On Assignment: Chattanooga, Tennessee-Day Seven

"Dirty Statue" by Wes Aldridge

I was shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee today in the art district and decided to shoot some at the Hunter Museum of Art. I saw this one statue, a bronze nude, and decided to interpret it in the real wrong way. I wanted to be lewd and vulgar with a piece of public art... just to be a jerk!

Here it is, a vulgar shot of public art. I am a jerk. And so it is done. This has been a hard couple of days and there is a funeral to attend tomorrow.

On Assignment: Murphy, North Carolina-Day Six

"Cold Glow" by Wes Aldridge

Today was mucho grande. I shot in four cities, in two states. I started in Murphy, North Carolina, then was off to Andrews, North Carolina, then to Blue Ridge, Georgia, and finished up in Blairesville, Georgia. The weather was awful. It was just rain, no snow. Good thing I didn't have much exterior shots I needed to get today. Tomorrow I will finish up my Southeast Resource Magazine shoot with an all-day go at it in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

My shot today is of a small wooden cross that I saw in Blue Ridge. I put a blue gel filter on my flash and sat it behind it and shot it up at an angle. I like this one, I just don't have much to say about it.

On Assignment: Cleveland, Tennessee-Day Five

"En Memorium" by Wes Aldridge

This one is for Brother Jack tonight. Sadly, he won't read it because his Life was prematurely snatched from him from last night. "In coelo quies est"

Jack was one of Us, and if you aren't, its really hard to make you understand just what that means. We are a different breed that most "normal folk" can't cope with, or in some cases fear to. We need little sleep, less food, and more and more and more of everything savage and ruthless in life. We live hard and play faster and come up for a fresh gasp of air only on rare occassions amidst the chaos that we wallow in.

Don't get me wrong; we don't lurk in shadows but we more so luster in glistening beams of Night's starlight. We are rockstars, high-powered mutants, superhuman, or maybe just plain monsters, but I guess those kinds of titles are left to the observer of such beings. Its uncanny that we so eloquently flirt with the razor's edge and somehow never seem to cut deep enough to truly wound ourselves. We've done lots, tried more and pushed it about as far as people dare to endure just to see what happens when you get really close to something you can't forsee. Hell, we all do, all of Us that is. I'm not sure if you consider it a fatalist point-of-view or simply living extremely dangerously with total disregard for anything sacred, but we were never afraid of what could come. Oh, I am sure we all once were, back a long, long time ago. Since then, the innocence and respect of our consternation has fleeted far from our eyes, and even farther from our minds. I think when you scare Fear away, its about as close to immortality as you can get, at least for a while.

Jack was one of Us, and now Jack is gone. It leaves me wondering where I float. If it can happen to one of Us, surely it could happen to all of Us. Maybe immortality is a thing you don't truly gain, but perhaps you can string it out for yourself if you dare. Today I think the frailty of humanity makes us only as tall as our shadows. They grow longer in the normal ways that shadows manifest from the sun, and they are longest right before the sun goes down. In our realm, the game is to let the shadow stretch as far as possible, and god we let it stretch so far, but don't let it disappear. Yet at the same time, we don't grow afraid because we think we can cast a shadow forever. There is some kind of cold-comfort in being the monster. When your eyes dialate to their fullest you can see so much more and then Fear becomes your friend. What we see would terrify most of the populous into hysterics or mass exodus. They would run and watch over thier shoulder just to make sure the beast wasn't nicking at their heels about to over take them.

Maybe its all an illusion, this great Power we possess. It doesn't occur to Us that it might be delusions of grandure and so we keep on pushing it, our bodies, our minds, our luck. We hammer down and grit our teeth screaming full-throttle into the fire, and for what reason? Simply because we think we can.

In any event, the passing of Jack has made me more cognizent of my brittle life-line. An old friend called me tonight, noticably upset. She wasn't upset as much about Jack, but more so about Us, about me. She said she didn't want to get that same phone call about me. It was a sobering comment and now I am left with decisions to make, steps to take, a life to live.

How long and hard can it go? I definetly bought the Ticket, and the ride is in full effect... but for how long?

On Assignment: Dalton, Georgia-Day Four

"Wink in the Window" by Wes Aldridge

At sunrise I was in historic Dalton, Georgia (some know this as my homeland) trying to get a photograph to go along with a story about revitalization of various downtown areas of cities we are covering in this magazine. I decided to get a shot of the recently restored Wink Theatre. The lights on the marquee were great and it worked perfectly for the article. I got a nicely lit sunset shot with a warm sky and lights burning bright for the story, but I wasn't finished there.

