Twirl

High School freshman Kayla Phillips.

Sometimes the most mundane assignments end up looking nice, which i see is the biggest hurdle most photojournalists have to overcome quick. How do you make good photos from daily assignments that are lackluster?

I have learned a lot of tricks. Framing, panning, zoom-panning, moody lighting, sillouettes. Basically enough to have some techniques to fall on to make a good image beyond the "nice portrait." The fun part is sizing up the situation inside about 30 seconds to figure out what you want to do.

So I ended up seeing the pretty sky and going for the sillouette while keeping her head in front of the sun.

Sportraits pt. 2

Defensive Tackle Geno Atkins

Part of the fun of working for a newspaper is that most of the time, the images will never run exactly how i would have used them. Our sports department generally likes a couple of different concepts. However given the nature of big-time college football, I get 5-7 minutes per player, if I'm lucky. That means i have to bring the studio to them. Thankfully UGA has a nice racquetball court that makes a fantastic, albeit very echoy, place to work.


Running back Kregg Lumpkin


Flanker Mikey Henderson

Disney Trip pt 1

Normally i dont publish my Disney photos. We took a quick weekend trip down to the Mouse House and had some fun. Saturday evening had some of the most impressive lightning I'd seen, including the 3 years i've worked in Florida.

So yeah, you too can get a lightning picture using a point and shoot camera. (ISO 50, 15 seconds @ f/8)

Sportraits Pt. 1

Its Football preview time.... which here in Athens means two previews, one for high school and one for UGA.

One of my coworkers got the HS tab while I did most of my work on the UGA tab. I am not happy with the cover shot. While it wasn't my concept nor my idea, it still just doesn't work. Somehow we just need to improve communication with the guys who dream up these crazy ideas and just let us do what we do best.

At least i can use this platform to show the photos as i believe they should have been displayed, as this one was run in black and white.

Anyways, this is a local High school quarterback, David Firth. Basic lit portrait with a CTO orange gel and the camera's white balance set to tungeston.



North Oconee High School quarterback David Firth

Dropkick Murphys 8/6/07

Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys.






I chose this concert photo to kick off this blog because:


1 - Its my favorite band.

2 - It captured the concert as a whole for me.

3 - Its my favorite band.


Seeing Ken Casey there loving his music as the Murphys play in a way-too-small bar in Savannah, GA without security or a barricade was amazing to me. Photographing that band was by far the antithesis of concert photography as a whole. There was no "Three songs and out." There was an informal agreement between me and the tour manager over how long i could shoot, and that was that. The light was crap (800 ISO, @1/30th at f/2.8), the venue was insanely hot, and there was enough cigarette smoke in the hall to give cancer to anyone within its bounds. Lots and lots of fun.

The highlight for me was photographing on stage during "The Auld Triangle" from behind Marc Orell's amplifier.

I stood there, trying to get the exposure right, singing at the top of my lungs while watching all the chaos swiirling through a 17mm lens.

So, for that I must say thanks to the band and insist that you go to their website and check out their music.

As for the venue, i'm amazed we made it out alive. About 750 people squeezed into this tiny bar and tiny stage. Just two Murphys people Evan and Juggly (i think that was his name) doing security on stage. People constantly grabbing fans to try and blow air onto the stage. Even the walls were sweating. By the end, the band looked like they'd had enough. I've never seen a three song encore fly so fast before.


Anyways, here's a few other photos.





Ken Casey gets accosted by adoring fans during "Kiss Me, I'm @#$!faced"



Scruffy Wallace's Tattoo.



Al Barr turns away from the audience during a song.