B&W underground

This afternoon Linda and I attended the wedding and reception of a close friends daughter. When I saw that the wedding photographer was not shooting anything other than the standard staged shots at the reception I went out to the car and got my camera.

Since this is not something I was planning on shooting I just used the pop-up flash on the camera and shot the best I could. When I started shooting my friend Clark, the father of the bride, immediately said, “I don’t want to see these on the Internet tomorrow,” that was all it took.

The first shot is Clark during a dance warning me in his best school teacher voice about seeing his picture on the Internet.

The next shot is from the one thing that has sent more wedding photographers to mental institutions than anything else, the Chicken Dance.

Last, grandpa Clark discovers a dirty.

Help me make Clark famous, grab the Chicken dance picture and email it to a friend and ask them to send it on their friends and on and on. Let’s make this the hottest thing on the Web.

cort

no music, just bad late night tv

Something different for the people that are into soft & fuzzy and warm & cuddly.

Here are a couple of shots of the latest additions to our family, Callie and George. The plan was just to get Callie but when I saw George and my wife Linda asked if we could take both I broke down and said yes. They have learned that my legs make great climbing poles and when I am in the house working they like to try and help.

Callie

George

I believe this fulfills my warm and fuzzy obligations for the next several months, maybe longer, they are kittens after all.

cort

no music this afternoon, just leg climbing kittens

Photographs like this don’t happen in studios or exotic locales, they happen in bars in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and on back roads in Kansas. You can’t create them, you can’t even really look for them, you have to go out with open eyes and let them find you.

Although I was shooting something else, I got this shot because I was paying attention to what was going on around me, I had my eyes open. Not only to notice her but to see a spot where the light was better to shoot her.

One of the hardest things for me is approaching people I don’t know and asking if I can shoot them. This was easier because she knew the people I was with and I had a couple of bottles of liquid courage earlier.

It still took me some time to get up the nerve to ask her. It was not until I had thought about it for twenty minutes while making a mad dash back to my friends house to get the camera battery I had left on the charger that I finally did it.

When I got back the band was on break and I introduced myself and asked if I could photograph her. When she said yes I started worrying about how I was going to explain that I didn’t want to include her face in the shot. As we were walking over to the area where I wanted to shoot, she said she didn’t want her face in the shot and I was relieved.

I got her positioned in the light and with her arms crossed the right way to show off the tattoos and snapped 4-5 frames. I showed her what I had shot on the camera LCD so she could see I didn’t include her face. From the time I asked until we were done was less than five minutes and I had a great shot.

cort

tonight’s music, joe bonamassa