Back Again & Let the Grads Begin

[Delyed post from May 2, 2014]

Things are almost back to something you might call normal after a herniated disc in my neck sidelined me for a while. Today my first grad of the spring season with Village Photographers. (OK, actually I shot Life University back in March, but that's more of a pre-season grad.) It's good to be able to get back into photography work.

It was Faulkner University's graduation day today. I've shot Faulkner a number of times, and they're great people to work with. This was the first time--at least in recent history--that they'd held an outdoor ceremony. I had previously taken pics at ceremonies in their old gym and at the Renaissance Hotel and Conference Center. I missed the air conditioning and consistent lighting, but the scenery was much improved.

There were a little less than 400 graduates receiving various degrees today. That's a pretty big graduation for us. I could tell afterward that I'm still out of shape. It could have been bigger, but I guess some people just don't value participating in such ceremonies. 

It surely wasn't the weather that kept anyone away today. It topped out around 71 degrees, which is great compared to the 80-95 degree range of most outdoor commencement ceremonies. We could have had some better cloud coverage, though. We set up with no clouds and eventually God graced us with a thin but consistent cloud layer that held for most of the pageantry. It started to break up about halfway into the graduates crossing the stage. I was adjusting my aperture as often as every two or three graduates. 

 

We had no major issues; things went smoothly from start to finish. The only hang-up was getting out the parking lot. I was out in under 15 minutes because I had to park far from the stadium. The rest of the crew who parked close to unload and load equipment were unable to even start out of their parking lot for around an hour.

I'm looking forward to the, I think, 15 ceremonies I'm on this season. Did I mention how nice it is to be close to normal again? Eventually I'll get around to posting the results from my first official wedding photography gig. That was last weekend, but I'm still going through the pictures. You may also see a photographer's guide to having a great grad picture taken when you get your diploma. It's amazing how consistently people mess up their own picture.

That's it for now. Stay peaceful!

Montgomery Dragon Boat Race and Festival

The Montgomery Dragon Boat Race and Festival was August 24, 2013, and I was happy to be on the scene shooting all sorts of pics with Village Photographers as the official event photographers for the entire festival encompassing--I'm guessing--a couple thousand people. I know I shot around 2,000 pictures. You can find those pics in the mix with other photographers' pics through the Village Photographers website. I started the day by the stage and in the Athlete's Village and moved to the marshaling area after lunch. (Thanks for the tasty vittles, Dreamland BBQ!)

Here are some pics I took on my iPhone 3GS just to document the day and catch some cool moments:


Beginning of the day:

Overlooking the Athlete's Village, Stage, and River: 

Big Al pitching a fit after the Oar Eagles won the Battle for the Iron Paddle (War Eagle!):

Overlooking the Riverfront and Marshaling Area from the Harriet II:

On the Harriet II (Happy for some cloud cover!):

 End of the day bad duck-face selfie:

 Dramatic lighting on the Riverfront sign:

Cool old advertisement for Wrigley's Spearmint Gum:

Troy University Sorority Bid Day Kappa Delta Group Pics

August 10 was sorority Bid Day at the main campus of Troy University in Troy, AL; and I was happy to be on the scene shooting with Village Photographers. Bid Day shoots involve both candid and group photographers. Early in my days with Village, I shot the candids. I graduated to shooting the groups a few years ago. Thankfully we had enough photogs on the scene that I didn't have to pull double duty. Also thankfully it was a beautiful day and easily ten degrees cooler than last year.

Below are some shots I took on my iPhone 3GS during some down time. Again, these are random iPhone pics I took to document the day, they are NOT pictures taken for Village Photographers on a professional camera.

