Month: December 2009

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Published Photographer

Yes, that is what I’m going to call myself from now on. I’ve been published. How cool is that?

Ok, some back story.

A couple months ago I saw a tweet from @TheBlueMag that they were soliciting fan photos for their winter edition. I also got a Facebook message from one of their editors who had seen my Boise State photos on Flickr.com asking if they could possibly use some of my photos. Of course, I replied right away and said I would be pleased as punch if they did.

Then came the waiting for the issue to come out.

It finally did last week. By the way, all Bronco Athletic Association members get this with their membership, but you can also order subscriptions. If you are a Boise State fan at all, you gotta get this thing. End of pitch.

Anyway, in their fan photos section on page 92, they selected 4 of my pics! All of which were taken from my seats, in row Z of the upper deck. 5 rows from the back of the stadium.  Needless to say, I find this whole thing completely awesome. I’ve never had a photograph in a magazine before. And even though I was not compensated monetarily, I figure I will still be able to refer to myself as a published photographer. That’s got a nice ring to it, don’t it?

Below you will see the page, with my photos circled in red. Click on the image to go bigger. You can also go here to view the entire page. On that site, if you flip to the next page, you will see my name in the photo credits. Yes, I get geeked about this stuff.

theblue

Here are the 4 photos they chose, on Flickr.

Bronco Plane From Horizon Air

Titus Young Can't Hear You

Horse Entrance

Touchdown Broncos

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Winter Garden Aglow – 2009

Christmas LightsJess and I went to the Idaho Botanical Garden’s annual Winter Garden Aglow this past weekend. It’s always fun to see the lights. I’m glad we went when we did, because it has been raining all this week and there is nary a speck of snow left anywhere on the ground. I’m sorry, but viewing Christmas lights is something that simply MUST be done in the snow. It just makes them about 100x better.

This year, we seemed to be in attendance with a lot of really naughty little kids. Jess surmised that it had to do with the “perfect storm” of kid-dom. Christmas, night time, and snow. Anyways, there were kids throwing snowballs. Kids running around off trail. Kids having uber-meltdowns. One boy, “Austin”, about 3 or 4 years old was with his mom and grandma. He was running around like a dog off leash. They were imploring him to come back and drink his cocoa but to that kid, they may as well have been speaking Chinese. Never slowed down. Never looked back. Never acknowledged they even existed. The only reason they caught him (as he was running off the trail) was that he got boxed in by plant/Christmas light displays. He was like a wild animal. Unreal.

Anyways, I did bring the camera to shoot some shots. I got a couple traditional shots of the lights. But, since I don’t have a mono-pod or anything to help stabilize night shooting, I decided to go another direction as well. Deliberately moving the camera with a slow shutter speed in order to “streak” the lights and create funky effects. I really like how some of these turned out. Notice that the LED lights actually flash really quickly, so they look like dotted lines when the camera is moved. Interesting. I present to you a selection of my Abstract Christmas. The whole album is available on Flickr.com as well.

As always, click each image to go to it’s Flickr page. Some of these images look much better when viewed full size, which you can do there…

Abstract Christmas

Abstract Christmas

Abstract Christmas

Abstract Christmas

Abstract Christmas

Abstract Christmas

Abstract Christmas

And, a few of the more traditional shots I took…

Christmas Still Life

Holiday Spots

Christmas Lights

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas?

Some of you who know me, know that I really enjoy Christmas music. Have since I was a kid. I still remember learning all the words to all of the songs in grade school. In many of the songs, I can even sing those 2nd verses that often get left off of modern recordings.

In fact, in years past I have written blog posts about my favorite Christmas songs as well as my not so favorites.

That being said, there is one song in particular that amuses me, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. You all know that song and have heard it a million times from a thousand different artists. But, what amuses me about it is a couple lines in the song:

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Nice sentiment right? Christmas is a time to reflect back to the good old days. It is also a time for friends and family to come together and enjoy each other again. I’m sure this is just as true in your family as it is in mine.

However, if you listen to many of the versions out there, the artist mistakenly (or otherwise) swaps two of those lines which completely changes the meaning of the tune:

Faithful friends who are near to us
Will be dear to us once more.

It’s a subtle swap that you probably never thought about, but basically turns from expressing the joy of having far-flung loved ones around for the holidays to the following…

“You know, you scumbags are around all the friggin time… You rotten son-a-bitches really piss me off the rest of the year, however it is Christmas time, so I guess you’ll be dear to me again… But I swear to God, come January you people are all back on the shitlist!”

Can you see why that amuses me so?

Merry Christmas everyone!