I caught a glimpse of the lights from the marquee reflecting in the hood of a nearby car. I instantly went into artsy photojournalism mode. I wanted to get a cool reflection. Think I found one. This shot was a reflection in the door window of a coffee shop across from the Wink. I thought it was neat so I metered it out, I think it was somewhere around 1/15th at f/2.8 at ISO 400... and of course, I handheld it instead of using a tripod because it felt more spontaneous.

In the shot, I focused on the theatre in the reflection, but in the foreground a white cross hangs from the glass along with a no smoking sign. Not sure if it has some grand subliminal meaning, but I just liked the composition.

On Assignment: Dalton, Georgia-Day Three

"88 Keys" by Wes Aldridge

Yeah, not much to this one. Just a shot of a piano keyboard. It was done with the telephoto zoomed in at 200mm at f/2.8 with the camera on the tripod. The depth of field looks like about a single key. In the perspective of angles, I guess that is interesting.

On Assignment: Nashville, Tennessee-Day Two

"Cheer" by Wes Aldridge


"Taunt" by Wes Aldridge


"Air McNair" by Wes Aldridge

Well, today was pretty cool. You guessed it... I shot the Titans game. It was big fun. I actually got to shoot a Canon EOS-1D with a 300mm f/2.8 lens. It was a heavy combo, but I fell in love with that lens. It was so sharp and the shots were just awesome.

Here is a sampling of a few shots I took. I especially liked the shot called "Taunt." You have Titan Kyle Vanden Bosch standing over Texan quarterback David Carr after he hideously sacked him. I don't think there was any real massive taunting going on, but in this shot, you see a man defeated lying on his back while a giant towered over him.

Anyway, fun day.

On Assignment: Tracy City, Tennessee-Day One

"Goodies" by Wes Aldridge

This was a test shot that I did in a bakery tonight. I was building the shot and realized the fruitcake looked really nice, but the Rocky Road candy bars really weren't the most attractive thing under the lens. I took them out and built about 3 other items into the shot. One thing that I really like in the shot was the background I chose. A wall had shelves with loaves of bread on them. I shot with my 70-200mm telephoto from a distance at around f/4.0 on a tripod to blur out the bread in the background. Don't know why, just thought it was cool.

Now, its time to hit the hay... big day ahead of me tomorrow.

Office: The Bizarre

"Paper Dolls" by Wes Aldridge

Ok, first of all, this is actually a photographic and not any kind of a computer made graphic. Hard to believe I know, but its true.

Our ladies in Ad Production have really gotten into the Christmas spirit. They turned one set of cubicles into a gigantic gingerbread house. I can't begin to explain it to you, you simply have to see that anomaly for yourself. Now, back to the photo at hand...

The creation in the photograph is a small table sized "frozen lake" that the ladies are ice skating on. It is made of what seemed to be blue cellophane with a blue sky background with clouds. The figures are cut out dolls made from construction paper, complete with the print outs of their faces from our staff photography archive. They are on wire stuck through the cellophane into a styrofoam board of some kind. Wow.

The shot looks really trippy and fake. I just added a little off camera fill flash with a hot shoe extension cord with a coffee filter rubberbanded over the flash head to diffuse the light.

Listenin' In The Cold

"Chet's Audience" by Wes Aldridge

Tonight I wanted to record some reality with my light capturing box, so I went downtown. I walked the sidewalks and alleyways for about two hours in the 30-degree temperature. It was cold, much too cold for me to be aimlessly hunting a shot, but of course I kept on searching.

I came upon the intersection where a bronze statue of Chet Atkins sits on a stool playing a guitar with an empty stool beside him. Though tonight, the other stool wasn't empty. A man (whom I talked to later and found out he was homeless) was sitting there motionless in a deep stare. It was as if he was listening to Chet play. I slung the camera up and popped a shot before he saw me. I walked by the guy and we small talked and I went back to the Jeep.

I drove by the Ryman Auditorium and saw a sad scene: several men were huddled together lying on an air vent to stay warm in the bitter night air. I knew exactly what I needed to do. I drove a few blocks up to the TigerMarket and bought some large coffees and sandwiches and bananas and headed back to the group of men on the street.