Grad Season in the Rearview and Ahead

From late April to early June, I was in varying degrees of grad season mode. I shot 22 ceremonies with Village Photographers during that time. For 9 of those ceremonies I got the wonderful pleasure of NOT being the lead photographer. (That's a pleasure as a veteran photographer because you get the opportunity to shoot public relations photos and have fewer things to worry about other than your pictures.) I took pictures of Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, President of the Alabama Public Service Commission Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, and many other less notable notables. I lived most of May fueled by coffee, fast food, and Emergen-C. I suffered through a pretty intense sinus infection during a week of back to back grads. And, most significantly, I made a heap of money. :P 

Before grad season got into full swing, Village sent me to Clayton State University to shoot two days of cap and gown portraits at their Grad Finale in the Loch Shop campus bookstore. Here's a little sample of what that was like (as I played around with the driver mode on my multipurpose, waterproof, point-and-shoot Pentax Optio W60).

The first grad of the season for me was Jacksonville State University. Jax State has an outdoor ceremony, and we couldn't have asked for better weather this year. I got to shoot PRs on this one, and I got to shoot them with a 55-300mm lens attached to a Nikon D90 (D90s are standard equipment for Village events, but glass like that is not). It was sweet, and I got some of the best PRs I've ever taken. Here's a sampling I was emailed by the photo manager with congrats.

In fact, I was so in the groove of shooting graduation ceremonies that I took my camera and shutter-bugged it up when I went to see a number of my youth group kids graduate 8th grade at Southside Middle School and from Tallassee High School. Results from those two events would have been better if I had been able to borrow some Village equipment, but they're kinda funny about loaning stuff out during the busiest part of grad season--go fig. The Tallassee High School principal, Coach Battles, even kicked me off the field shortly after taking the picture second picture below. That's what I get for being unofficial. I hope the one official guy they had got a good one of everyone, but I couldn't help but think, "Who shoots a graduation solo? No second or third shot, really? These kids have no options!"

Check my facebook page for more on those Tallassee City Schools ceremonies.

Whew! Glad to get this posted finally. In the next few days I should be getting the schedule for summer graduations...happy, happy, happy to work.

Ian's Cap and Gown Portraits

When I'm not being a photographer, which is most of the time, I'm a youth pastor. As a fundraiser a while back, we auctioned off many of our youth as slave labor. I auctioned myself off too as a good model of expecting no more from others than I am willing to give.

I went for $60, and my task was to take some cap and gown portraits of the (follow me here) boyfriend of the oldest daughter of a lady in our church.

After shooting two graduation ceremonies for Village Photographers that day, I met up with Tallassee High School class of 2013 graduate Ian et al for the pics below. These are my ten favorite, but we got over 20 really good photos at two locations in just over an hour.We started at the Patterson Log Cabin, the oldest home in Tallassee, AL. Our second location was below Thurlow Dam, also in Tallassee.

I shot using my Nikon D70 and SunPak 522 (or just natural light in some shots).

 

It was a great experience, and I'm glad my photography skills were able to bring in some funds for the ongoing ministry of our youth group. I'm also thrilled to finally get these posted here.

Fall Photo Wander Number 1

Tallassee Trade Day is coming up, and I'm intending on having some better fall pictures to display and hopefully sell some prints. I'm also trying to get some quality, commercially viable shots to submit to stock photography companies. My last attempts at getting accepted to sell stock photos through two companies were rejected, which is not surprising; no one gets accepted their first time out.

My camera and I took a little photo wander the other day to fill these needs. Below are the results.

Yates Lake Trip from August 2012

Back in late August, my in-laws rented a house on Yates Lake just on the other side of Tallassee, AL. Here are some pics I took while we were there. All of the portraits were taken with either natural light only or with a little bit of flash just to fill in the shadows. These were taken with my Nikon D70, which does a great job at outdoor pics.

First, we have some shots of the cutest kid EVER, Peter.

Next we have a shot of Paw-Paw through the back windows of the house and high school senior cousin Rachel on the back porch.

And the last thing I have for you are some lake scenery shots. It's fine by me if you right-click and use the pics below as desktop backgrounds, just so long as it doesn't keep you from getting anything done by making you daydream about being outside at the lake.