Fireworks and the Fourth

This Fourth of July we spent at Auditorium Shores in downtown Austin. It was our son Christian's first; he was fast asleep midway through the show. I am not particularly patriotic but this year is different. My mind wandered to the soldiers deployed. One soldier, my brother, is in Afghanistan this Fourth and God willing he will home for the next one.

My Sweet Sweet Baby

I recently photographed my little baby in the studio. Here he is crawling as fast as he can. He was much more interested in the backdrop than letting me get a good shot of his face.

E=MC2

I'm working on a piece about the "grid." The grid refers to the network of public utilities that urban dwellings connect to. The experiment in off the grid living is a way of life that encompasses green building techniques, organic gardening, and sustainability. Nationwide the phenomenon of off grid is growing. Entire websites and blogs are dedicated to forming online communities and information resources for those who are aiming to live off grid. One of them is Off Grid.net This website is dedicated to the transition of energy from cheap fossil fuels to harnessing the power the sun, wind and water at a hyper local level, your rooftop.

This project is enlightening. It asks the fundamental question, to what extent will our nation survive without cheap energy. The U.S. is entering a time of change, a period some refer to as 'peak oil'. This idea of peak oil in says that we as a nation and a planet have reached our maximum output of fossil fuels and that from now on we are running out of things like coal and petroleum.

As you may have learned in grade school coal and petroleum are the product of organic materials compressed under layers and layers of sediment and naturally converted into fossil fuels. That process takes hundreds of years. Our planet's energy needs cannot sustain itself on fossil fuels for much longer.

Thousands of people world wide are now living sustainable lifestyles with minimal energy consumption by going off grid. Some are using solar power to keep their homes cool and t.v.'s on while others are using wind power to do keep the E=MC2 flowing through their wires.

One part of this project that I never considered until more recently was the fact that our wastewater and wastewater processing is responsible for consuming huge amounts of energy. An answer to this is composting toilets. A composting toilet is an environmentally conscientious answer to the grid wastewater.

What is Multimedia?

Do a Google search for the term multimedia and you will get thousands of results that don't give a clear definition. What is multimedia anyway? Is it a Flash gallery on a website, SoundSlides? Animation, sound, and text in a combined slide show? Video on the internet? A gallery of photographs that are navigable? Is it all of these?

Multimedia is many things. It is multifaceted, multifunctional, multicultural, multifarious, multinational, multidimensional, multidisciplinary, multilingual, multipurpose, multiplayer.

As a photojournalist today potential employers want candidates to possess skills in producing audio visual slideshows, short video clips in Final Cut Pro, and flash presentations. The National Press Photographers Association offers a Multimedia Immersion Workshop May 18-22 in Syracuse, NY.

Like learning a new language photographers learning Multimedia must be immersed into it. In today's competitive job market it is sink or swim. For students like me it's great to have a resource like the website www.MultimediaStandards.org

Progression of the Angel

Street performing, also known as busking, is a centuries old profession likened to the work of troubadours. Performers range from mimes, to clowns, balloon men to fire-breathers, sword swallowers to contortionists, the list goes on.

This tableau vivant has a rich tradition in places like on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado and at Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.

One such street performer, Gabbie Burns, is a living statue of an Angel.

A Photo a Day

As a member of the UTNPPA we took part in a project called A Photo A Day. It's not a new concept to be shooting a picture a day, but these pictures are different. They are more personal and meant to expand personal vision.

There is a group that started in Florida called APAD. I learned of the them when I was working as a photojournalists for the Daytona Beach News Journal. A lot of times there are images we were unable to publish in the newspaper for whatever reason so we published them online at APAD.

We decided to do a photo a day to inspire us to look at the world around us and to be shooting every day. The first week I started out with my M6 shooting black and white. Then I moved over to my Canon digital for the second half.

Social Documentarian Photographers: A brief history

John Thomson, of London, (1837-1921) is credited with taking the first photographs as social documentation. He was one of the first documentary photographers in London to create images of the poor and destitute. His images can be found in the Victoria & Albert Musuem. His work is also featured at the Wellcome Museum. Thomson spent a decade photographing the Far East from 1862-1872.

A Manchu bride. Photograph by John Thomson, Peking, 1871/1872.

Woodburytype, by John Thomson.

Jacob Riis, another social documentarian, arrived in the United States in 1870 from Denmark. He was a writer for the New York Tribune and the Evening Sun and began photographing New York City's tenements starting his work as a reformer. His book “How the Other Half Lives,” 1890, exposed the squalid living conditions of immigrants in New York City's Lower East Side.

Bandits Roost, 1888, Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c. 1889

Lewis W. Hine (1874-1940), an American sociologist, worked as a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. Hine was a reformer with aims to end child labor. In 1907 he began working with the National Child Labor Committee which started his long and determined life as a reformer. Many of his works can be found at the Library of Congress.

Peace, an Ellis Island Madonna, 1905 Lewis Hine Black and white photographic print, 11.0"x9.0" Archives of American Art Elizabeth McCausland Papers, 1877-1960 Image No. AAA_mccaeliz_12579