personal

Archived Posts from this Category

Medellin Travel Story Slideshow/Vid (+poll)

Posted by skywriter12 on 23 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: personal, travel



Update Aug. 3, 2008:I discovered, which many of you may have known, that the Flash 9 plugin, which has a 95% penetration worldwide, can actually playback any video file encoded in H.264. That means it can playback any H.264 encoded .MOV, M4V, MP4, or FLV through the Flash video player!

In a nutshell, you dont need to waste time outputting your video file to flv anymore. You can upload any of these formats, point your flash video player plugin to it, and it will play it back. High quality, quick turn around. Problem solved!

If you liked the SoundSlides version, it can be found here

p.s. apologies to the band. I love your music. Please don’t sue me….

Ana’s Dream

Posted by skywriter12 on 04 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: personal

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Brazilian journalist and friend Ana Bianca Marin was in town for a few days. We took a day trip up the coast. Ana dreams of buying a French sailboat and seeing the world. I saw her looking out to sea, dreaming….

Spanish Fort

Posted by skywriter12 on 04 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: portrait, nature, personal

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Fuerte San Lorenzo, the ruins of a 16th Century Spanish fort on the Caribbean coast of Panama.

Logging in Darien

Posted by skywriter12 on 21 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: personal

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—A few photos for a spec piece I may do about deforestation in Panama.

Parque Metropolitano

Posted by skywriter12 on 03 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: nature, personal

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I went on a hike with my photog buddy Ruben Parra for a little photo trek. Nice change to just play with light and shadow and whatnot….

Lorna

Posted by skywriter12 on 18 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: personal

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Music video shoot.

Juega Vivo

Posted by skywriter12 on 05 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: personal

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Typical Panamanian move. Make a hustle wherever you can. During Carnival, this place charges different prices for using their bathrrom and going, well, number one, number two, or the whole enchilada. Hahahaha….

Veracruz

Posted by skywriter12 on 07 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: personal, travel

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Greetings from Panama! I visited Veracruz, a small beach town just outside of Panama City with my friend Tito Herrera the other day. These are just some snapshots of the visit.

Tito is a great Panamanian photojournalist, and I’ve been so glad to make friends with him. There is a tight knit group of shooters here in Panama, and a lot of talent to boot. Things look good….

Kiss

Posted by skywriter12 on 20 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: personal


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From the archives. I totally forgot about this picture. Taken from the High Line in NYC.

Split Cam

Posted by skywriter12 on 12 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: personal

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Shot on a SplitCam with Fuji Superia 400.

This is my first attempt with this toy camera I got called a SplitCam. It basically has blinders that you can click into place over each half of the lens, and then take two pictures per frame of film. I’d seem some amazing work by some friends of mine who’ve got em, and on the web there seems to be a cult around this little camera. The thing is a piece of crap though ($12 retail). I had to tape the back to block out light and there are scratches all over the film. Light leaks and weird marks are artistic, right?

Miramar Surf

Posted by skywriter12 on 07 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: personal








After doing a few multimedia video assignments this summer at a newspaper I was at, I’ve really gotten into shooting video. I recently got my own gear, and was eager to give it a go around. We recently had a big swell, so I decided to shoot the surfers down at Miramar beach for practice.

For those of you that are dreading video at your jobs and internships (you know who you are!), go out and try to do personal video shooting. You might be surprised to come around on it.

Montana de Oro

Posted by skywriter12 on 25 Nov 2007 | Tagged as: portrait, personal

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Coastal bluffs near Morro Bay, California at twilight.

C Street

Posted by skywriter12 on 21 Nov 2007 | Tagged as: feature, personal, travel

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A surfer at C Street Beach. Ventura, CA.
Feels like it’s from the 1980’s or something. I dig it!

Kenny Burnside

Posted by skywriter12 on 10 Nov 2007 | Tagged as: personal

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Kenny Burnside performs at the Blue Fugue in Columbia, Missouri. Kenny is the grandson of legendary delta bluesman
R.L. Burnside. If you like roots rock or juke joint blues, go see this guy. He’s unreal.
Goes to show ya it pays to bring the camera out on Friday night sometimes…

Touch

Posted by skywriter12 on 25 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: feature, personal

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Dawn over the Southland

Posted by skywriter12 on 16 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: personal, travel


From the plane at dawn. Thats the backside of the San Bernandino mountains, with the LA Basin covered in clouds. Big Bear is in there somewhere….

It’s Hot in Here

Posted by skywriter12 on 12 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: nature, personal, travel


I took these while camping in a glacial valley in the Peruvian Andes. What’s left of the glacier is seen here.
Because of global warming, these glaciers are melting fast. They’ll soon be gone forever.

