"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.
"The Quickness" by Wes Aldridge
"The Intensity" by Wes Aldridge
Tonight was a rather splendid night for photography. Meet my new friend Matt. He is interested in two things: shooting photos and learning more about shooting photos. We share these two things in common. One thing that we don't have in common is his talent in the martial arts. I wanted to do a portrait of him that captured his intensity and showed his ability.
I wanted to do some really moody light set-ups. I think they worked. I don't even want to get into the technical aspects of the these shots becuase that would require more of an attention span than I have at this time. I pretty much impressed myself with these.
Only two more days.
"Jukin' Tonight" by Wes Aldridge
"The Regular" by Wes Aldridge
Go ahead, say and think what you like, but tonight was a photographic work of art. We waited until late to hunt for the shot and in all honesty I was worried that I wouldn't get anything worth shit. I just had this gut feeling that I can't explain. I was wrong.
Earlier in the evening I went to Kroger on 8th. On the drive there, I passed the old shopping center where the Sutler and Melrose Lanes recently closed. I noticed there was still a strip of neon lights around one of the doors that said "BILLIARDS" above it. My curiousity started pulling at me.
I got back home a little later and time came to find the shot. We ended up at Melrose Billiards, and to our surprise, yes, it is still open (and will be forever we were politely assured by the bartender Tracy). Jeff, who I dubbed a "regular" took a minute to sit at one of the amazingly lit tables and have a cigarette to let us whet our photographic appetites. We appreciate you guys letting us photograph your beautiful piece of Nashville history while you were closing down for the night. It was a classic scene that I feel very lucky to have re-discovered tonight.
And by all means, stop by Melrose Billiards and grab a pitcher and a table and make good use of one of Nashville's hidden gems.
"The Hunter" by Wes Aldridge
Today concluded my shoot for the Southeast Resource magazine. I hit up some exteriors that were left lingering after the shoot last week. This shot is from the Hunter Museum of Art. It is a very photogenic building and the sun was out and wah-lah.
"My Boy Georgie" by Wes Aldridge
I was in downtown Chattanooga in the art district when I saw this little gem. It is by no means photographic genius, but it is a swell find. I don't know if our Republican visitors to "Mind of the Photographer" would agree or not. I guess you can draw what you want from this shot, it draws a gut-laugh from me.
Now, lets be serious for a moment. This is December 26th. "Mind of the Photographer" started on New Years Eve last year and I wanted to post a photo a day for a year. That goal is almost complete and it feels great. Only five more posts! Yeah! And the last post should be pretty good. I've been thinking about it for a while and we will spend a bit this week preparing for it.
"Nativity" by Wes Aldridge
Another Christmas has come to an end. And here is the final piece of Chrix-Mix for you. I found a creepily lit nativity scene at a Hispanic church buried deep inside the suburbia that is Dalton, Georgia.
Now, lets toast a drink to another holiday served well.
"Xmas Eve" by Wes Aldridge
Fun photo, right? I know. The half eaten cookies in front of the Christmas tree and the lipstick to tell the story on the glass. Santa just might get pissed, that fat bastard! Long live Mr. Claus! And, damnnit, where is the hot little vixen that ate all the cookies and left her lipstick on the milk. Santa, if you would, please leave her in my stocking for me.
Anyway, as usual, another wonderful Christmas unfolding with my family. I have a great family. We may not have as much as everyone else, but I would put our love and joy together up against anything. Tonight, as a part of family tradition, we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We do this every year, and it never gets old... actually I think it gets funnier. If you could only sit and watch my father gut-laugh at every scene that rolls by. Of course we all know what will happen next in the film, but dad still laughs to the point that he begins to cough. It is a total riot.
This is the scene each year with our little country Georgia Christmas. Its a beautiful time. We rush around to wrap gifts without the family recipient around to see it. We laugh, we get frustrated, we love each other.
"Ornamental Delight" by Wes Aldridge
Tonight, there was a search for a piece of Christmas. I wanted to find one, mind you, not one in a traditional sense. Well, in my own humble opinion, I think I hit the mother load. A merry group of shooters were romping around a mall and we wondered into a store that boasted of being very "metrosexual." This was the ticket, I knew it. We had walked around the mall for an eternity and I found nothing to shoot.
I looked to the far side of the store and saw a half-size pink Christmas tree with a spotlight on it. I instantly felt blessed. I walked toward it and when I got closer I noticed the strange little ornaments that adorned it. Yup, it was a gay Christmas tree. I am sure some people find it ironic and offensive on many levels, but it was perfect to me. I focused in on a little mer-man figurine. He had on the cool shades with his hand cocked on his hip with attitude. Even his little mer-man tail was crooked and stereotypical of, well, you know. This little ornament could only have been better if it had a comb-over mohawk to boot. I took two frames and it was finished. I had captured a little different kind of piece of Christmas tonight and I was very merry.