I walked up and more guys had shown up to warm there since I had gone to the store. I gave them the food and drinks and asked them to please share. They graciously agreed. I sat down there and talked to them for a little while. It was getting late so I wished them good luck and headed on my way.

I knew that the $16-something-odd dollars I spent on the food wasn't much, but hopefully it will help those men get through a cold Nashville night.

Keep On Playin'

"One Way" by Wes Aldridge

I started thinking a lot about family tonight. Just simple contemplation. So I decided to post a pretty artsy shot from the street musician portrait session I did of my brother. I think there is one way for him to go... just hear the music.

Visions From The Mirror

"Legislative Reflections" by Wes Aldridge


"War Memory" by Wes Aldridge

This afternoon I felt defeated, almost depressed. Just watching the sun go down before I leave the office nearly makes me sick. There was nothing I wanted to do today more than shot some photos, but I was stuck in the office finishing up a database from my last shoot and starting to plan my next trip.

I stayed late to try to get ahead of the game to schedule appointments because light was gone and fighting rush hour was pointless; there was no sunlight left to shoot under. I came home and watched some television. Around 11 p.m. I started to feel this overwhelming urge to go down to Legislative Plaza to get a shot. I really can't explain the feeling I had, something forced me to go down there. I bundled up and jumped in the Jeep and headed downtown listening to Shinedown's version of "Simple Man."

When I got there, I saw my angle immediately. I sat up the tripod with a 25 second exposure at f/22 at ISO 100 with my 16-35mm lens. The exposure of the first shot I took, the horizontal above, was dead on the money. I used the reflections of one of the calm pools where fountains spout during the daytime to get the War Memorial building and the Capital building. The vertical shot was at the same exposure settings of just the front of the War Memorial building. I liked both of the shots, so what the hell, I posted them both.

I really like these shots, but I am not satisfied with them. I want to reshoot them when there is either a sunrise or sunset in the sky behind the buildings instead of pitch black. I could see it in my mind; waiting for that perfect moment when the ambient light in the sky faded with enough dull color to even out with the flood lighting on the faces of the buildings. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I know that getting that shot wasn't highly likely before New Years Eve and the end of the year-long photo project. This is part of the sickness in my head, probably in other photographer's heads as well. We just have a way of seeing a picture, even if it isn't really there... and then agonizing over it if it isn't possible at the time.

The Old Town

"Colonial & Dr. P." by Wes Aldridge

Take a visit to the Old Town. I am sure there are stories to be heard and times to be told about. Every place has its own tale, no matter how sleepy and tired it may seem. There is something hidden and barely whispered on the lips that live there.

Getting Late

"Old Wheel" by Wes Aldridge

I found this old wheel, rusted and aging. But I am tired and still under the weather, so I need to rest.

On Assignment: Huntsville, Alabama-Day Six

"Bending Religion" by Wes Aldridge

Last day of the Huntsville assignment. We got some great photos, in my opinion, and now I am glad we are leaving. Traveled back to Nashville. Feeling very sick, but trying to fight it off. Slept since I got home and took plenty of meds.

This shot comes from a church we drove by in Huntsville. It was the strangest church I've ever seen. We stopped to take a shot and Brian let me use his fisheye lens. I had wanted to get a shot with it for the blog for a while, and I think it was finally the perfect time for it. The structure worked perfectly with the bending effect of the lens. Note the wall painting of Psychedelic Jesus on the wall. Reaaaaaally trippy.

On Assignment: Huntsville, Alabama-Day Five

"The Circle" by Wes Aldridge

Today was strange, too tired to explain.

The magazine is finished now, thank all things good. Home will come soon.

Can you see the circle?

On Assignment: Huntsville, Alabama-Day Four

"Sk8" by Wes Aldridge

We were shooting at a skate park today. It was crazy because Brian and I were shooting the same angle on this one, pretty much side by side. The guy skating was coming straight toward us and getting some serious air off a ramp. Brian was shooting his fisheye lens and I was going wide angle at 16mm. When we compared our shots, we saw we had shot at the same identical time. I was shooting somewhere around 1/1000th of a second, so the chance of us hitting the shot at the exact same moment is virtually impossible... but we did. My shot only had one problem; none of the actual skate park is in the frame so it wouldn't do to illustrate the story we were trying to shoot. Brian's shows the guy and the park, so his was the shot we needed. I still like mine though, too.

