www.swp-blog.co

I love and never plan on changing  the web address shootwithpersonality.com. However, “http://www.shootwithpersonality.com” is a mouthful! Or, a lot to type.  Now, when you enter http://swp-blog.co, you’re taken to a welcome page where you can choose to click on through to the blog or go straight to the photo galleries. Pretty sweet, huh? Anyone can still access this blog by going to shootwithpersonality.com. That hasn’t changed. But now you don’t HAVE to type all that to get here.

AND, I have a couple of other little updates to SWP!

1. I updated the “About Shoot With Personality” section just slightly.
2. I added a new page called “About the SWP blog” – just to let folks know about the content of the blog.
3. My Contact Page now includes a contact form, so you don’t have to leave SWP to send me an email. So exciting!

I think that’s enough change for now. I now return you to your regularly scheduled Shoot With Personality broadcast (er, blog…)

Even if your one shining moment is during half-time of the older kids’ basketball game in the church gym. Grab a ball and step onto the court. Sinking shots like one of the big boys. Pure determination on your face. You can fly.

NEW YEAR’S EVE 2011

Location: University of Memphis area

Things I loved about shooting little Ezra:

1. Ezra’s nursery.

The nursery was totally fab! I felt like it could have been in a magazine.

2. Ezra’s shoe collection.

So. Fly. Baby Air Jordans!

3. The rug.

There is this awesome rug in Ezra’s room, and it made a wonderful backdrop for photos we did in  his nursery.

4. All of the neat personalized items!

Like with other baby portrait sessions I’ve done, Ezra’s mom and dad had special things they wanted to have included in the photos of him. There was a wooden Curious George toy that Ezra’s grandmother bought for him, and then there were all these things with Ezra’s name and initials on them. Everything in the nursery was personalized for Mr. E!

Once we’d finished taking photos in Ezra’s nursery, we decided to pack up and head to a nearby park to do the rest of the photos.

And, as I was hoping would happen, I was able to get some casual shots of Ezra’s parents with him. What an awesome little family they are!

And not a moment too soon!

I have not been able to access my blog in a couple of months. It’s been a very frustrating journey that seemed to bring road block after road block. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, Gabe made some suggestions, those worked,  we got SO CLOSE, but no cigar! It was maddening.

But Shoot With Personality’s back, baby! There’s a wedding to talk about (not mine, guys, calm down!) and so much more.

YAAAAAAAAAY! x 1 million

As a photographer, one of my favorite things to do is drive around and come to a halt whenever something catches my eye. One day recently, I had my Canon AE-1 sitting on my passenger’s front seat, pondering what I might like to photograph with it. I got no further than my very own street, when I spotted this car sitting outside one of the houses. Of course, I stopped my car, jumped out, and snapped a few shots.

I have a great love for classic cars. I think this comes from my childhood, when our  family car was a 1954 Pontiac Star chief which my father had named “Kawliga.” Dad even had the car’s name painted on the side of the car. We attended classic car shows often, and sometimes put our car in the shows. This was a big part of the culture of my family when I was a child. So when I began doing photography, old cars were among my favorite subjects. To be cliche, I’d say “they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore.”

When you see a photo I have taken of one of these beautifully-crafted automobiles, you’ll know that I’ve photographed it for far deeper reasons than because I wanted to make an interesting photograph; I’ve photographed it because cars like that are a piece of who I am.

I’m one of those people who loves to photograph the random objects that sometimes end up in some place they’re not supposed to be. Like this book on the sidewalk across the street from my house. You know how it is. You see some “fish out of water” and wonder how it came to be there, who left it, will they come back to look for it? The sorts of questions you’ll rarely find answers to, but which open up the opportunity for you to give your imagination a little excerise.

]]> http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/2010/03/04/the-one-with-the-bashful-eyes/feed/ 0 http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/2010/02/19/the-big-one-o/ http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/2010/02/19/the-big-one-o/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:00:04 +0000 araney http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/?p=662 There are some people (including myself) who would like to plug their ears and say “lalalalala I can’t hear you” during my next statement:

This is the ten year anniversary of my first time taking photos at a show.

February 19, 2000. Bethel Presbytarian Church. Olive Branch, MS.

I was there to photograph my friends in a band called Via Crucis. The band that played before Via Crucis was The Quick and the Dead, a band with a couple of guys who are now our good friends Joel G. and one Mr. Andrew Bryant.

I have to laugh, because these pictures aren’t great at all. I had a $50 film SLR I’d acquired a few months earlier, a TERRIBLE flash which I barely knew how to operate, and ringing eardrums because I hadn’t thought to bring along earplugs that first time (yes, I definitely learned from that particular mistake.)

What a wild ride it’s been. I had no idea that by attending that first show, the course of the next several years of my life would be altered in many ways, from the friendships I wouldn’t have formed otherwise, to  the way I, as a new photographer, was being introduced to a a genre of photography that would define me for years to come. Those of you who only know Shoot With Personality since the site’s format change last year don’t know that, prior to that change, Shoot With Personality was devoted almost exclusively to live band photography. Hundreds of bands. So many years.

What most people don’t know is, I was already starting to think like a documentary photographer back then. I wasn’t there because I thought taking pictures of bands would be the cool thing to do. I was there because I thought, “You know, it might not feel significant now, but maybe in twenty years, these guys will want to look back and say ‘That’s what I was doing with my life during that era.’”

Twenty years. We’re halfway there.

(very pleased.)