art, politics, religion: discuss
Since I use this blog as a place to post more personal ideas and thoughts, I won’t reveal the names of these two fine people. If you know who they are, consider yourself lucky. They’re awesome.
Here are two of my portraits from our session that I absolutely adore.
Every year I’ve lived in Chicago and I’m available to do so, I shoot the gay pride parade.
This year Bill and I went out together with a portable Chimera beauty dish, my Canon 5D Mark 3, a 50mm 1.4 attached with a polarizer. I don’t have a ND filter for it right now. We shot everything at f2 and it was SOOOO much fun. We got great stuff with beautiful people.
Should we have run into any protestors, I would have loved to have photographed them with the Chimera. It would have been the best light they’ve ever been seen in. 🙂
I remember the first year I shot it, I was still a little more country than I realized, and I was more or less horrified and intrigued. I produced some videos with some footage, and when I showed my family, I’m pretty sure their shock was all I needed to think, “My old values need to go.”
What struck me was the sheer number of supporters in the form of families with young kids. Now I don’t even question anything about it.
Equality is amazing, but the pride parade is amazing-er.
The above is a work in progress, but I love where it is.
It’s hard to work on photos like this. While I might think it needs retouching, it’s in such a great place already.
Enjoy.
Last night we donated our photography to a charity event downtown right on the water. We find that these types of things benefit good causes and they draw attention to us in positive ways.
Lately the fog seems to be rolling in daily, and it engulfs the entire downtown. But outside the loop, it seems to be sunny and warm.
When summer finally comes, I’ll be here. Waiting.
This is opportunism at its best!
Kudos to photographer Josh Newton for pulling it together!
More here.
Via Kottke
Yesterday I had the pleasure of doing a short sitting with musician/vocalist LP.
LP has an incredibly beautiful voice, and in some context, it makes sense that she admires Jeff Buckley as a role model/inspiration.
The sitting was at JBTV, and Jerry had come into the studio area to get a portrait done with her. That’s him above along with LP’s bandmate Tim.
LP brought up that Jeff Buckley had been in the studio. Jerry said he’d been in twice. See some of the recordings here.
And if you’re a fan of Buckley’s, you’ll likely be aware of a stage recording done at the Metro here in Chicago. That was Jerry behind the production. And if you know his work, it is totally his style.
Jerry told LP that Jeff had started writing lyrics to a song at the studio on a napkin and he had it documented somewhere as well.
LP mentioned how big of an influence Jeff is on her work. We all stood there talking and each one of us said we had chills … We all — for that moment — had one degree of separation from one of the most incredible vocalists of all time.
Mind blowing.
Enjoy the video of Grace below.
A couple weeks ago we had a really busy week. We’ve recovered from it somewhat swimmingly, and now we’re plowing forward.
We signed the lease on a new studio in June, and we’re yet to really make the move in. Not completely anyway. There’s a ton of gear there, which is cool. But we still need window shades installed (which we’ve ordered) and a couple other minor things, like a fridge and a curtain.
I might take photos of it today.
But all in all, it’s really exciting.
Last night, I met a good friend and fellow photographer at the space. I wanted to show him and also shoot the bull. We ended drinking a couple beers and talking for 3 hours.
Today we’re hosting an agency who is interested in using us on a few projects. We’re having them to the studio, and while we’ll have to apologize for the windows and a couple different things, I think it’s in a good enough place to impress.
Last night I took these cloud images and I thought I would include them here to suck you into reading this post.
Enjoy.
I found a series of photos that I never posted from our trip. Most of these were taken near or at the Gaige the place we stayed while in Napa Valley.
Enjoy.
Le Café Wittypoots 
