Tuesday, November 24, 2009

DC Rollergirls





The lovely ladies of DC Rollergirls were kind enough to let me interview and photograph them a couple of weeks ago.  DC Rollergirls is the women's flat track roller derby league for Washington DC and is made up of a great group. Between the crazy stickers and derby gear and unique personalities there was a wealth of material to work with. They were all very nice and patient with me as I kept showing up at the practices to stick a camera in their face. My goal was to document the story of the rollergirls and their league. Unfortunately the story isn't finished as I haven't been to a bout yet to catch the real action.  But this is a good start.

Shooting in a giant gymnasium with very little light is tricky.  It's even more tricky when that light turns everyone an ugly shade of green.  Since they are humans and not aliens from Mars I went with black and white so the focus would be on the girls and not their skin color.  Being able to shoot at 6400 ISO also made my life much easier (thank you Canon 5D MkII).  It allowed me to shoot with ambient light and avoid setting up a stadium-esque set of lights and corresponding umbrellas.




 


Monday, November 23, 2009

Skeletons and chains...Oh my!

Why take a well-deserved Thanksgiving vacation when you can hang out in a dark studio photographing skeletons and chains?  That's messed up.  At least it was a skeleton with pizzazz and flair and a yellow silk scarf and a purple hat. (click on photo for larger version)






Thursday, November 5, 2009

And the winner is...

"America's Pastime" by me.  I spent the evening with my wife Grace at the DC FotoWeek awards ceremony where I was awarded best photo in the "Student Advertising" category.  They even gave me a certificate to make it official.  It was an honor to be mentioned along side some amazing photographers. 

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

DC Fotoweek answers to be revealed tomorrow

Tomorrow night is the awards ceremony for Fotoweek DC at the National Geographic Society Grosvenor Auditorium.  It is here that I will find out if my baseball photo wins the prize in the 'Student Advertising' category (I should start working on my "I'd like to thank the Academy" speech just in case.)  Win or lose, it's exciting to be a part of such a big photography event held locally in DC.  The Fotoweek DC organizers have made this event into a photographer's dream: there's the NightVisions all-night shooting party, the photo demo's by some of the top professionals in the field, the portfolio reviews, and the exhibits.  Everyone should attend something related to this event even if you're not in a photographer. 


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Leo In Wide Angle

Just got the Canon 16-35mm f2.8L II lens this morning and decided to try out some wide angle action on Leo.  You can just see the excitement on his face... (click on photo for larger view)