"Beach Cig" by Wes Aldridge
Today begins the first day of my official summer beach vacation. Thank God for beer and family, in no particular order of course. The four of us, mom, dad and bro, piled in the Grand Cherokee and headed for Myrtle Beach, S.C., for a week of relaxation.
Anyway, the gangster-pimp looking fellow above is my brother, Whit. After messing around with sparklers and fireworks at night on the beach, I decided to go with this shot of him lighting a cigarette. So, now the blog is finished for the night and the fun shall continue.
"TV Man" by Wes Aldridge
Bigger fish to fry. Wisconsin good. TV good. Talk to ya later, G.
"Dells Diver" by Wes Aldridge
Today I visited a place called Dells of the Eau Claire. It was a rock-filled section of the Eau Claire River, just outside of Wausau, Wisconsin. It was very, very interesting. I was able to walk all across the river on these rock formations, and that was pretty awesome.
Anyway, meet Ryan. He is the gentleman diving into the swirling waters of the Eau Claire. What a brave fellow. I wish that could have been me, but alas, I was pushing the shutter button. And, the fine young lady standing above him is Minttu. Yes, that is Minttu. She is from Finland. I would love to go to Finland. Oh well, maybe that is where my photographic expeditions will take me some day.
My general synopsis is this: Wausau is a good place. Things to see and places to go. And above all, it welcomed me here. I felt at home. It has been good.
"Cars, Cars, Cars" by Wes Aldridge
The farewell to Detroit Rock City. I leave you with the General Motors building. Pretty, right? Sure thing.
"Spirit of Detroit" by Wes Aldridge
What an absolutely miserable day for seasonal photography. No sunlight and gray skies. To a photographer on a seasonal assignment, a day without sunshine is like a day without... you can make it through, but man, it ain't pretty. Needless to say I didn't capture a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph today.
Anyway, I did get this image tonight... and I like it! It was raining and windy and many homeless people begged me for money (I felt kinda bad because all I had was a credit card). I was in downtown--you guessed it--Detroit trying to get a shot of the suspended Joe Louis boxing fist sculpture. It didn't exactly work out due to the fist being completely black and not lit with flood lighting at night (sorry Coach, didn't mean to let you down). I walked the streets for a little while and came across this beauty. It is a statue titled "Spirit of Detroit" and it was wearing a Pistons jersey. I saw it on television during the NBA Finals and it was pretty memorable, unlike the Finals itself. It was purely by luck that I saw it tonight. Glad I did.
I think I got this exposure dead on the money. I have the shadows natural in the frame with the tungsten tint from the flood lamp illuminating the statue. But I also metered in a little fill flash that brought the image to life. ISO was set to 200 to get the proper f/stop and shutter speed combination, all shot on a tripod of course.
"Perfect Alley" by Wes Aldridge
Oddly enough, this is the 3rd time that Carter has appeared as a subject on the blog. I must admit, this is one of my favorite places to shoot portraits in Nashville. This alleyway is amazing. Lights hang directly above the alley and make shafts of light that come down. The mood of the light there is incredible. I foresee many shots of bands, singers, musicians, etc., being shot in this alley.
Want to know where this little piece of heaven is?
I'll never tell...
"Lit" by Wes Aldridge
Sometimes I will snap a frame off for the heck of it, with no purpose or intention for it in my mind. There was no reason for it, it held no defined purpose. It was just a moment in time. A slice of life, and it became worth everything to me. And every once in a while I will just fall in love with something like it. That's what happened with this shot. It was real and I didn't even catch her name.
This was shot with my 50mm at f/1.8 to give it that awesome depth of field. No lights, tripod, reflectors or any of that other crap. It was raw.
"Action JaxN" by Wes Aldridge
Another portrait I shot in an empty theatre of one of my best friends in Atlanta, Blake. We have known each other for many years and played in many bands together. A very good drummer, drinking buddy and overall a stellar comrade. We have been through the thick of it all, came out alive, and not with too many broken bones or spirits. We made that strange connection, that Bonnie and Clyde-do-or-die, stroke-it-to-the-end-and-let-it-roll kind of a moment. That's what we've got. And all you out there, may never find that! Ha, we are true ruffs in the broadest sense of the word.
And, here he is in all his beauty. Aviators and a strange pink coat. That is the way we will go out of this world one day too, boy-O. Strange and hard, no fear and kill the regrets. Turn off the lights and set the table, cause daddy is coming to dinner soon. Grrr...
"The Drummer" by Wes Aldridge
This is a portrait of Andres Garban, drummer for Nashville rock band Thaxton Ward, at Mercy Lounge. At most Thaxton Ward shows that I shoot, I never get many shots of Andres because he is always stuck in the back of the stage and the lighting is usually terrible. Well, amigo, I felt like you got left out a few times, so you made the blog.
I love this shot. It is one of my favorite music photos. A simple portrait. I don't want to tell you the shot settings and light set up because I think it would take away from the composition and mood of the photograph. Let's let it be my little secret.
"Face of Fear" by Wes Aldridge
I shot this because it worked at this particular moment in time. I was searching for a "secret garden" at the James K. Polk house in Columbia, Tennessee. I found it. These old marble statues stood in the garden with plants growing all around them. There was something mysterious to it all.
The way the shadows fell over this statue's face was almost haunting. The damage the weather had done to it added an even more chilling effect. I thought it was cool. I like to find fear inside myself about things that are unknown.
"La Chihuahua" by Wes Aldridge
Everyone, meet Chongo. He made an appearance at the studio to help do a product shot of some locally manufactured doggie treats. Chongo is the 6-year old Chihuahua of one of my fellow staff photographers, Brian.
