Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

Throwing It Down

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

me and several other guys with beards

This weekend was the Whiskerino 2009 Throwdown. We had home-made beer. There was a little break dancing. Bowling. Tacos. A gigantic party/concert/party to wrap it all up. And of course, there was meeting a host of guys that turned out to be as quirky, interesting, and fun as their photos implied. It helped, of course, that we all started from the same baseline of nerdiness for having jointly participated in this Internet beard growing event. None of it would have worked had there not been a pile of decent human beings willing to push awkwardness aside and go hang out with a bunch of near-strangers for a weekend. But Sunday morning, there were a lot fewer near-strangers and a lot more new friends.

There’s only a week left until the whole Whiskerino is over, but this weekend will go down as one of the best I’ve ever experienced.

and how wide

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

camera lens and box

I finally have a wide angle lens! This is my new AF NIKKOR 24mm f/2.8D, and you can expect to see it in use for the remainder of Whiskerino and many shots beyond.

This is also one of my first experiments using some light-reflective material (in this case some heavyweight white paper) to provide some fill light.

Pumped!!

Ripped Off, or, I’ve hit the big time!

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

UPDATE: I was able to contact VCU and received a very quick and polite response. The image has been removed.

I guess you know you’re doing something right when a university steals your original photograph and uses it on the front page of their athletic department’s website.

Check out this screen shot of the Men’s Basketball page paying particular attention to the smaller image at the bottom center:

[I've removed this image since VCU fixed the problem.]

Now take a look at this image on RVANews’ Flickr account that I provided them from Saturday night’s game:

basketball players

Can’t VCU find any photography students to take pictures for them? I’m not sure how to get in contact with the folks who make the website because there’s no obvious webmaster link or contact page. I’d be happy to let them use it if they pay me. Barring that, I’d like them to take down my image.

I wonder how many other photos they’ve misappropriated?

2009 Black and Blue Classic

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

basketball players

Last night I was fortunate enough to be on the floor of the Stuart C. Siegal Center at VCU to photograph the Rams defeat the Richmond Spiders 65-57. There’s a photo feature of my work up on RVA News.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

me and the mamiya c3 camera

Today, on Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that my wife’s late father was into photography.

When I started dating the woman that is now my wife her father was already inaccessible, in the late stages of a rare disorder that would take him during our last year in college. I never really got to meet the man who would have been my father-in-law.

He did, however, leave behind a wealth of well-kept camera gear largely from the 1960s. My wife used his old 1967 Nikon F in college, and eventually gave it to me as my wedding present in 2004. She knew I was taking an interest in photography and taught me to use her father’s camera.

Today, while digging around my mother-in-law’s garage for a prop to use in tomorrow’s photo, I stumbled upon a gold mine. An early 60’s Mamiya C3 TLR medium format camera. It’s in almost perfect shape, and included a pistol grip, mirror finder, hood, yellow filter, and UV filter. For this shot I put the mirror finder on in place of the waist-level finder and attached the hood and grip. Everything seems to work just fine, and I plan to run a test roll through when I get home on Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

St. Joseph’s Villa

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Yesterday I had my first paying photography gig through RVANews photographing St. Joseph’s Villa as they celebrated 175 years in operation. Check out the results!

gussied-up

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

dan wearing four ties

Dress-up day for Whiskerino.

sweep the streets

Friday, November 20th, 2009

daniel sweeping the street

Just doing my civic duty.

the warm glow

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

shiny!!

It’s so nice to see the sun again here in the River City.

Friday the…oh, you know.

Friday, November 13th, 2009

dan on the ground

Not my lucky day…