On Assignment: San Angelo, Texas- On The Water

"The Wake" by Wes Aldridge

The assignment was to shoot wake boarding on Lake Nasworthy. Well, I did that. Many shots of jumps, twists, pushes, pulls, spins and barrel-rolls. But I thought a different kind of shot was in order. Something that showed the action as well as the people having fun. Kasie was having fun, and she really tore it the hell up on the water too.

On Assignment: San Angelo, Texas- What a Day

"The Great American Writer" by Wes Aldridge

Today was incredible. I was fortunate enough to meet Elmer Keltonk, the man considered the greatest Western writer to ever pen a novel. He was a gentleman, a true rare breed rarely seen in our time anymore. He said he was 80 years old (I didn't believe him), but didn't seem tired at all. He always insisted that I walk into rooms before him because I was carrying all the heavy camera and lighting gear.

I chose Ft. Concho, a historic old military fort in downtown San Angelo, to do this shoot. The setting of this shot takes him back in time to the era that is his. It seems surreal to me. If I turn this shot black and white or sepia tone, then it looks like it could be found in one of the pages of the 50+ novels he has written. It was magic to me.

When we first arrived on location, he seemed slightly uninterested because he said his photo had been taken at Ft. Concho many times before. He humored me as we looked around the compound for the perfect place to make the shot. We wandered into an old soldier barracks where many cots were set up to look as they did so many years ago. He instantly told me he had been photographed in the barracks before. I needed something different.

I looked around a little more, hearing the old plank floor pop and crack under my feet, and saw a tiny room off to the side. It was slightly lit from window light and I felt this was the spot. We walked into the room and I asked him to just stand there and talk to me. We were talking to our guide as I was setting up a remote strobe light. It wasn't firing off (as the piece of shit sometimes does), but it opened my eyes to the natural light and mood of the room. I bumped up my ISO rating to 400 and I started firing frames off with the ambient light only. This was the ticket... a pure and wholesome natural setting where he belonged.

He seemed as if he was enjoying himself finally and said, "no one has taken my picture in this room before." At that point everything just came together. I got the ringing sound of silence in my ears and every frame I snapped sounded like a shot from the old six-shooter pistols Elmer wrote about. I felt like we were in his pages and I understood him with my lens. The shot is him, it is an accurate portrayel of the man he is.

I love the photographs of National Geographic and this reminds me of one of Sam Abell's shots of a cowboy from many years ago. I think it worked out.

On Assignment: San Angelo, Texas

"Sun Bleached" by Wes Aldridge

My skin is sticky. My head is clouded. My body is dried out. Texas, it gets hot in Texas. This old ram knows so too.

The Bells Were A Ringin'

"The Bride Part I" by Wes Aldridge


"The Bride Part II" by Wes Aldridge

So, I think Holly's portraits turned out alright.

On Assignment: Shreveport, Louisiana... will it ever end?

"Got Mail" by Wes Aldridge

Driving around shooting today. Put almost 300 miles on one rental. That is a hell of a lot of driving. But, I did see this awesome row of mailboxes. Had to take an shot.

On Assignment: Shreveport, Louisiana... still

"Matt Soars" by Wes Aldridge

Today, the sun FINALLY came from behind a thick cloud of grey. Thanks to the gods for finally shinning down upon us.

We shot at Caddo Lake. The sunset was awesome and it was time for Matt to soar... so he did. Don't we wish we had some towels for this one.

On Assignment: Shreveport, Louisiana

"Ritchie Pryor" by Wes Aldridge

Well, it hasn't been your typical summertime in Shreveport. It has been something close to Hell for photography.

The rain has been pouring (or the sky has just plain sucked with gray clouds) since Monday here. This magazine requires traveling between 10 parishes (counties for those of you who are unfamiliar with the lay-o-the-land in Louisiana) and getting lots of exterior photographs. Pretty much been an impossibility thus far. Anyway, that's neither here nor there at this point. Some days blow, so, suck it up, right?

