Savannah

Its been a while since I've posted anything decent. Well actually it could be never since I've posted anything decent. So its probably best to get these group of photos up before they disappear into the untouched depths of my hard drive.

So last weekend myself and my roommate went to Savannah Georgia. This was only the 2nd time I've ever been and Paula Deen was long overdue. We have a couple of friends that live in or around Savannah so it was only natural that a visit was in order.

We started out leaving at 1:30AM Friday. I didn't get off work until around 11:30PM and we decided to head out that night so we would be there well into the morning to optimize riding time. Before we left Gainesville though, rent had to be paid and food had to be eaten, cause I was hungry. So we did that. Here is us paying rent to an unmarked building off Main St.

I took an hour nap at the Georgia Welcome Center once we crossed the state line. When we got to Savannah it was anywhere between 6:30AM and 7:30AM. Unknown to us at the time, there was a marathon about to begin. I believe it was the annual Savannah Rock 'n' Roll run where some friends said there was an extra 50,000 people in the city. Not the best time to be arriving half delusional, driving around just looking for a place to park and get our bearings straight. We eventually made our way to a gas station and gave our buddy Mike a call.

Luckily he was only about 20 minutes away and the sun was coming up. His mom made us bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches that were the among the greatest things I've ever eaten. Not even kidding, these were about as good as it gets. Combined with fresh coffee, orange juice, and almond milk I could probably eat them for the rest of my life and never get sick of it. No joke.

Palm Coast Kids!

Palm Coast kids are always fun to ride with. I still can't understand why they come all the way to Gainesville just to ride Possum and whatever crappy street we have. Buy they always pull through with the awesome tricks and are great for photographing. It was cool cause they were here on Saturday and then some Ocala kids came up on Sunday. The Sunday session was a little more quiet, nothing super extreme. But on Saturday Palm Coast Jason was shredding and I got a couple of photos out of it! I was suppose to be shooting a wedding but it was canceled last minute. I still got to photograph so I'm happy.

lesson learned

I just learned earlier today a valuable business lesson I will not soon forget. If you recall the previous post titled Plan, Plan, Plan, you will read how excited I was for shooting the wedding tomorrow. I was planning on doing nothing but focus on organizing and shooting. I was going to get there early and scout out the entire location for angles and get an idea of what the light might be. I was going to set-up way before the guests arrive to make sure everything was as perfect as I could get it. I say 'was' because tonight I got a text that says "I don't have the money. I'm going to have to cancel."

So the lesson is get a contract and get a deposit.

I also recall some words of wisdom I read from wedding photographers online somewhere:
"Its better to lose clients because they think your too expensive, than to lose clients because they think your too cheap." -Someone

I really felt I was going against that quote by pricing myself dangerously low. So low in fact that I was about to pay my second shooter the same amount for half a days work as I was for the entire project. I should of seen the signs when they started to try and lower the price. But that's the last time I price myself cheap. My next wedding I'm charging at least double this one and getting a deposit(non-refundable).

I guess tomorrow morning I will be sleeping in.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Tomorrow is the day for the wedding that I'll be shooting. So today before and after work will be spent organizing all my gear, charging batteries, cleaning lenses, and packing camera bags. Hopefully everything goes smooth although I do anticipate some problem solving, like bad light. The ceremony is outside during the mid-day which means the light will be at its worst. I'll just have to hope there will be some passing clouds at every right moment. :)

At this time however I'd like to take this moment to let you guy know my views on animal killing. I'm not talking about those stupid slaughter houses or factory farms. I'm talking about squirrels, birds, and other small neighborhood animals. Plain and simple I'm not for it. All those things are living animals and should be treated as such and I believe taking the life away from anything is highly immoral.

In other news... I bough a 1000FPS(feet per second) break barrel pellet rifle the other day and have been target practicing in the backyard for hours on end. Freshly sighted I can hit(among other things :]) a bottle cap from a tree at 100ft. Our backyard only goes about 50ft. :p. That might not be anything cool to some of yall big hunters out there but i'm proud of it!

