Tag Archives: Seattle

Webley, Palmer and Gaiman (aka Favorite Photo of 2011)

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Throughout any given year I shoot thousands of photos, so when I was recently asked which one was my personal favorite of 2011, I had a difficult time answering. However, when thinking about it over a couple of days, the one above kept jumping out at me.

On 11-11-11 I documented Jason Webley‘s concert at The Moore in Seattle. That was where I caught this moment in time. Webley is talking about the virtues of love, while Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer sit together behind him, listening.

There is a love story there, and it starts with a look of genuine happiness on Jason Webley’s face, as he looks up into the light, sharing his joy with (and for) the audience. Amanda Palmer represents that audience to me, relaxed, attentive and having a good time, and Neil Gaiman ties the story together, looking down at his wife with complete adoration and a smile that says simply: “I Love You.”

There is enough intimacy in this photo, that I felt a little like a peeping tom as I put it through post processing, like I was crashing a private party. I actually had to remind myself that it was taken at a public event. That is why this is my favorite photo of 2011. It makes me feel like giving my wife a kiss, putting on some good music and take pleasure in the little things in life.

Click on the photo above to view a larger version.

My First HDDSLR Production

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At the start of this month I put out the first “real” video shot with my new HDDSLR setup. Real, as in something more than a casual dabble. It was shot over two days, with no script or real story at first – only a want to document and celebrate my wife’s work, and try the new gear. Every month, Kelly Cline designs a new recipe for Blue Moon Burgers to use as their Burger of the Month. I like burgers, so this is already a great deal for me, but it got even sweeter when they let me film her working on the Bomb-Mi Burger, featured throughout the month of June.

About half-way through the first day, I realized focus was going to be on Kelly herself and her powerful presence in the kitchen and restaurant. She develops the recipe at home and only comes in to teach it, tweak it and let the others taste it. This forces her to take control when she comes in, and when she does that her passion for food really shines. Also, here was a rare opportunity to show her recipe development alongside her work as a photographer.

Secondary, and this was really cemented during the second day of filming, there was a pattern of reactions I noticed. Everyone who tasted it reacted with either an “Oh, wow!” or an “Oh, yeah!”. I thought that was funny and not a bad way to convey the flavor through video. So I emphasized this in editing.

Finally, the owner Charlie Olson is a bit of a goofball (I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying that, either), always good for a silly remark or a dirty joke. So I picked 3 short clips of him being silly, and put those in there as well.

Part of this test was to see how much goes into even a small production like this. I definitely see producing promotional videos for busines as a potential market, but it comes down to quality vs. price. I wanted to see how good I can make it without an assistant or budget, how long the editing would take and so on. This particular video ended up taking about 12 hours to make. Basic pre-production, like a shot list and a loose script would have probably added another couple of hours and would have streamlined the final result some.

I am working on the pre-production of a second video featuring a local business right now, as a second practice run. This time, I am going a little slower and paying more attention to detail, to see how much time that adds. Learning by doing, while hopefully building a useful portfolio.

Free Headshots in Hindsight

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The headshot event was a success. That’s the most important thing, I have to say about it, so I’ll say it first. In one day, I happily serviced about 50 people, taking their portrait, so they could use it on LinkedIn, Facebook, with their acting agent or where ever a headshot might come in handy. It took me a while to write this final post about it, simply because I wanted to finish it first. Which I have. All the photos have been retouched and e-mailed out to the participants.

I originally offered 100 free headshots and later raised that number to 120, but I was happy to see that on the day of, there were no enormous lines, no chaos and thus, no catastrophes. Instead, there was a small initial rush of people who had been waiting around, followed by a slow trickle. Much more along the lines of Continue reading →