After every sports season we always shoot portraits of the All-Area Players of the Year. I was given the opportunity of photographing them all after this past fall season. This year we decided to photograph both the boys and girls athletes together (except for volleyball…no boys), which we haven’t done before.
I always get a little nervous doing portraits. They’re challenging for me and I’ve done plenty of REALLY bad ones. I always hope people’s personalities show through. And most importantly, especially with high school athletes, I want them to like the results. I really don’t care about much else except that they can look back on these articles and be happy about how they come across to the people reading about them.
Local high school sports is a small world and many of the athletes already know each other very well. Some of them even carpooled to the newspaper together. When they showed up they were comfortable and willing to goof around in the studio and some good things happened. They really shined. We always try to start with a couple pre-conceived ideas before letting the shoot turn into a jazz session with everyone throwing out ideas. I was pleasantly surprised with the way things evolved once we got going and it was all because of them.
When I first moved to Florida from Minnesota one of the very obvious differences was the lizards that live here. They’re everywhere.
When a lizard gets in the house one of two things happen, the cats get it, or it ends up not being able to find its way back out and dies somewhere for us to find later. No real option for a good outcome. I found this guy underneath a low table while cleaning out a room this weekend. Aside from being really dehydrated, he was in decent shape.
Earlier in the day when I was putting chemicals in the hot tub I lifted the lid and this little guy, who was camped out underneath, took off running and jumped into the warm water. He was struggling a bit so I scooped him out and he crawled around on my hands for about 20 minutes before he got his wits back and took off.
We have a stand of bamboo outside the house that Deborah planted over a year ago in honor of our friend Phil Kavanaugh who passed away in April 2008 after a fight with cancer. We call it Phil, in fact, and it has all the life of its predecessor who entertained people all over the world as Mr. Funnybones, his clown alter ego. He later served as the program director for the Blake Library in Martin County Florida, bringing in performers of all kinds, from all places, to enlighten and excite our town. His presence was large and he is missed.
The bamboo grows fast, curving itself over the top of our one-story home toward the sun, tall and lean, like Phil. One piece in particular, a pup that sprouted separately from the original group of shoots, is now taller than the rest. But it’s still young. Its short husks unfold in a ladder-like pattern, organized and peeling back downward as the plant stretches up. In a handful of short months, nearly two years since we lost Mr. Funnybones, it should grow full, with thin arms and enough leaves to help it dance with the wind. Go Phil.
Photograph Copyright © 2009 Alex Boerner. All Rights Reserved
There’s a good interview with photographer and farmer Stacia Spragg-Braude at Matthew Ratajczak’s blog, “Eat The Darkness.”
Spragg-Braude was a photographer at the Albuquerque Tribune, but left the paper well before it closed. While interning there in 1996 she met and became friends with the Begay’s, a Navajo family living on a reservation in Arizona. She began to photograph the family on her own time, and a collection of the photos have been made into a book titled “To Walk In Beauty: A Navajo Family’s Journey Home.”
She talks about her roots in photojournalism, how she’s handled some of the changes that life has thrown her way, her connection with the Begay family and with the resulting photographs, and about the process of building a book.
“For me, it was the chance to weave together my images with the Navajos’ words to create a narrative poem of their journey as I saw it. I liked the idea of putting that poem down permanently in a book, which has a very different feel than in other media such as the internet, magazines, newspapers, museum exhibits. And that mission statement dictated how I edited.” – Stacia Spragg-Braude
Photograph Copyright © 2009 Stacia Spragg-Braude. All Rights Reserved.
This photo by my buddy Sam Wolfe about melted me. It’s in the restaurant of the new Costa D’Este Hotel on the east coast of Hutchinson Island in Vero Beach. A full-swank hotel owned by Gloria Estefan.
I always hated working in the yard. For at least one weekend every summer my brother and sister and I would have to help my mom and dad rake up leaves, pull weeds, pick up the trimmings left behind by the shears and repaint the benches and rocks in the front of the house that had been stripped of their life by the winter. As far as I was concerned though, summer was summer and one weekend was one weekend too much to spend on the yard.
