not in
the typical sense, but, This is an old water turbine, placed out in front
of a dam we stopped at. This is one of man's ways of controlling
nature (for a time) for his own purpose. That's sort of nature like...
besides, their pretty cool

     "Out of Place" We all feel like that in our own life's sometimes. I know I do. Sometime I feel like this little dried out leave. But sometimes I forget that like this leave, I have a lot of other leaves supporting me. And I am lucky, very lucky to have my support group. My family, and the people I work with, all who I think of as my friends.





    "Light from Above"  Biblical refrance, maybe. Teacher refrance, maybe. work refrance, maybe. Just remember, light coming from above, for the most part, lights your way. Try not to block it.

JULIA

 
    If you've been following my blog, you'll recognize Julia. Here are some more from our latest shoot. I would like to congratulate her on her recent promotion at work. It is well deserved and she will do great! Thanks Julia! (once again)

Ehea and Theresa. Love = Love

     So a few weeks ago, I had the chance to photograph Ehea, who is a girl that I worked with at the Olive Garden. She is a beautiful girl, with a unique look Short, spikey hair, awesome tattoos and pretty buff. But she also has a very pretty face and a great smile. She also just has a graceful attitude and is just fun to be around...I can see why her girlfriend fell in love with her.

      Yes, Ehea is a lesbian and she is my friend. When she agreed to a photo shoot, I said bring Theresa and we'll take some couple photos. And I got some great photos of them. And now, as I edit these photos, I don't see a lesbian couple, I just see two people that love each other and really enjoy each other's company...and I'm proud to have had the chance to capture that.

       

Bump, Set, Spike

     Work is tough. Restaurant work is brutal. So, every Saturday or Sunday during the summer, (almost every Saturday or Sunday) the employees and their friends,  of Churchill's get together and play volleyball.  There is no front of the house or back of the house. Just team 1 and team 2. Some people just play one game, some play in every game and some don't play at all, they just visit. Some bring their dogs. It's kind of like a dog circus on some days.

       Sometimes, The play is really good and sometimes it's questionable, but everyone has a good time. It is a good time to relax and remember that everyone is just trying to survive in this crazy life, and business, and although sometimes at work, it seems as though we just hate one another, we really don't, because after all, it's just steak. ( A really, really great steak!!)

HOOPFEST 2013

     So, I shot Hoopfest again this year. I love it. It is my favorite weekend of the year. But when the last game was played, I thought the same thing I think evey year. "I could have shot better". Then I am a little depressed. But now that I think about it, that's a good thing, right? Once we reach as great as we can be, with nothing to work towards, than what the point? We should always want to to better. I shot some great stuff this year, but next year will be even better!

Becca

     This shoot was a total collaboration between myself and Becca. We facebook chatted for about a month about clothes, make-up, hair, and shoes. She bought her clothes for the shoot online and as she waited for them to show up,  I thought about lighting and the sets. And when it al came together, I think it worked out great. It took me awhile to edit them and I felt a little guilty. I told Becca "almost done", "almost there", "sorry it's taking so long". She just said it's ok, "you can't rush art". Thank you Becca, they do look great!

JULIA II

            So, once again, Julia modeled for me. And once again, she amazed me. She's pretty, she has a great sense of style, and she is a GREAT poser. She just knows how to work the camera. She also has a very personable personality. I hope that makes sense. If it didn't, we'll just go with "she's very nice".

     I wanted to see how good at posing she was. Challenge her a bit. So, I put her in front of a white seemless background, with no props, no anything, and I told her to just do her thing. "pose". As I walked over to my camera, she started twisting and spinning around. I said " just keep doing that. She laughed and kept going. It was maybe one of the most graceful things I've ever seen.

                             

   With this shoot, I wanted to show off a little of her figure. But in a tasteful way. Show a little skin and a little "wow". Now to make this shoot a little more interesting, Julia's boyfriend came to the shoot. I have had boyfriends come to shoots before and it is never any fun. They don't get mad at me, they get mad at their girlfriend and the whole shoot goes down the drain. It didn't take me long to realize that Jace was not going to be a problem, he was a super big help to me. A second pair of eyes, if you will. Pointing thing out to me that I didn't see. So, I''d like to say "Thanks, Jace!".

    Julia alway dresses super nice and somewhat elegant at work. And she always wear stockings. Fancy stockings. I don't think she's worn the same stocking twice in a two week period. I guess their like a trademark of hers. Great legs, great stockings. That was my though for this photo.

     In closing, I'd like to thank Julia for her hard work and her commitment to helping me improve my portfolio. And in putting up with my never ending complements at work. 

 I think she called me a "peeping Tom" during this shot...lol!...she's got a sense of humor, too.