Photo of the Year

Seeing how I did a Photo of the Week challenge, I'd feel remiss if I didn't select a Photo of the Year. While it's not my absolute favorite picture that I've taken this year, it is the picture that has had the most impact on my life in 2012.

This is a screenshot from my Light Room library, the program I use to process my photos. There was a massive increase in the number of pictures I shot this year, almost 11,000 more. I think that the photo challenge forced me to take more pictures, but I also covered quite a bit more. I've taken huge steps to streamline my workflow, which was an unintentional side effect of shooting so many concerts. It used to take me a month to sort through and process wedding photos around my day job and I've cut that time in half. I've improved my post processing and color correction skills to the point where no matter how bad the lighting is, I know I can work around it.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I've chosen a photo from a concert as my photo of the year, more specifically, a photo of Gotye. I certainly took a lot of pictures of Wally this year.

This shot is from March and was taken at the House of Blues in Boston. I went into this concert determined to get some cool shots to send along to the band. I hoped that a band would appreciate my work and in turn give me a chance to photograph them with my DSLR. The end result has been more than I ever could have dreamed.

That one picture, the generosity of the man in it and the guts to ask granted me access to photograph Gotye twice more this year. I have gained so many new friends and followers as a result of this photo; it still blows my mind that people care about what I have to say. It gave me the opportunity to do what I love to do and shoot the way I like to shoot. Even though they are musicians on a stage, I focus on the interactions and the moments of passion and intensity. That's the same way I shoot sports, weddings, portraits, you name it.

I might not be taking a traditional path in life. I'm probably not going about this the right way to become a concert photographer. I'm definitely figuring things out as I go, but the biggest thing I've learned this year is that you have to work for what you want. You have to take chances again and again. Be prepared for them to say no, I've been told that and completely ignored plenty, but don't let it get you down. Keep asking. Keep learning. Be prepared for anything and everything because you never know when your moment will come. Never, ever give up.

For me, it's not just the fact that I photographed Gotye; it's the effect those concerts had on me. I covered four different bands before the September Gotye concerts in order to be prepared. I covered three more after because I realized that I'm pretty good at what I do. One of those shoots took a lot of leg work on my part and I'm proud that I didn't give up. I'm not as petrified to reach out to an artist or their management. If I want something bad enough, I can and will do whatever it takes. I'm ready to branch out and find a publication that will allow me to do what I love. Or maybe I can continue to do my own thing. Who knows?

Photography is my way of documenting the world around me and telling the story of others. I am so fortunate that at least one person gets that. "You captured so many brilliant moments from throughout our show, and from each of us individually. Also those moments shared between two or three of us at various points in the show- they instantly take me back to different moments on tour. Thank you again, and know that you'll always be welcome to photograph any Gotye shows, anywhere."

 Who would've thought I could accomplish so much from one little photo?

Photo of the Week: Week 52

Christmas Lights

Photo of the Week: Week 51

These are the May family Christmas cookies, aka the best holiday treat in the entire world. Every year, my brothers and I get together just before Christmas and make up 3-4 batches of dough, from scratch of course, then bring them to our family gatherings.

Photo of the Week: Week 50

Photo of the Week: Week 49

Just a little Christmas self portrait this week, short and sweet.

Photo of the Week: Week 48

The Meagher Family (pronounced Mar)

For the past four years, I've taken the Meagher Family Portraits, and it's always the largest group shot of the year. It's been amazing to watch the kids grow and to share so many fun experiences with a great family! Although I'd finally convinced Papa Meagher to do an outdoor shoot this year, we couldn't fit it in our schedules until it was far too cold outside. Next year everyone!

Photo of the Week: Week 47

This is by no means a great picture composition wise. It was shot at high noon, the worst time of day to take pictures. I've got a dark haired, dark eyed girl and little miss crazy curls with her pale skin and super blonde hair. Technically speaking, the photo sucks, yet I'm still picking it for my photo of the week. (And I'm picking it over the really freakin' cool picture I took of the vampire bats!) What's great to me about this photograph is that this is the moment where Mia and Grace became friends.

