October 8, 2008

The Wedding of Shawn & Matt

The Wedding of Shawn & Matt

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This past weekend, Elisabeth, Anne Richards, John Jaffe and I attended the weekend-long wedding of our dear friends, Shawn Brenneman and Matt Labarge.

I'm pretty pissed off with use of the word "event" these days. We have weather events. Television events. All kinds of "world premiere events". Crap. All of it.

This wedding, however... this was an "event". A two-day event at least.

Shawn and Matt essentially rented out all of Bluestone State Park in West Virginia. That's 26 cabins in the chilly, wooded hills of rugged West Virginia. I've been hating summer since it started back in May, so I was itching for some frosty mountain air and at least the start of fall colors. I was not disappointed. :)

It's kind of hard to put into words the scene here... but imagine being surrounded by about 180-200 of the most fun-loving, creative, musical, and happy people you can imagine all pretty much taking over an entire state park for 48 hours. Shawn's scene for years has been one of Contra dance and top-notch traditional music. Matt is an incredible pianist already with a few albums to his name. Their circle of friends includes some of the most amazing guitarists, fiddlers, mandolin and banjo players... you name it. Individually, they are all a force to contend with. Put these folks together, though, and you can see the passion. They LOVE to play together and everyone within earshot is in for a treat.

For some backstory on the photos you're going to see here (in chronological order), you'd best just refer to their wedding website - the master agenda that we all followed for the weekend. You'll learn a lot about the festivities - but also about the unique people that are Shawn and Matt.

I'll quote a few key phrases from one of the pre-wedding emails:

Finally, in keeping with the spirit of fun and frivolity, should you be in possession of an unusual article of clothing or an unusual noisemaker that you're dying for an opportunity to wear/perform in public, this is your big chance! It's encouraged the whole weekend, but particularly during the Wedding Processional. Shawn will be terribly disappointed if there are no viking hats, kilts, liederhosen, Mardi Gras masks, duck calls, pirate hats and swords, or clown pants!

Photos and words won't do it justice. Anyone who was there this weekend knows how special this event was. I, for one, came home relaxed and happy and wondering how we could talk them into doing this again next weekend. And the weekend after that... :)

As you'll see in these photos, I was pretty captivated with the musicians and there are individual images in here I plan to collect (with others) in a specific themed gallery. A number of the photos show a trio that I first became aware of this weekend: Crowfoot. All of the photo editing I've been doing the last few evenings has been while listening to their two albums that I immediately purchased from iTunes. Much to my pleasure, they appear to be playing right up the road in Charlottesville at the end of October. Adam, Jaige and Nicholas: see you there! :)

P.S. Keep an eye out for the photo of the special brew. This is a handcrafted beer by the "mad beer genius", Jonathan Thielen (who ran The Alehouse in Cabin 26 this weekend), specially made as a gift for Shawn and Matt. It is designed to ferment in the bottle for the coming year and cannot be opened until October 4, 2009. The label is designed by the amazing, Ben Crenshaw, whom I was thrilled to finally meet this past weekend (Ben's the dude in the awesome pirate hat in the photos). Our bottle is sitting here on my desk for the next year. Hey - Jonathan said a "cool, dark place". :)

The Wedding of Shawn & Matt

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June 18, 2008

Dumb Luck 101: My First "Organic" 3D Modo Project on History Channel

I'm planning to write more about this when I have some time, but I figured I'd link to a local news item about my first "organic" Modo project ending up in a nationally broadcast documentary.

Understand that this is not a suggestion that I have any great 3D modeling experience (I don't)... it was kind of "dumb luck" to be perfectly honest. :)

Mahler's Venus on History Channel

Frankly, the model isn't completely finished yet and, I've had my hands so full with work, TWiP, forthcoming TWiM producing and photo gigs that I've not had much time in Modo recently. I've got a pile of projects I want to do with it soon since the app is just insanely cool.

