photos by Damien Maloney and Morgan Bellinger
Catherine and I went to Hawai’i! We saw many great things.
Waimea botanical gardens. It was huge.
There was a roving peacock that followed Catherine for a quarter mile.
Us in the jungle. I need to smile with teeth!
This is how parking lots work in Hawai’i.
So many gr8 places 2 hide.
Catherine and Nikki (the reason we went!) in halloween decorating mode.
I wonder if halloween spiders scare normal spiders.
Nikki making faces, me in the tree.
spike tree!
Cath and Nikki just being in the jungle.
Bamboo!
There are also many film pictures to be coming, so get ready.
Haven’t posted in a while, not shooting so much lately. Here’s one from a recent French Club meeting (Le Cercle Français d’ASU) that I liked. I also faux cross processed it, which I may or may not like.
For Catherine’s birthday we rented a private karaoke room at Geisha A-Go-Go in Scottsdale, then went to Rogue for dancing. I got to play club photographer. Honestly, I think I had too much fun with the slow shutter speeds.
Reform immigration for America (RIFA) last night in Phoenix. The meeting was to get the community more involved in pushing for immigration reform by staying informed, calling their senators/representatives. They set up a service that will give you updates on any meetings/demonstrations/general info about the immigration reform movement in Phoenix. One of the speakers got out his phone and asked everyone to text ‘unidos’ or ‘united’ to 68966 to sign up for the service. That was then followed by about five minutes of everyone using their cell phones to do this.
The organizers urged everyone to figure out what district they were in, and to call their representatives to support Illinois representative Luis Gutierrez’s recent introduction of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. This girl found her district on a large map of Phoenix divided into congressional districts.
When we left, there were drums and dancing. I was a bad journalist, I didn’t ask any questions.
I’m getting people together to meet with Representative Harry Mitchell’s district manager at 4pm today at Camelback and Scottsdale Road to discuss where Mitchell stands on immigration reform. We need as many people as possible, if you can come, give me a call.
Last Friday I spent some time at the Greyhound Park. After over 50 years in business, the facility is closing. One of the management told me that the power bill alone for the place is $35,000 a month, and that they lease the land from the airport for something near 1.2 million. I’d never been there before, despite it being in the middle of Phoenix. It is a huge place, and the people I met really caught me off guard. I left knowing I hadn’t taken any good pictures, but after looking at them again I feel some of them are interesting. I’m going back this Friday because they give tours to those interested in the adopt-a-greyhound program. I’m going to spend several more nights out there before December and see if I can get a comprehensive story of the place.
Ansel Styles Jr. announces the results for Friday night’s races that can be heard through speakers throughout the park.
Donald ‘Sandy’ Hamilton and his adopted greyhound, Lou descend the main stairs. Due to health complications, Lou never raced, but he often parades the clubhouse taking donations for the Adopt-A-Greyhound nonprofit.
So State Press was doing a profile on distance runner Brandon Bethke. When can we come by to get a photo? 7am Monday. I’m up for that challenge, the light at 7am is brilliant, how could I not figure out something good? Brandon was supposed to meet me between 7am and 7:15. I got there around 6:50 and asked some of the other guys practicing if they wanted to stand in. They were surprisingly enthusiastic and I spent around 20 minutes getting pictures of them so I knew what would work with Bethke.
I set my flash up on a stand on the track, zoomed to 105, full power. It is just out of the frame camera left, eye-level with the runners. I’m using Canon’s built-in infrared system (does this have a real name? Nikon has CLS…), so making sure the camera’s flash and the flash on the stand see each other can sometimes be tricky. Especially in direct sunlight. And with my flash recycling at full power, it made for a disproportionate ratio of shots where my flash wasn’t going off. That was okay with me and I made sure everyone knew that it was going to take a few tries to get something that worked.
Here’s my favorite test shot with Nectaly at approximately 7:08am.
My flash didn’t go off, but the natural light is perfect, the palm trees throwing shadows into the foreground, the subject partially backlit, just a touch of flare, and I like where I caught his stride, as if he’s just floating around the bend. This is what I was going for, only having my flash going off too.
Nectaly left and another guy stood in for a while, and by that time my subject was there. I told him what I was going for and he was excited to make it work. I had him run back and forth a few times, trying to get everything just right.
My camera was acting like it was on a tripod, because I wanted the picture framed a certain way, but also because I was working with a flash that had to be positioned just right to go off. But I didn’t have a tripod (wish I did) and instead had him stand at a point on the track while I prefocused, then marked it with a ticket stub (barely visible left of his lead foot on the line) so he would know where his stride should sync with the picture. Then I tried not to move as much as possible, asked him to go, and tried to hit it. This was done at f/2.2. It isn’t easy to get this right with such a shallow depth of field, but at the time I felt like that is what I had to work with because of the power of my flash (maybe someone will look at my EXIF and correct me).
So here’s the picture of the guy I needed, at approximately 7:25am, you will notice how much the natural light changed during this time. The picture is OK, but it would have been A LOT better with the sun at a lower angle like it was 15 minutes prior.
So I guess what I learned most is if you’re going to be shooting outside, take a second and see what your main light’s schedule will be like. As in, look up when the sun will rise/set and plan on working within 45 minutes of that.
Also, now that I look at this, it seems like a really boring approach to a track portrait and I should get more creative next time.
I’m trying to start a few longer-term photo projects. I really think the light that comes from the window in my bedroom is extraordinary, so I’m doing portraits of people in front of that window. I only have three so far, but I like where it is going.