They were born a few weeks apart and have just celebrated their second birthdays. Mia is the daughter of my friends and Grace is my niece. They met for the first time last month when we went pumpkin picking and they did not hit it off. At the beginning of the zoo trip, they once again ignored each other, but I think they bonded over their chasing of the free range peacocks. When you get a pair of two year old's to sit still for a half a second, you don't think about lighting or composition; you just want to take that picture before one of them runs off.

Photo of the Week: Week 46

I just got back from the wedding I shot in Old Town Alexandra, Virgina. I'm still downloading all the images I shot from the weekend. I don't have a tally on how many pictures I shot yet; let's just say a lot. The bride and groom wanted some night shots outside Hotel Monaco where the entire day was held. I set a long exposure, told the bride and groom to hold their pose and told the nice people who were waiting for me to take the shot to walk on through. I got a few looks, like won't this ruin your shot? Nope! They made it exactly what I was looking for!

Photo of the Week: Week 45

The weeks where I don't have an official shoot make this photo challenge, well, more of a challenge. I decided to do something I haven't done since the first few weeks of the year: wander with some music and my camera. Today's soundtrack was the new Punch Brothers EP, Ahoy. I went down to the beach for the first time since the hurricane to see what was left of the boardwalk. Large chunks of it have been destroyed and washed away, yet nature is coming back.

I planned on finding some water fowl to photograph when I happened upon these deer on the marsh. I only brought one lens with me, my 35-350mm. I call this lens The Beast: it weighs pretty close to a ton. Instead of the normal twist to zoom, this lens slides. While it is my largest telephoto, it's my least favorite lens. It's actually been out of my camera bag for at least 6 years. The problem with it used to be the focus. I remember bringing it to a daytime football game and I seriously considered smashing it because it couldn't find focus. When fully zoomed out, it would slowly move through all its focus points and fail to lock on to anything, so you would have to zoom back out and try again. I attached it to my new 5D Mark III and it performs better than I could have hoped for. It didn't miss a single shot. Now I'm not going to start bringing The Beast around with me on most of my shoots. It's still miserable in low light settings and quite frankly, I don't want to carry around all that extra weight, but for bright sun nature kinda stuff, I'm going to turn to this.

Interested in seeing what The Beast looks like?

Photo of the Week: Week 44

I just got home and immediately uploaded the pictures I took from this morning. Everyone, say hi to Benjamin. I love the hint of a smile in this shot while he's playing peek-a-boo with me. I'll be posting a full set of pictures of this adorable little guy during the week. For now, this should fill your Awwww! quota of the day.

Photo of the Week: Week 43

Father Daughter Dance

Shot on PX100 Silver Shade with an SX-70 camera, wheel set to 1/3 dark, flashbar used

I'm trying to pack and prep for the hurricane and process a few pictures from my weekend so I can set up posts for next week. Yesterday I attended a wedding as a guest, but brought along my camera to take some candid shots. I also had my Polaroid with me, which got plenty of cheers and chuckles from the other guests that saw it.

Congratulations Teresa and Steve and the entire Welz family!

Photo of the Week: Week 42

If you have a chance, head down to the NY Botanical Gardens in the Bronx in the next few days. Artists are carving pumpkins today and they are making an incredible Zombie sculpture. I only wish I could have seen the completed project.

Photo of the Week: Week 41

It's one of those weeks where I can't actually show you what I've shot. When I photograph for the newspaper, I have to let them run the pictures first. The problem is that I work for a group of weekly newspapers, and it takes a little bit longer for features to get written. While I don't like holding onto pictures, it was this connection that finally got me access to photograph something I've been waiting 13 years to shoot, and I have to respect that.

But if you look closely, you just might be able to make out what's in the picture...

I'll make sure to direct you to the proper websites to be able to see my photographs and read the story once it's all done.

Photo of the Week: Week 40

Fall is my favorite time of the year, and this weekend was absolutely beautiful. I had a chance to go pumpkin picking with Grace, James and Mia at Jones Tree Farm on Saturday. The day job is looking for some new classified banner photos, so I spent a lot of time taking detail shots. While this picture won't fit the newspaper layout, it was my favorite.