I'm working on a few things combining Modo models with textures I shoot digitally and equirectangular HDR panos (most recent one here) that I shoot and assemble to use for real-world lighting.

This is the model I started after spending part of Christmas screwing around in Modo and modeling an AMF bowling pin I had sitting on my desk.

May 16, 2008

Tap. Tap. [cough]. Um, is this thing on?

I built a blog so that the threshold would be low enough for writing posts that I'd be inclined to do it more frequently. Instead, I still keep finding myself putting it off "just a little longer" so that I can give an entry proper attention.

I've got to stop that since it's been, oh, about a YEAR since I really posted anything. I think Twitter, which some describe as "micro-blogging" has gotten me going again. That and the fact that I've got a million things to talk about these days. :)

Waaaay too many things have gone on in "the silent time" to really catch up, so I'll just summarize a little here and then TRY to get my butt in gear to post regularly now.

I'm doing a great deal more contract photography work now, both for the college and other individuals and organizations. I enjoy it a great deal despite it adding about a half-time job to my already greater than full-time job. Busy is good, really, and the added income pays bills and buys more gear to, of course, do more work. :)

On a related note, I re-arranged much of my home studio / office work space and built in a new permanent desk into the corner of the room that uses up one full wall and more than half of another. It gives me about eighteen feet of continuous surface at an ideal height with cable management underneath, good lighting, etc. I'll put up a VR of the space soon (the current one I have is outdated).

One significant and wonderful addition to the computing tools was adding an Apple 30" Cinema Display which, some months later, I mounted on a fully articulating hydraulic arm. I can move it around most any way I like with just a finger (up, down, side to side, in, out, 180 rotation, etc). I almost can't abide using the laptop's own 17" display anymore once I got spoiled by all the screen real estate of a 30" display. Throw in OS X Leopard's Spaces feature and you've got limitless screen room. With the MacBook Pro, too, I can open the lid and run both side by side which I might start doing soon with the Lightroom 2.0 Beta.

One nice thing about reworking my office space was freeing up the rest of the room for a small studio space with my strobes, etc. It's more than enough room for portrait work, product photography, etc. It's another reason I'm using the 30" display and arm, too, since I can swing the monitor into a nice position to see while standing across the room and shooting tethered. Great for high resolution previews of each shot right after it has been taken.

I'm always doing various things with my camera gear. Since I last wrote, I added a second body (Canon 30D) for convenience and backup, sold my Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 and replaced it with Canon's L-class equivalent, added an Epson P-3000 in place of my Hyperdrive, and misc other things including bags, etc. I try to keep my hardware and software list up to date here for anyone curious.

I've gotten involved in quite a few large new projects (podcasts, 3D modeling, etc), too, but I'll blog about each of those separately here in a few minutes. This entry is already meandering a bit with little or no real point other than to catch up on some technical minutiae.

March 9, 2007

In the month since...

A lot has happened since my little flurry of posts from San Francisco and MacWorld 2007. I stopped writing from there about halfway through the trip mostly due to having come down with a friggin' cold. I spent Wednesday evening and much of the day Thursday that week holed up in my hotel room, conserving energy so I wouldn't miss the podcasting party at Jillian's (a bar in Sony's Metreon). I'm glad I did since I had a chance to chat some more, however briefly, with Leo, John Foster, Alex Lindsay, Merlin and Scott Bourne. Inspiring guys...

Unfortunately, the time between MacWorld and today has had a few small joys and one tremendous tragedy.

My Grandfather died last October. While not sudden, it was nonetheless a deeply saddening experience. A few weeks ago on January 28th, almost three months to the day we buried him, my Grandmother also died. Her death, by contrast, was quite sudden and unexpected and involved a whirlwind 48-hour escalation from discomfort to emergency surgery to, ultimately, passing away in a virtual coma. None of us were in the least prepared, especially in the wake of my Grandfather's recent death.

