Victory By Revenge, a local band came for a new CD cover shot. The CD is called “Addicted to the Radio” Hmmmm…..  “Radio?” do we still need those? I thought everyone replaced those with ipods and blackberries. I was able to dig up a radio I’ve had for 20 years, ok I save stuff, so what, and I was right, “sometimes old things come in handy.” It was the perfect radio for the theme on the Bay. It was an enjoyable afternoon of shooting along the Bay.

The final image with some added textures and brush strokes.

I’m not a car person but I do appreciate an old car that hasn’t been restored. The rust, dents, torn upholstery and broken glass show the long history and get me thinking about the day the car was brand new and the owner cherished it. Did the entire family jump in for their first ride, all feeling bigger than life, did the owner wash and wax it regularly. This car lives outside Hagerstown, Maryland and looks pretty good after 56 years in the elements.

A light breeze over the Bay
Thin clouds embrace the moon
Water settles in for the night
Another summer comes to a close

Cove Point Lighthouse was built in 1828 to guide mariners up and down the Chesapeake Bay. The first lighthouse keeper was paid $350/yr and was kept busy cleaning the lenses, trimming the wicks, and hauling whale oil up the steps to fuel the lamps every few hours, 24 hours a day. The intense smokeless lights could be seen for up to 15 miles.

It’s a bit tricky getting to this location, “NO” signs everywhere, the neighbors are highly suspicious so it’s impossible to park anywhere. I did have a big lie ready, (sorry God) about meeting a Realtor there to look at a house, I parked in front of a house with a “For Sale” sign. When I got to the lighthouse there were signs posted “No walking on Seawall or Rocks” so to get to the other side I had to wade in the water and walk on a few rocks (sorry again).

It was one of those foggy rainy days and I decided to go for a walk along the bay. I came upon a dead horseshoe crab and decided to take a pic of the two of us. Horseshoe crabs are pretty cool creatures, they have passive personalities, they move slowly, and they are always happy when you turn them right side up and point them back into the bay.

When Breezy the rapper called me to photograph him for his CD cover I wasn’t really interested in doing anything more than a documentary shot of him. Mainly because he didn’t have any ideas except that he wanted to wear a suit and his CD was going to be titled “Billionaire Dreams.” After some brainstorming I started to get an image of what could be a fun shoot. I imagined a person that acted like they have it all yet their surroundings say they don’t. I liked the contrasting ideas so things started to gel and I felt the Henryton Facility would be a cool backdrop.

On location Breezy was a little stiff, he needed lots of encouragement and instructions before he found his groove. He liked to point at the camera a lot, which works for the first 5 shots, but you have to mix it up a bit. I told him “Breezy, forget the camera, forget about getting your suit dirty, forget about answering your phone and forget the cops could show up here and arrest us.” I walked over to the scene and pointed to the ground, “here, right here, dance like you LOVE your life and you LOVE what you are doing. If you can’t convince me right here you’ll never convince your fan club.” Breezy laughed, then pulled it off very nicely.

Here’s Breezy in the burned out floor doing what he loves.

Kara did a quick wardrobe change and we headed out to a construction site for a clean backdrop of sky behind her. As you can see most of the balloons had been released in other takes so she was only left with three as one drifted away. As each balloon drifted away we tried to see how long we could see it. This is a single shot image with a polarizer and a single strobe to camera left to light the front of Kara.

If an idea for a pic stays on my mind for more than a week I usually make it happen. This image is created from 2 main images then 2 distant balloons added. My first task was to get Kara (daughter) to agree to the shoot so I went with the sure thing, money. On a great sky day I drove around chasing clouds while searching for a white fence and a clean background. I ended up in a town called Mt. Airy and I was thrilled when the breeze brought the perfect puffy clouds into the scene. I shot the scene and created an HDR image in Photomatix. I hurried to the party store and ordered balloons for a 3pm pick up and got Kara all ready for the shoot. I flipped our picnic table on edge and I had Kara do a balancing act across while holding the balloons. It was easy to add Kara to the scene, after all she was walking on a 2″ wide beam. Stay tuned, another pic to follow.