I have a handful more pictures from this, as well as my sets of Gotye pictures from Williamsburg Park. I made a sizable dent in processing those and will most likely split it into two posts because there are so many images. I'll do my best to share all this with you during the week. Make sure you come back and check it all out!

Photo of the Week: Week 39

This week, I'm featuring one of my first successful Impossible shots! This is a Polaroid picture of Wally De Backer, aka Gotye, taken with my newly resurrected SX-70 foldable Polaroid camera. It was shot on PX100 silver shade film with a flashbar I'm pretty sure is older than I am, exposure wheel set to 2/3rds dark.

Not only was I fortunate enough to have been given a photo pass from Wally, I was also able to meet the band after the concert. He gave me one of his best amused, raised eyebrow smiles. The flashbar is pretty intense; sorry about that, Wally!

Before the concert, I went to the Impossible Project Space in New York and spent a good half hour discussing my previous results and getting advice from one of the sales associates, Abigail. I can't thank her enough for all of the tricks and tips she taught me. After the quick lesson, I took my first two properly exposed Impossible pictures.

Photo of the Week: Week 38

This is a family portrait from Six Flags Wild Safari. Our rental van had a great mirror in it that let the driver see the entire car. If you look closely, I'm even in it, all the way in the back.

Thanks to my brothers, nephew and niece for a great time!

Now to some unfortunate news. Those that follow me on my other social media outlets already know, as I announced my disappointment as soon as I heard, the Michael Bolton concert I was supposed to cover last night was canceled. Inclement weather and slow ticket sales would have caused the town of Trumbull to suffer massive losses. You can read the story we ran in the paper here.

I don't want you to think that I'm massively upset about not getting to see Michael Bolton perform; although I had big plans for a gag gift from a picture I would have taken. I want to be shooting as much as possible, regardless of who is performing. In fact, I think it's more difficult to get powerful images from music I'm not particularly fond of as opposed to a band that I love.

To help ease the pain of the lack of Michael Bolton pictures on this blog, I bring you this video. I think it mirrors my sentiments exactly. I hope it's enough. There's still another big surprise I have in store for you, so keep checking in!

Photo of the Week: Week 37

Eytan and the Embassy at the Knitting Factory

I took a lot of pictures this week: from Impossible Project Polaroid tests to concerts to giraffes trying to eat a roof rack off an SUV. I did a quick scan through my shots and this one jumped out at me. I love the intensity coming from Eytan coupled with the enjoyment of the fans.

Photo of the Week: Week 36

Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm a really good baker. My downfall is that my decorating skills are sub par. Case in point. I'm so bad at it, it's gotten to the point where I automatically warn people: It tastes better than it looks, I promise!

My sister-in-law, her twin brother, her mother and I have consecutive birthdays. When I found out that Michelle's mom would be in the city for her birthday, I decided we should all celebrate together. Last night, I whipped up some carrot cake cupcakes. I made the frosting as they cooled and mentally prepared myself to produce some ugly looking cupcakes.

But something strange happened.

They came out not ugly.

They actually look, dare I say, professional?

I don't know what's come over me, but those are the prettiest cupcakes I'll ever make.

Photo of the Week: Week 35

I covered Kettlebell Daily's third annual Swing-a-thon for Remedy yesterday. Instead of taking the same old people swinging a kettlebell picture, I thought I'd mess around with some settings on my camera. I'm finally able to shoot HDR, high dynamic range, which is supposed to be used for scenic photography. The camera takes three pictures in a row and combines the results into a single frame. I wanted to see what it would do with people in motion, and it's pretty trippy.

That might be some of the coolest ghosting I've ever shot. Definitely need to play with this more!

Photo of the Week: Week 34

I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot this week. I went outside to look at the butterfly bush that we took from her house when she passed away, and found it was full of butterflies. Every inch of her house was decorated with butterflies and she loved the color purple.

This one's for you, Gramma Soup.