We found this really cool area that was under the bridge leading across the river to Bossier City from Shreveport. We all know I love neons and I wanted to grab this shot. It was late at night so the usual suspects were lurking about, preying on tourists. This gent comes up and jumps in front of my camera and tripod and starts begging to do his Richard Pryor impression. He was killing my shot, so the only thing to do was "make" him the shot.

Before he asked for some cash, I told him if he did his best Richard Pryor impression and let me shoot a portrait while he acted, then I would give him the four dollars cash I had in my pocket. He instantly got right down to business. He made us laugh pretty hard for a good long while. After a bit he started talking about Crack Rock being the best high in the world and that Richard Pryor died from smoking an ounce of that stuff at a time. Needless to say things took a turn for the wierd and I wanted to get the hell out of there. I handed him the sweaty bills and called it a wrap.

On Assignment: Columbus, Mississippi

"Sound of the Moment" by Wes Aldridge

After the massive storms ripping through the Southeast, I needed to post and calm down a bit. It seems that the area surrounding Nashville got pounded pretty massively. Nothing happened in Columbus until midnight, but then all Hell broke loose. I must admit, I was pretty freaked out. It sucks pretty bad to be in the middle of a nasty storm in a lonely hotel room of a strange town and see tornado warnings blink across the television screen continuously. But it seems to have passed now.

This shot is an outtake from a portrait shoot I did with a displaced New Orleans jazz musician named Brice Miller. He was one kool kat, in his words, and absolute majick with that trumpet to his lips. Real soul coming through that piece of brass. I shot mostly frames without the neon sign in them for the mag, but, man, wouldn't this make a helluva Budweiser ad poster?

I've got to be honest, this is one of my favorite photos I have ever taken. I think the mood, tone, lighting and subject all work together in harmony. I sat a stool by this brick and and maroon wall and walked off to start setting up a single TTL light. Brice sat down and started doing his thing. I listened to him play and I felt his musical power... and I just started shooting. It seems to me that I caught a true piece of him on film.

I was beyond excited after I started shooting him. I bet he thought I was a total freak, but I didn't mind. When I get pumped about a shot, you'll know about it. I bet not many people can say they get as genuinely excited about their job as I did shooting him. I liked this one and I think Brice did too. It was a great experience all around.

Heaven Beats Out Hell This Time, Louisiana-style

"Critter Platter" by Wes Aldridge


"The Boil" by Wes Aldridge

Notebook computer with all my photos from this shot and my calendar of appointments: died two days ago. Food poisoning from a bad tuna sandwich: left me tossing an cookie all night until the early morn. $400 Sprint POS Palm cell phone: died on me after the cell phone store had closed for the night. I don't think the world owes me much, but after the week of Hell I've endured, I deserved an awesome night like tonight.

I wandered into a restaurant called Gabbeaux's, a local joint on the edge of the river in West Monroe, Louisiana. Smells of Cajun filled the air as the waitress lead me to my seat on the patio. A sign boasted boiled crawfish, 3 lbs. for $10. I had never tried the red critters, but there was no getting around it this time. Everything was in its right place and it was time for something new. I made the order and tipped back a MillerLite as I browsed through the photos from today's shoots, enjoying the warm night air and breeze blowing off the Ouachita River.

As ironic and bullshit as it sounds, Creedance's version of "Proud Mary" was coming over the house speakers as the waitress brought my monster load of crawfish, complete with corn-on-the-cob and boiled potato. I stared down at the bowl of lil' Delta lobsters, and yup, they stared right back. The waitress had many other tables and scurried off before I could fully explain that I had no idea how to eat the them. It was a little fucked-up for about five seconds, but I let it pass... there was no turning back now.

Another waitress made eye contact with me and I frantically flagged her to the table. I said, "I know I seem like a total tool, but I am crawfish retarded and I have no fucking idea how to eat these damn things." [people seem to say 'fuck' and 'damn' a lot in Louisiana, so I've learned and adapted to that]

She laughed a little and grabbed one up in her gorgeous hands. She said, "well, you take the little mutha fucka and hold'em like this. Then you pull out the center of the tail to get the poo out. Break off his damn head and suck'em. Then peel off the top layer of the tail and there ya go."