Do Something. Now.
StopGlobalWarming.org

Webina

Posted by skywriter12 on 03 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: portrait, personal, travel


Webina de la selva. La orilla de Laguna de Chame, Panama.

Soccer game

Posted by skywriter12 on 26 Sep 2007 | Tagged as: sports, personal, travel


Soccer in Casco Viejo, Panama.

Ship

Posted by skywriter12 on 26 Sep 2007 | Tagged as: personal, travel


In a rainstorm, a darkened cargo ship in the Bahia de Panama waits its turn to go through the Panama Canal.
This photo is crazy vignetted and weird looking, but I didn’t do it in photoshop. Just came out like this!

Burning Man

Posted by skywriter12 on 05 Sep 2007 | Tagged as: personal

“Trying to explain Burning Man to someone who has never been is like trying to explain the color red to a blind man.”

I went to Burning Man with an open mind. I was intent on spending time with my close friends, and to enjoy the experience fully as a participant. It was so exhilarating on an emotional and visceral level that taking it all in was completely overwhelming.

I didn’t go to the desert to make a photo essay or to “cover” Burning Man. To stand back and shoot the seminal moments of the event at dusk, dawn, and night for eight days requires putting on a journalists hat and staying the observer, something I had no interest in doing. Despite the endless, and I do mean endless, opportunity for making amazing images, I took my camera out very sparingly.

Burning Man is an event that embraces gift giving in place of monetary exchange. Hence, many of the following photos are of friends I made there, and they are intended as a gift to them instead of a purely journalistic or photographic pursuit.

If you are looking for complete coverage, look to the work by the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere. I hope you enjoy these snaps I took at Burning Man. More importantly, you need to be planning on going next year.

Getting clean

Posted by skywriter12 on 27 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: personal

Homeless veteran Don Brown of Ventura dires his hair after taking a shower in the public bathroom at the National Guard Armory in Ventura.

Tattoo

Posted by skywriter12 on 20 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: personal

bullrider

Posted by skywriter12 on 03 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: personal

Bullrider, just before the chute opens. PBR Challenger Tour…

Nirvana

Posted by skywriter12 on 26 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: personal


If I have to explain to you why this is cool, your life has been meaningless.

fat

Posted by skywriter12 on 15 Jun 2007 | Tagged as: feature, personal

Chalk Girl

Posted by skywriter12 on 28 May 2007 | Tagged as: personal


Chalk painter at the I Madonnari festival.

Cruz

Posted by skywriter12 on 23 May 2007 | Tagged as: nature, personal

Overlooking Santa Cruz on a foggy evening…

Supersize Me

Posted by skywriter12 on 08 May 2007 | Tagged as: personal


The biggest McDonalds in the world in Vinita, Oklahoma. 27,000sq feet of McPleasure. Over a freeway. Pretty lame actually.

Shot from hip…my first success getting away with shooting in a corporate restaurant..

“Jesus Lives” in Texas

Posted by skywriter12 on 07 May 2007 | Tagged as: personal

The largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. Outside Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle. Guestimate its 150 feet tall. Surreal.

Five and Drive

Posted by skywriter12 on 05 May 2007 | Tagged as: personal


The Moberly Five-and-Drive. Its the only combo indoor theatre/drive-in in the United States. We went up one evening hoping to catch a crowd at the drive in. It started to rain, and only one car showed up….

Preflight rituals

Posted by skywriter12 on 29 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: personal

Crosses

Posted by skywriter12 on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: personal


The pro-life group Students For Life planted 4,000 crosses on the Missouri campus for a one-day protest of legal abortion laws. “Each cross represents a death of an unborn child” due to the abortions in this country every day,” said Maria Mahoney, a student organizer in the group.

Clean - Work

Posted by skywriter12 on 17 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: personal

Donna has a full time job cleaning rich people’s condos at Lake of The Ozarks. The job is secure and it pays well, but is physically exhausting for Donna.

Clean - Mom

Posted by skywriter12 on 15 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: personal

I started working on a longer term story about what life is like for people after recovery from a life of addiction. After a life of hard core drug use, Donna Arenaz has managed to stay clean for five weeks, including the one month of recovery she went through. Having moved away from her social circle of users, she is starting fresh and trying to raise her daughter, Mercedes, in a world free of drug use.

