The Definition of an Artist

The last couple of weeks have been filled with travel, New York, Boston and Cincinatti. Unfortunatly, I have not really taken all that many pictures  along the way. So, in an effort to change that, on this most recent to Chicago I have managed to snap off a few.

Maribel has been meeting up at night with some old school friends that she has reconnected with via Facebook. In fact that reminds me, I need to blog about FaceBook sometime. Anyway, one of Maribels friends, Kirsten, offered to give her a haircut at her salon in Geneva, IL. The salon, Ginger Root, is a very cool place. Lots of light, plenty of chairs and a great looking staff.

Anyway, while Maribel was getting her hair done, I figured I might as well document it. In doing so, I was watching Kirsten as she interacted with Maribel. At first, I kind of thought she was running her fingers through her hair while they chatted as a way of keeping busy. Then I realized that she wasn't making small talk after all. Some of the question she was asking, which seemed at first like questions directed to someone to play catch up , where actually specific enough to find out who Maribel is as a person. I'm fully convinced Kirsten was "getting to know" Maribel in an effort to envision a style that would "fit" her personality.

 

In the end, the result was fantastic. I never thought watching someone get their hair done could be so much fun. I guess it may not have been had I been just standing around twidling my thumbs. Having a camera in hand and taking a shot all along the way really made for a wonderful experience. In the end, I feel I ended up with just a few more pretty good pictures to add to FaceBook. :)

Any Place, Any Time

Back when I first fell in love with photography I was as guilty as most everyone else in thinking that the more "stuff" you buy would end up making you a better photographer. Fortunatly, like everyone else that has half a brain, I learned that skill in NO WAY equates to more lighting, backdrops or props. In fact, I can say with a certain, the shots I've taken that are near and dear end up lacking the use of all of the above.

Case in point is the shot taken here. I took this last week in the gym for David, a friend of mine who is a Personal Trainer. David is probably one of THE most popular PT's I know. His passion for helping other become fit is as strong as mine about photographing people I know and care about.

This shot was taken in the Group Fitness room under very difficult lighting. There was no backdrop, no flash used and certainly no props. To pull this off, I only used the black-mats in the room and covered the floor with them. The lighting "effect" was done with Nik Color Efex Pro 3, a wonderful Photoshop plug-in.

Even without the Photoshop, this shot was still pretty decent. So, lesson learned, don't worry about the next purchase and focus on practice.

Spring Has Sprung

The last two weekends for me, have probably been two of the most least stressful in a while. It's not that anything external has changed, more that I was concious not to jam more than I could actually handle into two very short days.

There is one thing though that I did commit myself too. In fact, not only did I challenge myself, I challeged all my FaceBook friends with this; take more pictures. Not just snapshots, but rather pictures that reflect not only what you did over our precious weekend, but who you did it with.

So, here are a few of the shot that I took. On the right is Maribel,  and on the left is a picture of a very interesting women who worked at Urban Outfitters in Durham. We walked all through the store attempting to burn off all the calories from the sushi we had just consumed. Dam that was good!