The way her hands twisted, pinched and pulled the crawfish meat from the shell was majestic. My eyes followed her fingers work in slow motion until nothing was left but a little piece of white and red meat. She held it in her hands and said, "here you go."

I shit you not, she raised it to my mouth and said, "bite it, hun." So I did what any good man living the American Dream would do... I leaned in and ate straight from Kym's hand. She giggled, and I liked it. By the way, this is non-fiction. Not even the names have been changed to protect the innocent. I mean, come on, is anybody innocent? We surely weren't right then. I think it must be something about the heat in the night air in Louisiana that makes the steam really come.

Lets recap. I go into a Cajun restaurant on the edge of the ghetto after dark and order a food that might intimidate most people for the first time. I end up having a beautiful waitress demonstrate the process and hand-feed me crawfish while I sit on the edge of a river in Louisiana. Hot damn, I think this is the ticket. I might have to go grab lunch there tomorrow, I'd be a fool not too!

Tonight I got a little closer to understanding Louisiana. As simple as it seems, it was truly one of the best nights of my life thus far. Lookin' forward to many more to come.

More For The Eyes

I feel like I am robbing myself by not posting very often here. I have just been too busy since the New Year to get a steady influx of photography to Mind of the Photographer. And the busyness has just been wearing me out to the point of not enjoying shooting for myself. I have pretty much just been shooting on auto-pilot for the magazines our company produces.

Anyway, here are a few more shots from the stop in Chattanooga, Tenn. I really like several of these shots and I just wanted to share them with everyone. I mean, why in the hell else would I shoot pictures, right? Right on.

I shot several shots at this old factory. I am thinking of turning them into a series collection of prints. I love the rust and pale green colors in the shot, some really interesting color schemes. What do you think?

The shots that are all broken looking came from a condemned building next to the old factory from my previous post. "Budding" is a shot through a broken window of a budding vine that was growing inside the condemned building. The other shot is of a tower at a baseball field reflecting in the broken glass. Some angles that really caught my attention.

And bless Matt's heart for letting me shoot another one of him. He probably gets sick to death of me doing portrait experiments on him. But honestly, some of my best portraits are of him. Thanks buddy.



"Broken Tower" by Wes Aldridge


"Havin' a Smoke" by Wes Aldridge


"Factory Wall" by Wes Aldridge


"Budding" by Wes Aldridge

Tone and Mood

"Old Factory" by Wes Aldridge

On the way back from shooting in Georgia this weekend, Matt and I saw an old factory just off the interstate in Chattanooga. We got off to explore. I like this scene that my camera found... it found many, many, many interesting scenes and compositions. Thinkin' I might actually make a print of this one and hang it in my bedroom. See, that's funny to me because I am a photographer with nothing but bare walls. Seems I just never have the time to do anything here lately. I guess that is a good thing and a bad thing, right? Busy. Back-to-back shoots coming up over the next two weeks in Louisiana and Mississippi. Tonight I want to dream about surreal landscapes on the bayou and cotton fields that I hope to see materialize in my travels over my next assignments.

By the way, shooting a new camera now. The company put a Nikon D2X in my hands. I have shot Canon for several years, but I can't say I have too many complaints about the D2X. Did I mention the color it captures is amazing? Well, it is.

True-Grit

"Rushmore" by Wes Aldridge

First and foremost, happy birthday mother! Hope your day finds you well.

The assignment in Gillette was finished. Only one thing left to do... Mount Rushmore. Mike and I loaded up and headed out before God was awake this morning. 3 a.m. is the earliest I have ever risen for a shot, and it was very ruff. I knew I wouldn't get back to Nashville until 10:30 p.m., but armed with true-grit, determination and a 24-ounce RockStar energy drink I was willing to stare the beast in the eyes and get the shot, come hell or high water. I wanted to be there for first light and witness the amazing reddish tone that makes mere rocks etched with men's faces come alive above misty mountain valleys in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

We made it, and I think the juice was worth the squeeze.