But foreal though, I don't kill ANYTHING with it. Its just fun to shoot.

Well, time to get workin'!

Blogger, Weekend, Ect...

To start off, tumblr is not for me. So I'm making the switch back. The designs and layouts just weren't as customizable as blogspot. Even though I generally choose the simplest layout I can, I still want to have control of how my blog looks. So tumblr sucks in my opinion. Plus, they can charge you like $50 for a good layout. Overall it may be good if you want to find and post viral photos and what not but my goal is to have a semi-professional place to host my photos and stuff. (professional pfft)
In other news... I'm still excited for the wedding I get to shoot this weekend! I may post a couple photos if the family allows. :) I was hoping to sell one of my lenses to buy another but it may have to wait until after this weekend. Till then I'm going to play hours of DragRacing on my phone and drink whats left of my dunkin coffee. Here are some recent photos from the last few days. BTW did I mention that last weekend sucked a fat one. I woke up Saturday and went straight to the skate shop and bought some new shoes. It was raining so I couldn't ride but I figured it would stop and dry up by the afternoon. Nope. It rained ALL day. So I figured alright, its one of those rare all-day rains. Nope. It rained all day Sunday too. My mom did however buy me a new t-shirt while she was in Orland(which she said got 10x more rain than Gainesville). It was from the Lucky Brand store!!!!! Best fitting shirt I own. I want more!

Sunday

Last Sunday while eating at El Indio we came across some good buddies from Palm Coast. They were on their way to Possum so we caught up with them a rode a bit. Here were the photos!

Saturday

Photos from Saturday's Possum session. Sunday's photos will be posted soon!

Just Another Weekend

I've got a few things that were on my mind and feel its best to post them before I forget!

First order of business is if anybody doesn't know I am available for hire. In trying to make photography a career and quit the shipping business I need to acquire more jobs and develop some sort of client base. Please spread the word if you or anyone you may know needs photographic work.

Second order of business is I'm looking for another roommate for a bedroom in a 3/2 house on the northwest side of town (close to skate park!). I had the option of moving out or trying to find another roommate, and since I haven't held a residence for more than 6 months in years, I'd like to try and stay put. The lease begins October so if your interested shoot me an email or facebook message and I'll give you the details.

Third order of business is I had a somewhat productive weekend with the bmx bike. Went out shootin' photos one night of a buddy hopping down a set of stairs then on Saturday got more shots at Possum. Not sure if they wish to be named here so I'll refer to them as buddy. But one buddy launched a pretty sweet t-bog over one of the hips in the bowl and another buddy (skate buddy) launched out of the bowl and over the a-frame. I've never seen anyone gap over the a-frame on a skate board so that was pretty sweet. Photos after the jump.

Studio

Studio Time

Played around in the studio and did some light studies.

 

4am

So the last couple  of nights me and Brad Tison have gone out to shoot some landscapes at night. I didn't get off work both days until around 12:30am so we ended up staying pretty late. By the time I got home it was well into the early morning and I ended up sleeping until 2pm the following day. 

 

Saturday

I got pretty bored today and decided to take some car shots. Threw in a nissan logo and essentially made a car ad.

Newnan's This Morning

wednesday

today's photo

the weekend of last

Atlanta

ma new studio

Alright, so what I did today in my attempt to do something productive was clean out the entire garage and make room for a small studio. I've had some used studio equipment sitting in my closet now for about six months and finally get to see if any of it works. The only lights I have are small off-camera flashes so I had to do some rigging for some of the modifiers to fit. But once everything was up mom gladly volunteered to model and test things out.

Recently...

This gap was huge!

Should of stuck with the first angle above.

Concussion, split lip, and busted cheek.

Scootering is pretty big here.

At $35 bucks per night you can't go wrong.

Paraphernalia?

Super sketch.

Northern Harrier.

I should take this one off...