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Tim Tadder

I found this photographer recently through a friend. One of my good friends, Brad, sent me a link to this guy's website and I absolutely loved his work from the start. He's working out of San Diego. Turns out my friend Brad is actually working for him in his studio, just an extra hand around the place, setting up lights, etc. I'm extremely jealous, because Brad is trained as a Graphic Designer, but landed this killer job through his sister. I'm in total envy. He's where I want to work, and working for a photographer doing the exact work I want to do. I really want to shot sports, underwater photography, etc. But I'd also like to do commercial photography, such as portraits, like Tim's. The thing I like about them is the editing, and the subject matter. He gets to interact with professional athletes and come up with some really amazing photographs, they're so sharp, colorful, his sense of lighting is also really nice, which is very important because light is photography, obviously. Its hard to tell how he does some of his photographs, for example, a woman running out of the water with goggles on. I'm not sure how the lighting was done with that, definitely a strobe light, but how did they get the light so close and the fill is confusing to me too. Probably a pretty simple concept, i'm just over-thinking because of the proximity to water. I think I could come up with some results like that, with the editing and the lighting, just need more time to experiment in the studio by myself. Overall, Tim Tadder's photographs just really appeal to me, they look immaculate, but also bright and exciting in the imagery. Again, the lighting is really important to me, in some of the photos its more obvious than others, but I really like what he's doing with the quality of light and its design. Just by looking at his photographs, I start to pick apart different aspects, like the direction its coming from, what he may be using with the strobe (soft box, grid, foam core, reflector). Sometimes to get a great photo, all you need is a main light (strobe or natural light), and a big piece of foam core to bounce back some light to soften the shadows. I think thats about all I have at the moment, at first look, but I learn more and more just glancing through is photographs. Not to mention, i'm going to pick my friends brain so I can learn more. If I can get some money together, I may even try and visit San Diego, go hang out with my boy Brad for a week or so and go meet up with Tim Tadder, check out his studio and introduce myself. It'd be a great way to get myself out there. I really respect his work, and he's exactly where I want to be when I establish myself as a professional, perfect location, great photographs.

www.timtadder.com

Nascar, Its Not So Bad

Sorry for the delay of postings, but my schedules been pretty hectic, with the end of the semester and other photography jobs I have outside of school. To mention one, over this weekend, I had the opportunity to shoot for Associated Press covering the two races that took place at Richmond International Raceway. At first, I was excited about the job, but have never been a nascar fan at all, never watched it, the sport just never interested me, it was just a bunch of rednecks watching a car go around a racetrack. I mean, thats what it is, but being able to experience my first race from that kind of perspective really changes my opinion. I got to walk right up to all the big name racecar drivers, I had a great spot to photograph the event, it was really a lot of fun, eventhough the hours were really long. Both nights, I didn't get out of the event until 1:30 in the morning, the traffic was absolutely horrible. There was 100 thousand fans at this event, well, the Nascar race at least. But all in all, it was a lot of fun, watching the cars speed past me at close to 200 MPH, i've never seen anything like it, and got some really good photos in the process. Besides that, I really can't add anything deep feelings about the race, because I still am really distanced from the sport, I know nothing about it, couldn't name any racers or their sponsors, unless it was part of my assignment. Only racers I know are Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr., because i was told to follow them around half of the day. Only other thing I can add, if its a night race and you're looking for crisp shots, shoot at 1000 ISO, aperture of 2.8 and shutter speed of 320. White Balance varies on the camera, for one of them I was shooting at around 5500 degree kelvin, when but with another, i had to compensate a little bit because the color balance was a little off. Just make sure you pan with the cars, or everything you take will be blurry, and watch cars that are riding close together, changes are, there will be a wreck, just keep your eyes open and your ears shut (earplugs are a lifesaver!)

Grunt Work

I'm taking the opportunity to reflect on the experience of preparing the gallery today. I will say, it was definitely a lot more difficult and more work than any of us had anticipated. I thought it was just going to be walking in there, patch up a few holes, paint, and we'd be out of there. Boy, do i wish it would've been that easy. Walking in there, we realized that there was this huge mural(size of a whole wall), constructed of paint and lots of paper that was stuck with wheat paste (basically wallpaper). So we had to strip all that off, sand the walls to be smooth, put on multiple primer coats, THEN PAINT! It was definitely not what I had anticipated, and I was real exhausted by the end of the day. But I did show up 12 on the dot, and work to do as much as I possibly could to get everything prepared for tomorrow. The way I see it, the work absolutely had to be done today, so we could walk in and just hang work, no stress, just take the time to lay everything out nicely and not have to be pushed for time. Unfortunately, there weren't a whole lot of people who actually showed up, i am glad some did though. The majority of the people only stayed 1 to 1 1/2 hours at a time, which is fine, I understand that everyone has a busy schedule and the end of the semester. But i honestly, stayed the whole damn day, 12 to 6, which isn't what I was hoping to do, but i'm a work horse, everything got taken care of, lets have some fun at the show. I'm really looking forward to be able to hang out and look at people's work, goof around a little bit and just drink a few beers. I want to enjoy the outing as one of the last times to really hang out with this graduating class. We might as well have a good time while we still can, I honestly don't know who and when the next time i'll see them after this.