Time On The Ranch

"Mr. Buffalo" by Wes Aldridge


"The Gate" by Wes Aldridge


"Old Tree" by Wes Aldridge

Tonight was cool. I shot at a buffalo ranch. They are big suckers, yeah, no shit. Here are some images.

The buffalo ranch... yet another reason Gillette, Wyoming is alright.

The Rich Light

"A Simple Trailer" by Wes Aldridge

I'm not exactly sure why I shot this one. I drove by this open field and there a little red trailer sat. The sun was fading fast and everything was awash in gold brilliance from the last rays of day. Three simple colors made a wonderful contrast... the blue, red and yellow. It just wanted me to snap the frame. It had called my name. Something just majestic about the golden rolling fields of Wyoming.

Wyoming's Sinister Tower

"The Devil's Sunset" by Wes Aldridge

Its been a while since I've posted. I need to do it more often, but only when it really counts. I think this image qualifies.

I'm on assignment in Gillette, Wyoming this week and it isn't too far from The Devil's Tower National Monument. There was no way I was going to miss this one. I met a photographer named Mike yesterday and he joined me on this little trip. Good times. We shot the side of Devil's Tower that everyone knows, got some nice and friendly frames there. Nice soft and golden light, just like I like it... it was the "safety" shot. But I wasn't finished. I wanted to feel the power of the sunset, of course.

We drove farther down the road away from the monument and found the angle. It was tough to tell what the sun was going to do, lots of clouds. We moved around and set up the tripods. Wait. Wait. Almost there, the color is coming. Just a little longer. Shoot. And there it is. The image says sinister to me, just like the vision I'd created of The Devil's Tower in my mind. I think the devil was in the sky there tonight. It just seemed so proper and real, and I captured the essence of this surreal place.

Successful Medical Assignment

"Enigma of the MRI" by Wes Aldridge

Today I had an interesting experience, and so the story continues...

My assignment took me to Angel Medical Center in Franklin, NC. I was to shoot a photograph of an MRI for the Health story in the magazine. Yeah, no big deal, right? Hardly. For those of you that don't know, an MRI is an enormous magnet. And magnets the size of two soda machines aren't good for things like electronics, such as a Canon camera. Before I went on this assignment, one of the guys from the office had told me that an MRI would pull the camera off my chest if I had it hanging from the strap around my neck. I thought, "ah, whatever."

So, this machine had really intersting lighting, with this skyroof picture thing above casting down a little bit of blue light. I thought I would try to highlight that light and shoot the MRI with a blue gel. The gel was a little too dramatic for the magazine article, but I thought it was interesting to look at. My favorite part of this shot is the small amount of tungsten light in the head hole. It is very subtle, but I understood it.

After I tweaked the lighting for a more natural look, I was very satisfied with the shot. One of the guys that was working with the machine asked if I wanted to see something neat. I thought, why not.

He handed my a finger nail clipper. I put it between my index finger and thumb. He laughed at me and told me, "Not like that," and shoved it into my palm and wrapped my fingers around it. He meant business. He told me the MRI's magnetic field worked algorythmically and explained to me that the larger the magnetic object that you have, the stronger the magnetic pull gets on it as it approaches the MRI. The worker told me a story about a cleaning person that was using an industrial buffer and absent-mindedly got too close to the MRI. The guy said the thing flew across the room and smacked against the MRI about 5-feet off the ground.

I walked toward the MRI a few feet and felt a little pull, but the attraction got exponentially stronger as I walked closer. When I was within a few feet, the attraction was so strong that you could see my arm and hand vibrating from fighting the magnetic field. It was incredible and got to a point where I couldn't control it. Something as small as the finger nail clippers was physically pulling me toward the machine. It was awesome.

Anyway, besides the shitty situations I have been in the past few days, today was an excellent and exciting day for photography. The passion just gets stronger.