On Assignment: Huntsville, Alabama-Day Three

"Framing the Sky" by Wes Aldridge

The winter time is tough for our photo gigs. Many things hinder good shots for our magazines; brown grass, leaveless trees, bitter coldness, etc. But right now, the thing that really is killing us is the shortness of sunlight. It pains me to watch the sun go down at 4:30 p.m. Ha, but such is life!

Today's shot is from a construction site that Brian and I were doing a dual-protrait of a brother team of land developers. The whole time we were shooting, construction workers were busy at work all around us. When we were packing up after the shoot, I looked up and saw this one guy going back and forth on the building's framework. I was down on the ground and caught this neat angle with the guy stopped on the corner for just a few seconds.

I can't explain exactly what it is, but I really like this shot. It was just another part of that worker's day and he didn't see me take the shot. It seemed as if he was framing up the sky instead of the building at that second.

On Assignment: Huntsville, Alabama-Day Two

"Fire Flutter" by Wes Aldridge

A shot from Huntsville.

Make No Connection

"Power" by Wes Aldridge

Hello?

Is someone in there?

Can you hear me, or see me? Where did everything go?

Where am I? Where have I been?

Was the vacation as good as it seems?

Or are you just staring blankly back at me again?

Lucky Day

"Charms" by Wes Aldridge

So last night we went out for a while, nothing really too wild, but I was feeling good when I got home. I dozed off and started having some strange dream about war-torn Europe in the 1940s. In the movies, it never fails that someone jumps into a bathtub to avoid the blast of a hand grenade.

We had decided last night that we would go to the Titans game today and my friend came over to pick me up. I heard the doorbell ringing like crazy and woke up lying in my bathtub. I guess the dream just seemed so real that the only option was to sleep there. Pretty funny stuff.

Walking down Broadway a guy in a Lexus pulls up and tells us we would want his tickets. We ask him where the seats were for, and he says, "Second row, 45-yard line right behind the Titans bench." I said thanks and bought two for $40. It seemed reasonable, what can I say? Felt like it was my lucky day.

Historical Place

"Clisby Austin House" by Wes Aldridge

I went driving around to find a shot today. I ended up close the namesake train tunnel that gives Tunnel Hill its name. Near there is a historic Civil War battleground where the Battle of Tunnel Hill took place. On the property sits the Clisby Austin House. I have no idea what the signifigence of the place is, but here is a photo near sundown.

Something From Nothing

"Fiery Ace" by Wes Aldridge

So, I didn't get out to find a shot before the sun had already went down. I needed to do something. Ideas, ideas... I needed one. Grab the Turkey, gobble gobble. Ideas began to flow.

I grabbed my favorite deck of playing cards that I got from the Harrah's Casino in New Orleans on my 21st birthday and went to the kitchen. I balanced the card with a small plastic bowl behind it. I turned the lights out. I sat the camera on the counter top with a 20 second exposure at f/22 set to fire on a 10-second auto timer. For the first 4 seconds of the exposure, I "painted" light on the face of the playing card with a flashlight to make the lettering appear in the shot. Next, I grabbed my trusty Bic lighter from my pocket and lit it as I made wavey passes along the edges of the card. for the remaining 16 seconds of the exposure.

This shot had zero alteration or manipulation in Photoshop, other than the expected color level corrections and such that go along with any digital photography.

This one is pretty damn cool considering I did it in the freakin' kitchen with a flashlight. Just trying to keep it interesting in the last days of the blog. Gobble, gobble.

A Time of Thanksgiving

"Street Sounds" by Wes Aldridge

Thanksgiving once again. Plenty of food prepared by my incredible Southern cooking mother. We had enough to feed an army, but it was just the four of us including dad and brother. A nice, simple, quiet Thanksgiving.

I was thankful for much today; my health, my family, my talents, etc. But most of all, I was thankful that my brother didn't want to kick my ass for making him stay out in the cold tonight on a Chattanooga, Tennessee, street doing the photos for the blog. He was a good sport and just played and sang while I adjusted lighting and tried different angles. Well, I really like this one. I enjoy the little things in it like the dead leaves and paper cup in the right corner, as well as the "DO NOT ENTER" sign in the background. It looks really natural and it puts a good memory and story in my mind.

Its wonderful just to be with family. Hope you enjoyed your day as much as I did.