This is the first set of pictures I’m posting from this thing. These are all about Donna and Mercedes relationship. I’ll be posting some new stuff soon as well. Stay tuned…

Apr. 17th UPDATE:

Nazi March

Posted by skywriter12 on 10 Mar 2007 | Tagged as: personal


On March 10th, 2007, members of the National Socialist Movement, a Neo-Nazi group from Minnesota, held a march in Columbia, Missouri, my town. The reaction to them was intense and filled with hatred, which led the march to descend into some confrontations with the police.

On a personal level, this was hard for me to shoot. I despise racism in all its forms and incarnations and believe that hate speech is a terrible force in this country. At the same time, I believe in Free Speech, and that everyones opinion is valid. So while I hated these Neo-Nazi’s I also didn’t sympathize with those taunting and hurling cuss filled tirades back at them. The Constitution is alive and well….

Sky

TrueFalse Party

Posted by skywriter12 on 03 Mar 2007 | Tagged as: personal



Snapshots from the True/False Film Festival’s opening party last night. I shot a bit backstage where some of the performers were getting prepped.

Latelight

Posted by skywriter12 on 28 Feb 2007 | Tagged as: personal

Late afternoon light on my housemate…

Foxhounds

Posted by skywriter12 on 27 Feb 2007 | Tagged as: sports, Free Lance-Star, personal


The Commonwealth Foxhounds, a traditional foxhunting club based near King George, celebrated it’s 25th Anniversary in 2006 on the centennial of organized foxhunting in Virginia. I spent some time with the club on their hunt, as well as when they train hounds and when they hang out together. Suffice to say both the hunt and the typical post hunt “breakfasts” all involve drinking copious amounts of alcohol. They know how to have a good time.

I shot this late last year and it ran in the Free Lance-Star. We did like a multimedia piece for the story, and these are a selection of images from the larger project.

Bullriding

Posted by skywriter12 on 11 Feb 2007 | Tagged as: sports, feature, personal


Cody warms up by pretending to ride a bull backstage.


“I’m gonna conquer that bull”…


That bull is gonna toss ya…


You got eight seconds…


Get ‘er Done!…


Got the wind knocked out of him when he fell off the bull….


Shot a few frames of bullriders at the URA Winter Rodeo in Columbia. I looked for ways of showing bullriding that went beyond the action shots of the rider on the bull, mid-ring. In fact, I wanted to avoid that shot altogether and break the rules a bit.

The whole bullriding shebang lasted less than fifteen minutes. I wish it went longer, as I could have spent all day shooting this!

Bitter Face

Posted by skywriter12 on 27 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: personal

Benjamin Reed and a 10mm lens. An experiment in perspective. I could see this being cool to illustrate a crazy rock musician or something.

Panama City

Posted by skywriter12 on 15 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: personal


I was in Panama City for a few days on business. Although I didn’t get a chance to shoot much here’s a few snaps of the skyline.

Hammond’s

Posted by skywriter12 on 23 Dec 2006 | Tagged as: personal


Surfers at Hammond’s, the beach down the street from my house. It’s good to be back.

First Lomo

Posted by skywriter12 on 17 Dec 2006 | Tagged as: personal



This is the first roll of B&W I’ve ran through my little Lomo point and shoot. These pictures are completely untouched by photoshop —the camera itself gives the snapshots the cool look. I think I’m hooked on Lomography.

Possum Junction

Posted by skywriter12 on 13 Dec 2006 | Tagged as: personal


Louisville to St. Louis in sixty seconds….

Under the skin

Posted by skywriter12 on 24 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: personal


My broken left (phew!) thumb, top bone (distal phalange).


CT Scan of head


CT Scan - 1mm cut top to bottom


CT Scan - 3mm cut front to back


A quick TO from the newspaper stuff for a minute. I broke my thumb playing football last week and hurt my eyelid. Good news is my eyes are fine, and the thumb will be healed in a few weeks without a cast or surgery. I’ll be back to shooting full time and posting to the blog on Monday.

In addition to the thumb x-rays, I got a CT scan for my eyelid thing. The radiology image techs gave me a CD-Rom with thousands of images of the inside of my head in 1mm and 3mm slices. You can watch “fly through” animations of your brain, sinuses, eyes, and skull. It’s amazing.

Anyways, I put these stills up because I was awestruck by the medical imaging they can do these days and how abstract and strange the images are. Sorry if anyone is “grossed out”, but we all pretty much look something like this underneath when the scanner peers inside us…

Protected: Xmas Party

Posted by skywriter12 on 31 Dec 1969 | Tagged as: personal

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Protected: Medellin Day 1/2

Posted by skywriter12 on 31 Dec 1969 | Tagged as: personal

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Protected: Kim in the lou

Posted by skywriter12 on 06 Dec 1969 | Tagged as: personal

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