Just one portrait from the rally held by GOP presidential candidate, former U.S. Sen Rick Santorum, in Stuart, FL this past Tuesday. Robin Barker, of Stuart, FL, is the man with the tusks. He’s a conservative independent who was still undecided after the Santorum visit. A few more photos from the rally can be found here, at TCPalm, the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers’ website.
Rick Santorum Rally
Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration
Good, contagious energy was all around at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration today in Gifford, FL. I was one of three photographers covering different events for the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers and it was fun to see how our other photographers saw the celebrations they were photographing. I had a good time trying to make a few portraits of some of the people I met as well.
Fall 2011 All-Area Portraits
With great help from Scripps Treasure Coast multimedia journalist Chris Arnold and my awesome wife, Deborah, another season of Scripps Treasure Coast All-Area High School athlete portraits is finished. We got out of the studio this time to try out some location work. Big Thanks to all the athletes, coaches and parents for all your patience and flexibility. Here are a few of my favorites.
For Marilyn
Marilyn, my aunt, passed away in June. She is my mom’s sister, one of five girls who grew up in Dyersville, Iowa. She had a beautiful funeral full of laughter, tears, food, family, friends and memories. She is great. She is loved. She is missed and still felt.
Rainy Day in Nassau, Bahamas
Deborah and I recently went on a cruise throughout the Caribbean. We had a stop in Nassau, Bahams where we went into town for only a couple of hours. Having been up late the night before, we got a bit of a slow start on the day, but that was alright. Slow Down…that’s the point, right? We had fun looking around and talking with a few folks. And then the rain started. We found this black wall, stopped to wait for a photograph, bought a cool t-shirt and went back to the ship.
September 11 Portrait
This is a portrait of Stanley Mennuto. Stanley lives in Palm City, FL, but on the morning September 11, 2001 he was living in New York and working on the 88th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. He escaped the south tower after seeing the first plane hit the north tower. Most of the people he worked with did not get out. He has recently begun talking about his experience. It helps him to talk about it, he says.
His story ran in The Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers along with profiles of other local residents who were in NYC that day, or were first responders.
I photographed the series of portraits for the package with a Holga.
I’ve been doing more and more portraits, but have only begun experimenting with the Holga so this approach was a bit nerve-wracking since the results can be unpredictable. I wasn’t totally sure it would all work out. Everyone was photographed digitally as well just in case something went wrong, but thankfully it all turned out okay. This portrait was shot with the camera on a tripod, using the “Bulb” setting. My finger was the shutter release, guesstimating the exposure time.
One of the best things that shooting with the Holga did, though, was to slow things down. Being so used to having unlimited frames while shooting digitally, using film was a welcome change of pace. Because of that pace, many times the portrait sessions came to a crawl, or even stopped, as we’d get caught in discussions about their experiences during the attacks or the results of that day and its effect on them, and the world, to this day.
In The Yard
I’m a big fan of personal projects…doesn’t matter what type of media or form of expression. Arguably, every type of work or creation can be considered personal in some way. Whether it’s painting a series of murals, designing a structure, building and landscaping a public thoroughfare, making a sales call or anything else, the person doing the action ultimately brings some personal aspect to it. But a project that is done free of any peripheral influence dictating the outcome is different. The motivations are personal and those motivations, and the resulting project, can tell us something about the person doing it.
The “In The Yard” series started last summer as a way to unwind after work or on the weekends. I enjoy meeting and talking to and learning about people, but sometimes it’s nice to get away and go somewhere else for a while. When I needed to do that I’d dive into the tiny world in our yard and look at the patterns of behavior and relationships between the creatures and plants growing around the house.
I can’t say that the resulting photos are anything unique – there’s a lot of really fantastic small-scale work out there – nor does it attempt to bring large scale environmental issues down to size, but it’s been an enjoyable project and it’s completely different from a lot of the other photography work I’ve been doing. It’s certainly given me a greater appreciation of the smaller world, a new fascination with spiders and a basis from which more new interests have already grown.