Liberty, Detailed

"The Cloth" by Wes Aldridge

This is a shot I saw tonight of a small, old American flag. I flipped my 50mm lens around to get a macro shot. The grainy detail was the goal.

On Assignment: Huntsville, Alabama-Day One

"Caged Rocket" by Wes Aldridge

Today was strange, yet yielded some good photography. Brian (a fellow employee of the JCI Photography Department) and I drove down to Huntsville to get a few assignments in for the magazine. Its kind of funny, and sad I guess, but both of us are slightyly injured right now. We joked all day long about putting us together and getting a fully physically functioning photographer. We shot at a German restaurant and Brian was standing posed in the frame to help test lighting. I got a great shot of Brian posed up with a dish of food in this awesomely decorated German restaurant. The shot was a classic and he looked really funny, so I thought he would never forgive me if I posted it. So, here is a pretty cool shot instead.

Huntsville is of course heavy into NASA. We were searching for a shot as the sun was setting and we came across this one. Wow. The only thing that was a problem was a chain link fence between me and a really awesome shot. I popped this shot because I liked the idea of the big rocket ship caged in and locked up. Here it is. I, of course, climbed around on this bridge over-looking I-565 to get another angle of this shot without the chained fence. It looks pretty rock and roll, too.

Where ya do ya wanna chaw, now?

"Little Reminders" by Wes Aldridge

When I find myself with a gigantic, mouth-watering wad of chewing tobacco, sometimes I get lost in the bliss of that sweet product and forget all social skills. Yes, I admit it... I have taken it upon myself to spit on both the walls and floors of the establishment that I am in. Thank goodness signs like this one hang amidst lucky horseshoes to remind me that I am no longer a caveman.

Standing There

"Lazy Sunset" by Wes Aldridge

I guess there must be some kind of feeling that comes over one's person when watching a sky that has the drama of a wonderful sunset. I think I just want to take a picture.

Slumbersome

"Green Monster" by Wes Aldridge

There was no room for a lover, but his bedtime story laid beside him all night long and sang a lullaby to soothe his aching head. The whispers of empty bottles clanging like he had never heard before.

Lurking At My Door

"Green Monster" by Wes Aldridge

This is shot of a scary monster that was lurking at my door. The face will terrify you. Trust me.

Helping Hand

"B.McCord" by Wes Aldridge

So Brian here is one of our staff photogs. He unfortunately tore his shoulder out of socket a few weeks back and has been out of commission on the photo front since his corrective surgery. He was shooting an assignment for Tennessee Home & Farm magazine today and needed some help holding lights and hauling/moving equipment around because his arm is not 100% again as of yet. So I needed to give a brother a helping hand on this story about a guy that restores old cemeteries. We were testing light when I took this shot of him. The reflection you see of him is in a rain puddle that gathered on the top of one of the grave monuments that the guy had recently restored. We both ended up shooting some incredible shots for this feature because Brian is defintely not a Bag de la and decided us working together was much better than one person hogging the photo spotlight. So, here he is. I think he had been itching to make the blog anyway for a while. Today, it was natural for him to get there.

Even the Trees

"Dark Tree" by Wes Aldridge

When winter is approaching, even the trees turn dark and cold. It is that time now. Nature is shifting, changing, hiding itself. The shadow of this tree is testament to that.

On Assignment; El Paso, Texas-Day Seven

"Buffalo Soldier" by Wes Aldridge

I stopped to eat a traditional Mexican lunch in an absolute dive-bar style restaurant today... completely authentic in every way. The food was incredible and I absolutely gouged myself on a hearty plateful of tamales, enchiladas, taquitos, rice and beans, and great chips and salsa.

After the meal, I walked outside to the rental car. I had parked next to a cemetery, so of course I wanted to go exploring. It was rundown and old, and very interesting. I walked around a bit and finally I saw this sign. "BUFFALO SOLDIER." I don't know what it means or why it was there, but here is the shot.

And now, my assignments in El Paso are finished. Back in Nashville after a nice flight delay and hellish weather during the flight. I liked El Paso, but seven days was very much enough.

On Assignment; El Paso, Texas-Day Six

"Crack Donalds: The A-Bomb" by Wes Aldridge

I was driving around as the sun was setting, trying frantically to get a shot that the client wanted for the magazine. Well, I didn't get it because of circumstances beyond my control. It is what it is.