Things are different now. I look forward to giving a haircut to an out of control yard. I have a few ideas as to the reasons my attitude has changed, but mostly, I like getting dirty and hanging out with my wife on our one day off together.
Last Saturday we spent about 7 hours in the yard. It had been about a month since we had done anything more than mow the grass, and it was bursting. We were able to get a lot done though, including throwing down about 8 gallons of some nasty compost. Afterwards, as the sun was going down I busted out the lights and attempted to make a portrait of Deborah.
I don’t practice lighting as much as I’d like to. It was slow. Thankfully D was willing, and patient.
I’m sorting through the thousands of wedding photos that have been rolling in in an attempt to assemble a digestable slideshow to post here, but until that happens, I want to share a few quick photos from our honeymoon to Vancouver Island.
It was beautiful.
The sky was rainy and cloudy the whole 6-hour drive from Victoria to Tofino, but as we rolled in at about 8:30 pm, the sun broke just below the clouds, and just above the horizon. With the stormy sky to the east, the circumstances made for one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen, complete with three boats, a rainbow coming out of the mountain, and a big, red house. It was the first thing we saw when we pulled into the small town.
I came across this opinion about the possible legislation in France regarding disclosure of retouched photos while visiting the David Byrne Journal.
“French public health officials are considering laws that would ban the promotion of eating disorders — including a requirement that magazines reveal the extent to which their images have been artificially retouched. It’s viewed as a public health issue because girls and boys (and men and women) are feeling increasingly ashamed of their bodies as they compare themselves to what they see all around them — images of bodies that are not real, that have been photoshopped, digitally airbrushed and heavily modified.”
I went to the nation’s Capitol last weekend with Deborah for a quick trip to meet with friends Colleen and Noah Rosenblatt-Farrell. Colleen will be Deborah’s matron of honor at our wedding in May, and Noah is performing the marriage. We discovered that we all took a trip to Savannah, GA this same week last year, so it was decided that a tradition has been born. Next year it’ll be New York.
The last time I was in DC was around 1988. It was a road-trip to the east coast with the family. We had a Buick Roadmaster station wagon with full-on wood panel siding. If you listened closely, you could hear the song “Holiday Road” following us down the highway. I was 12, and needless to say, not a whole lot interested in the jewels to be found in this incredible city. Things were different for me this time around. Each museum is a giant treasure chest of World History. I only wish we had a few more days.
Both Noah and Colleen went to college in Georgetown and took us around to some spots off the beaten path. However, we did make time for a walk past the White House and an absolutely necessary visit to the National Art Gallery to see an exhibit of Robert Frank’s “The Americans.”
And, we ate REALLY well.
I also got to see some things I’ve never seen before, like the “Exorcist Steps,” and a guy masturbating in public under a bridge over Rock Creek Park. Kind of wish I could un-see that one, but it was memorable. He even was prepared with a small jar of vasoline. Noah saw that the masturbator had gotten a signal from another guy in the park indicating to him that he was being watched, and he pulled himself together. THAT was even more interesting.
The last few times I’ve traveled I’ve just brought one camera with a 50 mm lens on it. It’s a nice break from using mushy zooms at work during the week, and the limitations are actually freeing in a sense that I don’t have to consider all the options that come with having an array of lenses. I may have to work a little harder to get a photo, but the results are usually more satisfying.
I also noticed that, with a couple exceptions, most of these photos are heavy on composition, and light on moment or interaction. I guess that’s because a lot of them are quick, grab shots. But that’s fine with me. I guess it is a reflection of a quick trip.
I photographed The Honda Classic Golf Tournament a few weeks ago. I usually have fun at pro golf events. I’ve always felt like there’s pretty good comraderie between the photographers, and it’s a chance to get out and walk…a lot.
I don’t care much for the action and reaction photos I shot at the event, but I did like this little detail of twin cigarette butts. Golf fans can be so damn proper. That’s obviously a stereotype that doesn’t fit every golfer or fan, of course, but I couldn’t help thinking about that when I saw this.
The second photo of this guy looking up at the moon is the only other photo I was happy with from the weekend.
by aboerner
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