Defining Moments

~~~

I attended the Pack 215 Rocket Launch in Scott Park yesterday.  Beautiful weather and the kids really had a great time.  You can see how into it some of these guys were in the pictures HERE. Fun shots…..the only thing I wished for were some BIGGER rockets…..hehehe…

~~~

Congratulations to Jacob for winning the new iPod Nano! Thanks to all the 2009 seniors who participated, and thanks to Apple for taking back the OLD iPod Nano when I found out they had just announced a newer better version. This thing’s pretty sweet…I kinda wanted to keep it.

~~~

I have been working toward a collection of fine art prints in my spare time, and hope to have several available for purchase by late fall. These will include photos and other digital art. I will be introducing two limited edition pieces this Sunday, at Paws for a Cause at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. These will be framed photographs of the Coralville Dam, commemorating the Iowa floods of 2008, and sales will benefit the Animal Center. “Before the Flood” was taken on May 26th, with the reservoir at 706 ft. “717″ was taken on June 16th, just after the water level peaked at 716.96 ft. Each print is made from archival pigment inks on acid-free velvet paper, set behind Artique Conservation Matboard and UV-resistant Conservation Clear glass. Twenty-five of each title will be printed, and will be signed, numbered, and ready to hang. The prints will be on display this Sunday at the Paws for a Cause event.

Through December 1st (or until the run is bought out), the prints will be offered at the special price of $185, with all proceeds going to Friends of the Animal Center Foundation, to be used for flood recovery of the Iowa City Animal Center. Each print is approximately 10″ x 14″, with the finished framed and matted size being approximately 17″ x 21″. Please contact me at the studio if you’d like to have one of these limited edition prints, and help the Animal Center at the same time!

~~~

This time of year I don’t get to do much photography for myself, but since I’m waiting for a new belt for the elliptical trainer, I decided to go for a walk and bring the camera along.  Mostly vegetation shots, but I did catch a lurking arachnid and an apparently foundered caterpillar:

~~~

In late June I was contacted by Bass Player Magazine to do a portrait of their featured artist for September.  The guy is Chris Wood, of Medeski, Martin, & Wood, and the group was here in Iowa City for the Jazz Fest.  To be honest, I had not heard of Chris or MMW, but then I don’t listen to a lot of jazz.  Turns out to be an unfortunate oversight on my part, because MMW’s music is incredible, and Chris rocks the bass!  I saw their performance on July 4th, and have since purchased two of their CDs.  Really, really good stuff!

Chris and his tour manager came to my studio for the portrait shoot, which took maybe 20 minutes. Very nice guy, and he made it easy and fun to get the shots.  Hopefully he thought it was a good experience, too.;) I was only supposed to get the cover, but I wanted to grab some other shots as well.  The magazine ended up also using a shot for the table of contents page, so I got two shots in the issue!  Below is the cover and the TOC page with my shots.  I just got my copies today, so they should be on the newsstands soon.

~~~

…this time without the paint!  Since I caught them by surprise the other day when they were painting, I thought it only fair to post some images we did when they were actually expecting the camera to be on them.

~~~

Julia is from Russia, and just visiting for the summer.  She came to the studio last night , and we got lots of fun stuff, including some cool motion blur experiments.  She gave me a preview of her show, too!  A really interesting mix of traditional Russian songs, what sounded like a Bossa Nova influence, and even included some Elvis.  She sings and plays beautifully, accompanied by CD music.  She mentioned that she might be peforming in the ped mall tonight, so if you’re downtown, look for her!

~~~

I love new backdrops, and I love unique, hand-painted drops that no one else has. So I often paint my own. In addition to the ones I painted last year and this summer, I have also enlisted the help of Iowa City artist Bekah Ash, and I have several new drops that were done by her. These are funky-cool, and I will post some pics as soon as I shoot on them!

And yesterday, I got Jen and Katie to help me out with some. As you can see from the pics below, they didn’t necessarily keep all the paint on the canvas!

So…….who likes hot pink?

~~~

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here!  Yesterday for the first time since the flood we got out to the fossil gorge.  A lot of amazing fossils there.  I didn’t have my macro lens with me, but I will definitely go back soon and get some cool fossil images. For now, just a quick shot of one of the kids climbing the wall of the spillway.

~~~

Recently I jumped into the world of landscape and long exposure photography, after getting some solid tips from my buddy Shawn at Prolific Photography.  I feel lucky to have this nice perspective, because the water is not often up this high (though it’s actually gone down some in the last week). With high school senior season approaching, I may not have time to do much of this kind of photography, but I am definitely hooked, so I’m sure I’ll be doing it whenever my schedule allows!