Sign Spinners

I shot this video a few weeks ago to coincide with the print story we were running. I just now figured out how to get it uploaded to my blog. I'll be more timely with future videos...I promise.

Spring Valley

I spent the weekend cabinning with friends in Spring Valley near Flagstaff. It was nice to get away from the Phoenix heat for a couple of days and the scenery was beautiful. 

Sunday morning I was up at 5 a.m. to catch the sunrise...
Here's a manual panorama of the sunrise over the mountains (Click to Enlarge)...
I saw about 20 white tail deer crossing the valley and spent the next hour-and-a-half or so stalking them. My stalking skills need some work, though... I only got within 120 yards before they spooked and ran off into the woods.

Warped Tour

Wednesday I headed out to Cricket Wireless Pavilion in west Phoenix for the Vans Warped Tour. There were five different stages going and most of the bands I had never heard of, but it was a good time...

There was Mayday Parade... 

Against Me!...

The Academy Is...
Crowd surfers...
Gym Class Heroes...
and Alesana, just to name a few.

Here I caught a couple of fellow photojournalists (from the Arizona Republic) editing and transmitting back stage...Notice the intense concentration brought on by the pressure of making deadline. (Click to Enlarge)

Summer Spectacular with Robosaurus

Saturday night took me to Firebird International Raceway for the Summer Spectacular with Robosaurus. There were drag-racing funny cars...

Burnouts...
Jet cars shooting 30-foot flames...
Robosaurus demolishing and torching cars...




And fireworks to top it all off.

Scorpion Under Black Light

My neighbor is out of town and before she left she asked to check up on her house now and then. Tonight I took a flashlight into her back yard to make sure everything was okay. I don't think she gets the place sprayed because it was an arachnid-fest back there....I ran into four scorpions and two black widows.

I remembered that I had a portable, battery-powered black light in my garage and that for some reason scorpions glow under black light...So here you go. (Shot with a 50mm f1.4 lens at 1/20th of a second at ISO800. Camera on tripod.)

Mannequin Multiple

The owners of the College Times realized that our insurance policy doesn't cover models and make up artists for on-location photo shoots, so until a new policy is drafted, I'm on model lock-down.

The model freeze gave me an opportunity to use that "multiple" technique that I tried out a couple of months ago (see my "Trying Something New" blog from April) for our swimsuit fashion shoot for our upcoming issue.

In this photo I used only one mannequin over and over in different outfits and hair styles to make it look like a mannequin pool party.

(Click to Enlarge)

Hootenanny with Weezer

Tuesday evening the Edge 103.9 hosted "Hootenanny with Weezer." 200 of  the Valley's biggest Weezer fans were invited to come to a secret location in Phoenix and jam along with the band...And it was recorded live to boot.

People showed up with some of the most random instruments... Ukuleles, didgeridoos, cow bells, you name it.
This guy is playing the melodica...It's a wind keyboard. Right after I took his picture he was picked out of the crowd by the guys from Weezer to play a solo during the recording.... It was a good time.

Pirates on the Salt River....And a snake.

Saturday I  headed to the Salt River Tubing outpost in the Tonto National Forest for Pirates on the Salt River day....The idea was to get people out on the river dressed as pirates, but when I got there only the employees were dressed up....

Here you have one of the bus drivers, Pirate Betty, honking a horn and calling out to tubers to get on her pirate ship.

After about an hour I finally hit pay dirt... This fun group did it up right.  They flew a pirate flag and even had pirate hats, swords, bandanas with skulls and crossbones, and eye patches.

While I was walking around near the river I noticed a snake swimming upstream just off shore...I love snakes, so I got in close and got a few shots.  I did some research once I got home (www.reptilesofaz.com/herp-snakes.html). It turns out this little guy is a checkered gartersnake.

I didn't want any of the tubers messing with him so I chased him off into the river and followed him a bit until he was safely in some bushes growing out of the river bank.

PotD: Multiple Majors

We'll be running a story about students that take on multiple majors... My Photo of the Day is a portrait of a gal who graduated recently from ASU with degrees in journalism and political science.

Catching Up

Sorry if I've been slacking off, folks. My editors have me working a week or two ahead and they don't want me revealing our content until it's gone to print.

I haven't been posting any of my day-to-day stuff because I don't feel that it's really post-worthy, but here are a couple of the photos I shot on June 3rd for our June 12th cover and double truck. The concept for the cover was fully mine, and it was a real relief to have the cover turn out the way I had envisioned it.

It's really pretty stressful setting these shoots up; getting everyone involved on the same schedule and getting clearances for the locations. This was shot at the Mesa Golfland/Sunsplash Lazy River (cover) and water slide (double truck) at 8am before the park opened at 10am. They had to bring lifeguards in early so we could shoot.

I retouched the first two images myself...Something new to me that I need a lot more practice doing. The others were done by my art director.




I also had to go to each of these water parks for general shots for the magazine... I think I put 100 miles on my truck that day zipping around all over the Valley.