Panel Meetings

I wanted to write a few sentences just to respond to today's meetings with the panel members. First of all, I wish it wasn't raining this morning, i didn't want to walk in the rain with my portfolio, etc. What a pain in the butt. Anyways, it seemed like everyone was kind of anxious/nervous, I've been really confident with my sports photography lately, so I went into the meeting very comfortably and just had casual conversation with all the panel members, not that we didn't talk about my work, but i'm glad it wasn't a nerve-wrecking situation. Scott Elmsquist was a really nice guy, he gave me some good feedback on a number of photos and was really pleased with the overall quality of my shots, minus some prints that turned out poorly, but the composition and photo itself he enjoyed. I feel that both of the panel members real pleased that I knew exactly what I wanted to do after graduation and how to get there. Kimberly Frost was also really nice and down to earth, making it easy to talk to her about my work, we also had similar interests and ideas. Instead of looking at individual photos and talking about them, she just flipped through and then started to talk. She was really happy with the quality of work that I had in my photos, the only thing she said I needed to work on was advertising myself. I've already worked on a corporate identity, i have a logo and business card, I'd just like to work on them a little more. Plus I need a letterhead to put on invoices in the future.

In conclusion, I was really pleased with the individuals I met with today, everything went really smoothly and they were nice and easy to communicate ideas with. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a mock interview or what, either way, because i'm really passionate and fascinated with the genre of photography that I'm shooting, it made it really easy to talk about.

Swift Creek

This weekend was a perfect chance to get out and do some shooting. I drove all the way out to Swift Creek aka. the middle of nowhere, but once I got out there, it was like youth lacrosse heaven. They had somewhere around 10 different teams playing on Saturday, lots of different ages, teams from different locations, it really turned out to be a lot of fun, and the kids loved the camera. There was one team I've been following around a little bit, Swift Creek Miners, which are actually a really talented bunch of kids, the kicked some ass over the weekend. Most of them recognized me from their last shoot, so they were real comfortable in front of the camera, i got to talk with them, joke around a little bit. Its always nice to just b.s. with kids about the sport and just have some fun while i'm shooting, it was a good time all around. The coaches are all down to earth and appreciate all the photos I'm taking, they let me get in there, wherever i want, works out really good, I'll just hook them up with some photos. They have more games this weekend, only they're in Nags Head, so I won't be able to get to those games, but I'd love to.

At the moment, I'm still looking through all the photos, workflow, etc. I will have them posted up tomorrow, but as for now, I'm still in the process of weeding out the good and the bad, which takes a long time when you're shooting a couple thousand photos a day. None of these will be done by the senior show, but they'll definitely be in the final critique. Besides that, can't say theres much more to say, I'm just gonna keep shooting. If i get the chance, I may try and make it out that way again this upcoming weekend, so I can get a few more good photos before the end of the school year, just want to help my chances as much as possible. Plus, I've been getting a good tan and having a great time meeting new people and shooting sports, its what I live for.

Lacrosse over the weekend

I went back to Charlottesville to see some family and attend a lacrosse game (UVA vs. Duke). The game didn't turn out how I wanted, but overall it was a great experience. We wound up going with a good crowd, which always helps. We showed up early, about 3 hours before the game, so I had plenty of time to walk around and shoot photos of the tailgating, i was trying to capture the culture around the game, eventhough I missed some of shots I wanted, like the huge crowd walking into the game. I did get some great shots of these two brothers playing lacrosse in the parking lot, and another kid playing goalkeeper, while tailgating with his family. I haven't had the chance to download and look through the photos yet, but I think I came up with some good ones. I also shot a team photo of a youth team from Chesterfield, I saw them warming up prior to the game, turns out, they were playing a small match during halftime, got to talking with the coach, and i'm going to photo game some of their games over next weekend. So I did make some good contacts, so I plan to get some good photos before the end of the semester. I got a few photos of the action from the game, but I wasn't really trying to concentrate on that this time, plus I didn't have the equipment to come up with quality photos, so I focused more on the crowd around the game, etc. Now that I think of it, I probably should've moved around a lot more, but anytime the game is going, i tend to stand still so I can follow the action. But i really should've climbed the top of the bleachers and gotten a shot of the crowd all over the field, it would've made a good one. I hope to download these photos tonight, while i'm stuck in Charlottesville for another night, i'll try and look through them and narrow down some photos to post along with the blog entry. They should be posted tomorrow after my meeting with Paul.