Off to Italy…

Julie and I are off to Italy today…We’ll be there at the Florence Fitenss Festival and then heading to Tuscany and Rome.

I am super stoked and ready to share some awesome photos with you. I’ll be posting them here as long as my internet connection is up to par

For now, here is a shot from Jodi Tripp that I love.

Chase Jarvis…

So one of my fellow photographers has launched a kick new site. Chase Jarvis, Commercial and Advertorial photographer from Seattle, has re-launched his site with LiveBooks.

Why is this of note? Not to get all corny and such, but Chase is a great photographer and has is creating some awesome Advertising, Lifestyle, and Commercial work. He’s been the recipient of both the Hasseblad and Nikon Masters awards. I admire him for his not only his work in itself, but his commitment to giving back to the photographic community. Chase has a long running Blog that is well worth the read….not to mention quite a few videos that give a peek into the “business” of photography. Check it out at his new site.

Props to you Chase, loving your new online digs!

Rick

Chase Jarvis Website

2008 FLEX Magazine Swimsuit Issue

I’ve got a bit of news that I’d share with you about my wife Julie. For those of you who don’t know already, Julie is a fitness model and is in this months FLEX Magazine Swimsuit Issue. It featured 8 of the industries top fitness and figure models.

Julie posted a sneak peek of the cover and will be sharing several of her shots very soon….

Exerpt from her blog at http://www.julielohre.blogspot.com/

Well, I didn’t think I’d get a chance to see it before we take off for Italy and the Florence Fitness Festival, but I found a FLEX magazine swimsuit issue in the local Target. I was shopping for all of my last minute supplies for the trip when I decided to see whether they happen to have any early copies. To my luck here’s what I found. Will share some more after I’ve gotten a chance to soak it all in..

Pinhole cameras and Digital SLR’s

So a buddy of mine, Art Neergaard, has been messing around with Pinhole cameras for some time now. While I’m a big gadget freak, the whole pinhole camera idea has not had much appeal since I went digital (slight ADD aversions I guess!). Messing with film and having to wait to see the results have kept me from messing with stuff like this.

That said he recently has been playing with the idea and his Nikon D50 and came up with a really unique lens the other day. Working for P&G for almost 11 years now, I thought this one was worthy of the blog! I’ll have him send me some images that he captures and post them here for you to see. I’m figuring that once he “pops the first image, he just won’t stop” (Insert Pringles Jingle here).

Pinhole with instantaneous viewable results are pretty cool in and of the idea itself, but the lens is pretty neat looking and definitely eye catching. Imagine the looks this would get on the street! LOL

Rock on Art!

Brand and Image….

With all the changes going on with my photography and moving into the new studio, I thought it would be a great opportunity to “refresh” my brand and web image with a redesign.

I employed the services of a true Design Diva - Janet at Eye-Candy-Design to help refresh my online and print branding.

Janet is unbelievable. From our first meeting, I had a good feeling she was going to nail it. I had some rough visions and ideas and even kicked around the idea of trying to get away with doing it myself…LOL - NOT! As we talked about the new direction we kicked around a few ideas but never really aligned on a firm direction. I liked some of the ideas she had and trusted her and gave her a large amount of freedom to work. Upon completeion, Janet sent me “Comp A” in an e-mail and said, “…let me know what you don’t like about it or changes that need to be made with fonts, color, style, positioning, etc….”

I opened the file and my jaw about dropped!

When you’ve given someone complete creative reign and let the bird out of your hands to say, you wonder if it will fly in the direction you thought it would, or if it’s going to take another route.

Well, I loved it! Not completely unexpected, but a little surprising that I would not suggest ANY major changes after reviewing the design! I am pretty hard to please and very picky visually. If an image isn’t “just so” it doesn’t fly.

While I had visions of what I thought it would look like, and it wasn’t at all what she presented. She nailed my personality even better than I could have imagined, she stepped back and took a look at what she saw as my image/brand and put it to ink (or Pixels actually).

Sometimes that’s what we as photographers have to do. In the words of Brooks Jensen (Lens Work Publishing). “A photographer’s job is not only to take a picture of the subject and what it is, but what else it is. ” Seeing a subject is more than just seeing the light, the shadows, the contrast, the composition, but seeing what else the subject “is”, what it represents, what it makes you feel. This goes for photographers, writers and any other creatives.

Through the photographic process, capturing what else something “is”, sometimes eludes photographers. Many of us are techy geeks who are paying so much attention to the technical aspect of the capture, that we look past what you are actually setting out to do…capture a story, create a feeling or communicate with the viewer on a deeper level than just the subject.

The designs below are much the same. While simple, the image and feel that they convey is bold, vivid and technical. My personality and photography fit well with that.

Let me know what you think, about the post, about the design…or anything for that matter.