I did find a nice scenic perch that allowed me to look out over the eastern side of El Paso. There were lights everywhere, a very interesting site. I wanted to take a shot, but a plain and normal shot just seemed too dry. And then... there it was.

Amid all the blinking, sparkling and glittering lights of the city, I see the Golden Arches. I had this crazy idea about how Crack Donalds was somehow the Anti-Christ of Western civilization, akin to a bomb exploding inside those of us that choose to consume its foul, but delightfully greasy, filth.

So, BOOM! Its pretty tiny, but you can see the Arches going off like an Atom Bomb.

On Assignment; El Paso, Texas-Day Five

Today I finished the non-appointment exterior photography for my El Paso assignment. I found myself on the eastern outskirts of the city. Someone had mentioned an old mission that was in the neighboring city, Socorro. By pure luck, I saw a sign that said "Texas Mission" with a big white arrow on a blue sign pointing ahead of me. I bought the ticket and took the ride. I hunted for the mission and found it. It was serene and beautiful, worthy of a couple of shots.


"Open Door Welcome" by Wes Aldridge


"Mother and Son" by Wes Aldridge


"View to Heaven" by Wes Aldridge

On Assignment; El Paso, Texas-Day Four

"Another TD RUn" by Wes Aldridge

Tonight I shot the University of Texas El Paso Miners football game against the Texas Southern Tigers. The game was an entire blowout, Miners taking their winning season to 8-1 with a 45-0 shutout, knocking the Tigers further down in the rankings to 1-8. The game was overall pretty boring. UTEP just trounced the Tigers all over the field. So, I tried getting creative with my shot. I slowed down my shutter speed to around 1/30th of a second and panned with the action as a UTEP player caught a 30-yard pass and tried to keep his balance.

On Assignment: El Paso, Texas-Day Three

"Space to Ponder" by Wes Aldridge

Today was long. I spent a good bit of the day in Juarez, Mexico. It was an emotional time for me. What I saw opened my eyes to the reality of poverty. Juarez could only be described by me as a slum. I had never witnessed anything like it before. The houses were tiny shacks, thrown together with anything you could think of. The cars were circa 1987, rundown and on the last leg. The people had grief and defeat written across their sun-beaten faces. There were so many things to see... and I wasn't able to take one photograph of the massive tragic reality that surrounded me. I was with a translator and she sped us around to the locations that I had to get photographs of, never stopping in the thick of it all.

I must return there and document the things I see through photography.

This is a self portrait I did while I was shooting close to sundown in the desert. I was enjoying the beautiful landscape and thinking a lot about the things I saw today. I figured I wanted to make this a lasting memory for me. I sat the camera down on some rocks and got the self-timer going. The shot actually turned out in focus and with a pretty nice and even exposure. With sunlight like that, its pretty hard to go wrong.

"Quelli che passa prima che ci rimarremo nella memoria."

On Assignment: El Paso, Texas-Day Two

"Aquatic Grace" by Wes Aldridge

This is a shot from the El Paso zoo. I wanted to capture the aquatic grace of the sea lions. Think I got it.

On Assignment: El Paso, Texas-Day One

"Wild Lights" by Wes Aldridge

I am in El Paso, Texas, right now. A stones throw away from Juarez, Mexico, and right up the road from New Mexico. I thought I would be excited about this one. Now that I am here, I certainly am not. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I am not feeling El Paso. I have only been here for a day so far, maybe I will give it a little more time before I make a judgement on it.

El Paso is massive. I drove around for hours tonight, trying to get a feel for the area and how to navigate it. The map of the area is basically useless because it is about 3-feet wide and the roads are so small a magnifying glass would help greatly in reading it. Too bad I can't hold a magnifying glass while I am driving. The city is pretty compacted, everything seemingly built tightly around or on top of each other.

I had envisioned vast desert landscapes with cactus growing and tumbleweeds bouncing by. That isn't the case thus far. All those landscapes are interrupted by sprawling city buildings and strip malls. I hope I can get some time to find locations that will make for nice scenic shots.

Don't know if I am tired or worn down or just getting burned out, but my last trip to Indy and this one now, just haven't seemed right for some reason. I wonder what that means to me?

Well I am pretty undecided about this one: Is it really cool or just garbage? Ah, who cares. I think this shot is an illustration of my frustration today. It was made with a 30 second exposure at f/22 with an ISO rating of 100. I threw on the 16-35mm wide angle lens and waved, panned and zoomed the camera during the exposure.

