"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.
"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.