I wrote a tribute to my grandfather on here the day that he died. By contrast, I've been silent here from just prior to my grandmother's death through the few weeks since. My grandmother was an incredible and unique woman who easily had as much influence on my life as my grandfather. The sudden and unfair nature of her death, however, leaves me grieving not just for her, but for the combined loss of them both as grandparents. It's not two deaths in three months but, in a way, three.

The two weeks of dawning realization prior to my grandfather's death had a lot to do with being in the proper frame of mind to write what I did on the day that he died. I'm just not there yet with writing about my grandmother. In time...

Whatever my reasons for periods of silence on here, I need to get my ass in gear to post more frequently. Part of why I switched to a blog format from my previous static pages was to overcome the "effort barrier" that often killed spontaneity. I now have little excuse outside of a lack of discipline.

Outside of the personal events mentioned, I've got a somewhat blog-worthy backlog that I'm now setting out to tackle...

October 24, 2006

My Grandfather: March 20, 1911 - October 24, 2006

Dr. Henry R. Mahler, Jr., died peacefully today in the loving company of his wife, two sons, one daughter, two daughters-in-law, one granddaughter-in-law, three fellow ministers and his grandson... me.

This was the day of ultimate peace for him on a calendar that spanned ninety-five extraordinary years, and for that I am both happy and proud. At the moment, though... and especially as I select photographs and write this entry... it's truly the saddest day of my life.

Happy grandparents with a happy grandson on my first Christmas

My thoughts are still scattered, I'm exhausted and, quite honestly, I keep stopping to cry as I edit photos and write this entry. I don't have the clarity or energy right now to write anything extensive or especially eloquent. It will take time for all the memories that are percolating in my mind to sort themselves and come out in any meaningful way.

In the meantime, what I have are some photos I've selected.

Five years ago on his 90th birthday. The oldest of four brothers, he outlived them all.

These are extraordinary photographs.

Not because of their composition.

At a family birthday party in 2003

Not due to some great artistic insight.

My father and grandfather on Christmas Day in 2004

Not from megapixels or their passage through Photoshop.

In his chair in my grandparents' apartment in 2003

They are extraordinary because of the man in them. My grandfather.

Laughing with my grandmother in 2003

They are also extraordinary because of the context in which they were taken. Every single one of these photos was taken of a man surrounded by the family he loved and that loved him so dearly.

At another family birthday celebration in 2005

The same family - to a person - that was gathered around him today when he died.

My grandfather was an author and a poet and, had he grown up in a digital world, he would have taken to blogging like a fish in water. He vaguely understood the concept from conversations we had and never ceased to amuse me by calling it "the blodge". I always knew what he meant. :) He did, however, pitch his typewriter and buy his first word processor in his 80's. He was the most prolific reader I've ever known and, when his eyesight became too poor for the constant reading that kept his mind so active, he became a voracious audiobook listener. He listened to them on an iPod Nano... at the age of 95.

The most prolific reader I've ever known. Anytime. Any place.

I could never list all of the wonderful things he brought to my life or the countless ways he has influenced who I have become as I've grown up.

There is one thing in particular, though, for which I will be eternally grateful and that I know gave him tremendous joy. It's in this photograph:

As the minister who married us on our front porch, in the company of family and friends, at the age of 92

I love him and I will miss him dearly.

October 13, 2006

Two Photos in Shutterbug Magazine

I've had a number of my photos used in some regional magazines of late (Virginia Sportsman) as well as a few in various SBC publications. I was quite pleased and amused, though, to see that Shutterbug Magazine published two of mine in their November issue. I had submitted both several months ago for their upcoming topic of "lens effects", thinking it unlikely that either would be used. As it turns out, they used both along with my original caption.

I wasn't sure if they were selected until I saw it while flipping through this month's issue in our living room the other day. As an amusing sidenote, the first time either of us saw an article that Scientific American Magazine published on my first MAME arcade was while standing in a bookshop in Paris on our honeymoon in September 2003. :) I've since found a copy of it floating around on the web translated into Chinese.