One more step

My close friend Joshua and I collaborated on a piece for the St. Petersburg Times about cobblers. He wrote the story and I took the pictures. It will be in the metro section tomorrow.

Here's a tease:

Read the article here.

I made a film

Me and my team with a dead hawk in the foreground

The last two weeks were hectic to say the least. Long days that began early and ended late were the norm for myself and the two other members of my team as we stabbed blindly into the world of documentary film making.

Our film isn't perfect but I'm very proud of it. The effort it took to make was monumental and I feel confident that I could do it again and I will. The audio levels still need to be mastered so you may need to mess with your volume as you watch it.

It was filmed in high definition using the latest and greatest cameras. It's possible to watch it that way here but the file is massive so it may take something like an hour to optimize depending on your computer and internet connection. If you want to see it in it's native form I suggest letting it load and then going and doing something else and coming back to it. Some of the shots are really worth seeing in all of their ultra defined glory so if you like me, do me a favor and watch in high def.

An interesting point for those into this kind of thing. We mixed footage from Canon XHA1S AND MY 5D Mark II. See if you can tell what's what.

A little background: This piece was filmed in Clarksdale, a small erstwhile cotton town in Mississippi where blues music was born. The place has a surprisingly high concentration of artists. My team and I wanted to explore creativity and how the artists who lived int he town found their inspiration. The idea changed and morphed into something new as the filming and editing process unfolded.

Here's what we ended up with.

Let me know what you think...

On my way

Woke up before the sun and drove myself to the airport to catch a flight to Memphis and then a car to Clarksdale for the Delta 09 workshop.

Everything went off without a hitch although I was surprised that Northwest charged me $15 to check a bag. Oh how times have changed.

Got on the flight and off we went...

the clouds looked like an ocean of cottony marshmallows...
and the pools of water below glittered when the sun caught them...

We touched down in Memphis on time. I grabbed my bags got the car and met up with Diana, one of the students in the workshop.

She's a nice woman with a lot to talk about. We had an hour drive to get to know each other and we got along just fine.

We got to the Shack Up Inn a little before noon. This place is incredible I'll post a ton of photos later. Check out the website, it's from another world.

Time to eat. So that's all for now. More later.

1976

This is amazing. At first I didn't know what I was looking at or how it was possible.



Oh the things you can find on the internet...

I discovered something wonderful...

Usually when I find a new blog I just add it to the list and check it periodically. This time it's a bit different.

I found Franke James. Shes describes herself as, "an artist, photographer and writer whose artistic mission is to do something green and document it."

She creates these wonderful visual essays about things that happen to her or things she's doing. Her past essay topics include, a dinner with a stranger, reactions after a propane plant exploded near her home, and her quest to turn her driveway into a green paradise among others.

Take a look at her site, it's inspiring.

Withdrawal

I like this photo a lot. That's Shannon James with some guy who plays football for the Philadelphia Eagles. I saw them at Dave Navarro's party over the weekend. I was there covering it for the Times. The expression on both of their faces are great. This is how the other half lives I suppose.

Anyway... I'm about to turn my laptop in for repairs. I think it's going to be gone for about a week. I'm pretty sure that I've backed up everything but I'm sort of worried that I might have forgotten something. I have a pretty serious computer addiction so these next few days should be interesting. I might have to go read a book or something (gasp).

Lots

I just finished confirming everything for the Delta 09 Barefoot Workshop. I'm going to be heading to Clarksdale Mississippi for two weeks to learn how to make documentaries. It's pretty exciting.

Film making has been a secret dream of mine for a long time but I never took it too seriously. Now I have the tools and I'm about to get the knowledge. Watch out world.

I spent the weekend playing paparazzi at various glamorous and not so glamorous Super Bowl parties around Tampa. I'm going to edit the photographs this afternoon and have them up by this evening.

It was a challenging but overall rewarding experience. I can now say for certain that I never want to be a celebrity photographer but that I respect the people who do it.

And, I saw this:
I first read about it on Slate. The review had the headline, "Jean-Claude Van Damme Made Me Cry." I couldn't believe it but after seeing it I have to say I'm convinced and that I too teared up a little.

The film paints a very human and touching portrait of Van Damme the man rather than Van Damme "the muscle from Brussles." It addresses his custody battle over his daughter, his money problems and his difficulty dealing with stardom. And yeah, he delivers a beautiful poignant monologue that just sort of ties the whole thing together. Watch it. It's completely rewarding.