Close Calls Come A Dime A Dozen

"Explanation of the Situation" by Wes Aldridge

So, two things to talk about here, although, it could be a thousand. And so the story continues...

I am driving to my North Carolina assignment, almost six hours away, and I find myself on a winding mountain road. The day was miserable with terrential down-pours, long drive, a huge fog bank with the changing elevation. At this moment, can I just send a thank you out to the total stupid asshole that slams on his brakes, without turn signal, in the center of a snaky mountain road in the middle of an awful storm? Well, here's to you "Mr.-I-Should-Have-My-License-Revoked-And-My-Head-Kicked-Down-My-Neck-Out-My-Ass-Guy." Thanks for nearly signing my death certificate.

Yeah, this old geezer decides he wants to turn into a scenic overlook (that he has pretty much passed-by) on the mountainside in these inclement weather conditions. At this point there is no stopping, only a decision to make: Do I plow into the truck or the guard rail. I figure less people would be hurt if I chose the latter, so I ate the guard rail in a head-on, fish-tailing, front-to-back smacking kind of "incident." At least the dumb bastard in his Tacoma truck didn't get hurt. Then it hit me... I trusted a two-foot tall, two-inch thick piece of metal to keep me from plummeting into a mountainous gorge. So, who is the idiot here? That is a wonderful question. Honestly, I thought I was going to fucking die. What's more, I was watching it all happen in slow-motion as I slid and cut the wheels and slide through the grass and watch sparks fly as I rubbed the wall. Oh, did I mention, the gentleman in the afore mentioned Tacoma (gray) went on his merry way? Yeah, sure as hell did.

So, the rental car looks a little, how you say, "worn" in a few places, but she still runs like a virgin on prom night. May I say, trust the guard rails and always opt for the Pontiac Gran Am, regardless of the price of the upgrade. These things are more than likely why the Mind of the Photographer is continuing at this point. Cause if I would have went off into the damn high ravine, well, the rental company could fish the car out their own damn self.

And now on to the photo for the day. Franklin, North Carolina... I love it. This is one of the first really good mags that I shot last year. So, I kind of knew what to expect on this assignment... other than auto-incidentals, of course.

We all know that after a fiasco like I just endured, then any reasonable man would require a cocktail. Here's the kicker... Macon County, NC is a "dry" county. When I found this out, I was down-hearted. Then, I went into a convenience store and I became a little confused. There was an endless walk in cooler of any "red-style" beer you could think of, and wine too. Something tells me that it isn't exactly dry here. I ask someone about it and the person told me, there are no bars, but select restaurants can serve wine, I think I understood. Amazing. I love the fact that this city didn't follow its own rules and I headed to the only ABC (yes package) store. Anyway you slice it, the photo above shows all these things and ties them together with the religious aspect. This place may not have a store that carries a charger for my Palm Pilot cell phone, but it sure as hell has a lot of churches per capita.

In the historic downtown area hang these banners from street lamps. I lined this shot up with that banner with a church steeple in the background and a "No Parking After 5pm Saturday" sign to boot. You know why the parking restriction sign was there... they didn't want any drunk hooligan to leave his vehicle stranded at this particular point of town on a Saturday night after he was snookered and take away any parking spots from all the good church going folk on Sunday morning. Its funny, I laughed and I took the shots. Make the connections, I did. If you can't, take more ginseng and read more HST to get your mind to that strange point mine has grown to love and understand.

And so the story continues...

"The Icy Hot Situation" by Wes Aldridge

Well, as you may have noticed, there hasn't been a new post on Mind of the Photographer since December 31, 2005. That was one calendar year of posting a photo a day. It was a little something I had challenged myself to do, and I'll be damned if I didn't accomplish that little goal. Now that the craziness and stress over posting a photo-a-day is gone, I am going to actually keep this blog going but on new terms.

There will no longer be a shot up each day, nope, no way in Hell. But I didn't want to kill it off all together. I have decided I should keep posting because it is almost a record of my life in a way. As lame as it sounds, I guess it’s like my diary... that everyone who so chooses can read. It is sort of therapeutic in a way, and I was missing it. So here is my first one for the year, and its pretty funny, well, to me anyway.