Alvis
Al Maeyens, of Alvis Sings Elvis, performs for the crowd at a spaghetti dinner fundraiser for Southeast Florida Honor Flight at the Knights of Columbus building in Stuart, FL. His wife, Dee Maeyens, was Marilyn Monroe. Al and Dee were a lot of fun and really enjoyed working the crowd. There was one woman (very old) who thought he was the actual Elvis.
Lucaya
Deborah and I got a new addition to the family a few weeks ago. Lucaya. Caya, for short, is a Potcake. She’s about 6 months old and came from the Bahamas through the Royal Potcake Rescue USA, out of Atlanta, GA. Potcake is the term for the thick, leftover food that sticks to the bottom of a pot after cooking. Bahamians fed potcake to the wild dogs, who then came to be known as potcakes. While many of the Potcakes share similar traits, she’s pretty much a mutt…and totally fun…and totally crazy…and smarter than me.
The photos were taken in our backyard. The lawnmower had been in the shop and the grass hadn’t been cut for about 3 weeks. We got the mower back yesterday and I cut all the grass except for a 15 x 20 foot spot where these were shot. I think I’ll let it keep growing…
First Day, Fresh Eyes
My friend Lara Cerri and I were talking the other night about photography and how our approach to daily assignments has changed over time. We’ve both been working for newspapers for a while now and we were discussing the idea of being confident while walking into a situation, knowing what is important to photograph, and knowing what is NOT really important to photograph even though that may be the reason you’re going to the assignment in the first place. After covering so many arranged events, you know what to expect and you know what shots are going to be easily available. We talked about getting there early to shoot before the event, shooting the action, and then staying afterward for something else. Naturally that’s the best approach given enough time, but over time we learn to become more efficient and…picky. As an example, Lara used the hypothetical of an event where a mayor is going to be hanging a “wish” on a wishing tree. Through experience she knows what that’s going to look like and what the resulting photo would likely be. She would find more value in getting there a little bit early and finding something unexpected and meaningful to the story. Forget the mayor altogether if possible. Let the TV people deal with the mayor while he or she diddles the tree. Fortunately we both work for editors who, in most cases, would prefer something other than the typical contrivances of situations created for the press. The point is that if you know what you are looking for you can work efficiently, still be open to surprises, and leave being happy with the results.
The reason we started talking about this in the first place is because lately I’ve felt that my daily assignment photography has been stale. I’ve been trying to get away from tilting the camera so much, and the staleness may be a result of growing pains as I try to change things up. But I think the real reason I feel like I’ve been in a rut at the paper is because my personal life and personal work have grown to demand more energy. As a result, the daily assignments for the newspaper have suffered. I had been blowing through assignments, fulfilling the basic needs of the paper and website while trying to save as much time as possible. My priorities are competing. That’s not good, or bad, but I certainly don’t want it to affect the quality of my work for the paper. At the very least, the realization of the cause for the staleness is beneficial. If I catch myself looking JUST for the obvious shot, I can recognize that and try to snap myself out of it. The ultimate solution however is to remember to shoot for myself first regardless of the situation.
My talk with Lara couldn’t have come at a better time. I was scheduled to shoot the first day of school the following morning. I’ve shot this assignment every year for the past 11 years, and I had just shot the same story in a different county the week before with mixed results. This time, much like the mayor at the wishing tree, the superintendent was going to be at the school participating in a “Tunnel for Hope,” an event designed to welcome and encourage the students as they make their way back to school. I wasn’t necessarily excited about the prospect of photographing the superintendent, but approached it with an open mind and with my conversation with Lara fresh in my head. I got there about 45 minutes early, met the principal who, thankfully, was totally cool with me hanging around, and worked the chaos happening in the lobby of the school while parents tried to get their kids registered last minute. A bank of tall windows offered some fun light to work with, and then I found out that the “Tunnel of Hope” event was pushed back an hour giving me more time to look around. It was a good surprise.
At the end of it all I felt pretty good about the results. I hadn’t felt like that in a while. We used three photos in print, not one of the superintendent (well, sort of. He was in the background of one photo). It was a first day at school, and was the first good day I’ve had in a while. Thanks, Lara.
by aboerner
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