Mixing the Mood

"The Berries" by Wes Aldridge

I like how this one is mixing all the different visual elements.

Five O'Clock's Dark

"November Moon" by Wes Aldridge

I was leaving work this afternoon and I had an overwhelming urge inside me to shoot some photos. I had been planning my next two weeks' shoots in El Paso, Texas, and Huntsville, Alabama, so little actual photography was happening today. I need that stuff every day, can't live without hitting the shutter button a couple times a day.

I looked up and the sunset had all but faded away. I noticed the moon... and it was 5 p.m. That is soooo wrong. I mean, winter time is pretty miserable for photographers. With the sunrising at 7 or 8 a.m. and setting between 4 and 5 p.m., that doesn't give much time to get all the many, many assignments photographed that we have. It is pretty frustrating, and I wanted to try and portray that frustration in a photo.

Here we have the 5 p.m. November moon shrouded in empty tree limbs. Think that one shows a little bit of photo reality right now... and it will only get worse before better times roll around in Spring.

This one was shot with my 70-200mm telephoto lens on a tripod at ISO 100 with an extremely long exposure at 25 seconds at f/32. I was pretty impressed at how much the leaves were recognizable in the foreground because I was focused in on a celestial body pretty far away. It even looks as if the moonlight is illuminating the leaves, but that was really me cheating a bit. The leaves were lit by a street lamp overhead, but it sure looks like the moon is doing it.

I like this one, I do. Consider it a clever little photo trick!

Popping In The Sun

"Kettle Corn" by Wes Aldridge

I shot an assignment of a craft show at the Williamson County Agro Expo today. I also got this shot of a girl making a huge pot of kettle corn.

Hot LIghts On Church

"The Hustler" by Wes Aldridge

Well, this is sort of the shot I was trying to get the other night when I witnessed the man get run over by the car. I thought about the irony in the location of the porno store: Its address is on Church Street in Nashville. So, I think that's funny. I wish I could have gotten to this shot about 30 minutes earlier. It would have had a cooler sky, but such is life. It is done now.

Window View

"The Van Gogh Sky" by Wes Aldridge

I was leaving work today and saw the beautiful sunset. The only problem was, I didn't see anything around to shoot with it. I drove by a building and saw the reflection in the windows. There we go. Looks almost like a Van Gogh painting.

Close Your Eyes, Then The Ugly Things Will Go Away

"Conveniently Blind Eye" by Wes Aldridge

Well, this shot has nothing to do with my story I have to tell. But, I couldn't bring myself to the point of taking a photo of it.

I was driving down Church Street, en route to the HUSLTER Hollywood store to shoot some of the neons on the building. About five cars in front of me, I see taillights and slight swerving. The car hit a pedestrian, a dirty homeless man. He bounced to the street and the car didn't even stop to see how he was. This was during rushour. Each car in front of me passed right by the man, who was lying there motionless and bleeding on the sidewalk. It blew my mind. What a bunch of fucking soul-less assholes. I mean, I do some pretty ruff things, but give me a fucking break... this guy just got smacked by a car and they didn't even stop to see if he was alive or not. They didn't stop because he was homeless.

I pulled up to him and slammed into park with my hazard lights flashing. I literally pulled this man out of the street to avoid being hit by any other vehicles. Right as I almost had him on the sidewalk, a lady wearing a nurse's uniform ran up to me and grabbed his legs and helped me. Then, another nurse stopped by. And yet, within another minute, one more nurse showed up. The scene of the accident was only a few blocks from Baptist Hospital, so that explains that. I called 9-1-1 and paramedics, fire truck and police officer all arrived within 10 minutes of the accident. They took care of the homeless, dirty man and rushed him to the ER.

The homeless, dirty man's name was Andrew. I took the time to find that out because I cared to. Tonight, with all the thousands of people in Nashville, Andrew needed only one to stop and help him live. I am proud to say, that was me. And for all of those people that watched and drove on... fuck you, you worthloss dogshit bastards. Recognize the value of human life, no matter how much better you THINK you are than someone else who is less fortunate.

Hunger and Decay

"The Human Form" by Wes Aldridge

I think the shadows on this one give it great depth. You see what seems to be a thinning decay and are still left to wonder who and what it is. The human form is a mysterious thing.