"A Capital Christmas" by Wes Aldridge
I wanted to capture a little bit of Christmas time in the city this afternoon. I headed down to the state capital building because I knew the giant tree there would be illuminated. I decided to show the busy street in the shot, you know, the feeling of the hustle and bustle of Christmas. I set-up the tripod as low as it would go and took a seat on the ass-freezing sidewalk to frame up the shot. There are three layers in this shot in my eyes. The first layer is the fire hydrant in the foreground. To me, this is the most important layer of the photograph because it gives depth to the second layer. The second layer is made from the streaking headlights and tailights of passing consumer vehicles and the also from the interior lights of a MTA passenger bus going by in the lane closest to me. The hydrant becomes 3-D with those lights being broken and shielded from the lens as the automobiles passed behind it. And, of course, the third layer of the tree, capital building, sky, etc. makes up the background.
To get the great light streaks from the passing cars and the overall warm tint of the shot, the exposure was at 5 seconds to let tons of ambient light drench the image. I was also shooting really wide-angled at 16mm at ISO 100 at f/18 to get a massive depth of field. I think that near infinite DOF is important in this shot because it makes the layers blend together into one.
"Mr. Campbell" by Wes Aldridge
All things considered, tonight was pretty good. A new photog friend wanted to go out and shoot. We headed downtown and decided to try and help-out society. There are always homeless folks sleeping on some heating vents down by the Ryman Auditorium on 4th Ave., so we went to Tigermarket and bought sandwiches, bottled water, fruit and coffee to take to them. When we got to the "usual" spot, much to my surprise, no one was there. We literally drove around downtown Nashville for more than two hours trying to find people in need of the goods we had to offer. It was unbelievably difficult to give away free food and drinks tonight. After giving out a couple of items to a pair of men, we headed to Hillsboro Village to meet some friends.
We parked and saw a gentleman that looked as if he could use a warm drink and something good to eat. We offered, but he kindly denied the help and said he had some food and he would be OK. He told us two of his friends were over at the Acklen post office and they needed food more than he did. I thought that was true human compassion exemplified by him. He obviously didn't have one of the loft apartments above the Pancake Pantry and doubt his Porsche was in the shop tonigh. But none the less, he told us to take the food to his good friends.
This is where we met Mr. Campbell, or Scotty, if you will. He was a hoot. Some might say it was from the beer on his breath, but he seemed to have a pretty happy outlook on life. He laughed, chatted, sipped his beer... and we all just talked and talked. He did say that he was "houseless," rather than what most people would consider "homeless." I think I undestood what he meant by that. A house is a structure a person dwells in, but a home is where the heart stays. I think Scotty's heart stayed with him, no matter how tough things got.
This shot really ironically worked out very well tonight. Scotty said that he had worked for the Postal Service in the past. Tonight, he was seeking warm shelter in a post office. His photo turned into what I consider a perfect, true environmental portrait of Mr. Campbell. I love the position of his body in the frame and the post office kiosk behind him blurred out from shooting the 50mm at f/1.8. But really, the thing I love the most about it is his smile from having a good time talking to a couple of new young photographer friends and knowing that he had something to put in his stomach for a day or two besides a 40-ounce IceHouse beer.
"The Coming Touch" by Wes Aldridge
This was an interesting surprise. I hit the intersection of Ellliston Place and 22nd Ave. and saw Michelangelo's Pizza. On the wall, you guessed it, a painting of Michelangelo's "The Creation" from the roof of the Sistine Chapel. This shot isn't a photographic masterpiece by any means, but I found the subject matter pretty odd for Nashville. I had walked around downtown for a few hours and was terribly uninspired to shoot anything. I tried hard but gave up after I really couldn't feel my icy feet anymore. On the way back to the house, I saw my shot. This one was much more about the hunt than the actual photograph.
"The Watcher" by Wes Aldridge
Eyes were tired, bloodshot. Needed to be rested.
"Old No. 7" by Wes Aldridge
I wanted to capture the distorted essence of qn everyday item tonight. Naturally, I turned to Old No. 7 and found the answer to the present pressing issue.
For this shot I of course took my 50mm lens and flipped it backwards for a reverse mount. I love the extreme blur effect. It is way out there and right up my alley.
"The Rhythm" by Wes Aldridge
Its much more fun to capture the motion of the drummer rather than just a still image. Its as if you can feel the energy and see the sound.
"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.
"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.
"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?
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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?
"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.
"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.
"Fire Flutter" by Wes Aldridge
A shot from Huntsville.
"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?
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