I went to the office today all pumped up about this shot I needed to do for one of the magazines. It was for the Almanac section of the magazine, and we usually don't do too elaborate of a studio set up for those. That section of the magazine is more or less blurbs of information with a simple illustration with a few of them. I knew I wouldn't be getting a photo credit for the shot, but I wanted to do it in a cool way anyhow.

I had thought about this shot of IcyHot for a while last night and was anticipating it when I was on the way to the office today. I had planned to fire this red gel from behind and make the "hot" feeling in the shot, I think that was accomplished. Next, I meticulously crushed ice with a hammer and some paper towels into desirable-sized chunks to give that "icy" feeling around the canister. After I got it all set up the way I wanted it, I made a spotlight that would project light onto the small 3-inch by 2-inch bottle with one of my studio strobes and a black paper cone. I spent about an hour prepping for this shot and it turned out pretty much exactly like I had hoped for. Victory was mine.

One small catch.

After all this, I looked over my shot list for the magazine and my stomach dropped. Yeah, well, that IcyHot shot was definitely supposed to be damn Vicks VaporRub. When I realized this it pretty much crushed me. So, this shot was worthless for the magazine. Then the light in my brain kicked on... it was a perfect shot and story for the blog.

My German friend Susanne said it best. She liked the way I put photos and words together. I think that might have been what kept bringing other folks back each day too... all 15,000+ hits it got last year. The blog was a story of my life, and everybody likes to read an interesting story. I will make a semi-promise: I will post when it is interesting or inspired, and we'll not throw garbage up for the sake of posting everyday. I think that's fair. Its good to post again.

The End

"Celebration" by Wes Aldridge

It’s been a long, hard ride, but it’s been one I’ve enjoyed. About this time last year, I was celebrating the beginning of 2005 with my friend Scott and I ran across a blog site that interested me. It was about a group of 7 photojournalists that lived across the country. Each day one of the photojournalists would post a photograph from one of their assignments of the day and discuss the shot, i.e., how they found it, difficulty of shooting it, camera settings, etc. I thought this was pretty interesting because I always try to learn from other photographers and I enjoy their “war stories” about getting a shot for an assignment.

Well, at this point the champagne had been flowing rather freely. I thought, “That’s cool, but I bet I could do a year-long blog like this all by myself.” I tooled around for a little while on the Internet and figured out what a blog was and signed up for my account at Blogger.com. Then and there, “The Mind of the Photographer” was born.

Needless to say, a photo-a-day is a tough thing to do. There were days when I would be on assignment in the middle of East Nowhere and I couldn’t find an Internet connection to get it posted, but I did. There were days when I was sick, uninspired, pissed off, depressed, or simply uninterested in making a post. There have been all kinds of circumstances that really made this thing hard to do. It took more dedication to keep this going than anything I have ever tried in my entire life. I was not paid or compensated for it in any fashion. There was no incentive to keep it going. It was for me and no one else. It became a part of me. It was a driving force in my life and I think I have been able to witness an evolution in my photographic learning this year.

And now, it is over. I hated it and loved it at the same time and I think it will be interesting to see how my life adjusts to not “have to” find the blog shot each day. It might be wonderful or maybe just drive me insane, who knows at this point. Time will tell.

The final photo I felt had to be a self-portrait of celebration. We spent a couple of hours gathering the props and making the confetti show up in the shot just right. I almost forgot to thank the people that made it happen with me... Brian McCord, Joyce Caruthers, and Jill Wyatt. Without them, this shot would have never materialized. Thank you all very much.

The Thoughts In Our Minds

"Concentration" by Wes Aldridge

This is one of my best friends, Blake. He came to visit from ATL for New Years. We decided to shoot a portrait of him, something that looks nice and clean, but a little different. He has been featured on here a few times, but not in a style of shot like this one. Just had some real fun experimenting with studio lighting.

One more post to go, and its gonna be a dandy.