The dog really rocked and was pretty cooperative with the shoot, after we went through the proper channels talking to his manager. Chongo was pretty demanding during the shoot. He wanted 75 green M&M's in his doggie bowl, which was trimmed in gold. That was a pretty standard request from most of our clientele, so we had plenty of greens around. He wanted the four latest issues of PAW, a pretty risque skin-mag in the canine world that had a Lassie centerfold. We sent the intern out for those while we were setting up the lights. The most demanding request he had was for a bottle of Opus One Mondavi, a fine merlot from California in the Sanoma Valley. At $220 per bottle, that was a little difficult to find and it stretched our budget for the shoot a little farther than we had planned.
But, as this shot shows, Chongo was a happy camper and so were we to see this cute little doggie and the bag of treats looking good in this shot.
"Clean" by Wes Aldridge
The Village Cleaners in neon.
"Parking is Tough" by Wes Aldridge
Its not every day that you see a car wrapped around a railroad crossing sign. I did.
"Downtown Hero" by Wes Aldridge
This is a civil war memorial statue in the historic downtown area of Dalton, Georgia, from where I hail. I had seen it a million times, but thought I should shoot it this time. Click, click, snap... captured. The sky helped it out a good bit. I enjoy the silhouette of something against a dramatic sky. Those shots just turn out so strong.
"Windmill" by Wes Aldridge
I am spending the weekend in Dalton, Georgia, visiting my family on Father's Day. I needed a shot, and my parents wanted to go along for the hunt. I told them, get in... lets go! We seemed to have searched one side of Whitfield County to the other. I wanted a windmill shot, and by luck I found one tonight.
"Religious Note" by Wes Aldridge
Well, it doesn't get much better than this one. I think this is one of the best of the blog so far. Hope you enjoy.
"Ringer or a Leaner?" by Wes Aldridge
Now, not everyone will be able to grasp the beauty of what is going on in this shot. If you didn't grow up in a rural area and have family get-togethers that involved Coors Light, badass country cookin' and a game of horseshoes, you really don't have a point of reference for this.
The game of horseshoes involves people "pitching" literal metal horseshoes at metal stakes in the ground from about 20-feet away. The idea is to get the horseshoe to land with the stake in the center of the "U" and make a ringing sound when metal strikes metal... resulting in a "ringer." Another way to score is to throw your horseshoe and it leans against the stake... resulting in a "leaner." That is the general idea of the game. Oh, almost forgot... you also need to toss back a couple of cold ones.
Ah, the memories of childhood. I would watch the adults play horseshoes and have fun at Lake Kathy while Grandma Jean and her army of country cooks made the meal for the evening for at least 30 of us. My brother and cousins and I would play with Star Wars figures in the dirt or skip rocks off the broken old dock when we weren't fishin'. We even played with Micro Machines' cars, or as Aunt Corrine screamed while blood squirted out of my brother's forehead once... "Those little things!" (Sorry the handle broke on that toolbox and it smacked ya in the head bro.)
I loved growing up a poor country kid. I didn't go to Debutante Balls or play cricket or watch while my parents pranced around like yutzees at a cocktail party. My parents worked long, hard hours at jobs where deskwork wasn't a key ingredient... they still do. Then after work, they would always take us to our baseball or football practice, even if we were a couple of minutes late. They were selfless, and gave everything they had to us, even when they were too tired to move. Maybe that's where I get my drive.
We did things like watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on Christmas Day while mom cooked an amazing country breakfast. Dad's voice always shook a little, because he meant what he was saying, as he got emotional saying the "blessing" before we would eat Thanksgiving dinner. And Whit and I would always get up early with bed-head and morning breath to eat Cap'N Crunch cereal and watch Saturday morning cartoons.
It was important for me to shoot this shot of that redneck old codger playing horseshoes. These memories are some of the reasons why. It has a lot to do with a person being a product of where you came from, and changing, but never forgetting where everything started.
Ah, now that was refreshing.
"City Limits" by Wes Aldridge
What do you find in Sikeston, Missouri? Cornfields, lots and lots of... cornfields. I was running around with my camera hunting seasonal shots and found myself on the outskirts of the city. I turned around and saw this city limits sign and thought it was priceless. It told the story of where I was on assignment, pretty much summed it all up with one photograph.
The city name "SIKESTON" reads proudly across the center, scarred with a dozen or so bullet holes. I think that told the demographics story of the area. The population was at 16,992, but seemed to have changed because it was a sticker stuck on top of another number. In the background you see the cornfields with an irrigation machine there as well. This is Sikeston. These are the things that make this city. I think I kinda love it, well, let's not go that far. It is neat in its own strange little way.
"Fast Delivery" by Wes Aldridge
I was walking around the Village tonight and thought I would do some motion photography. I thought shooting a pizza delivery person going on a run would look pretty neat. I was in front of Sam's Place and got some great streaking lights in the background while I panned my camera shooting the moving car.
My ISO was set pretty high at 400 and I used a 1/8 of a second exposure at f/3.5 to get a good long exposure to show the movement.
"No Hope For Me" by Wes Aldridge
Tonight it got bad. I woke up from a little resting and just had to shoot. I decided to go buy some fruits and vegetables at Krogers and thought, what the hell, I'll get the blog shot in the supermarket.
I wasn't even able to go to the grocery store without shooting some photos. I am addicted. There is no cure for me. It must be a sad sickness cause I don't want to remedy this disease.
I guess I am blessed.
