marlene johnson

marlene is 43 and she is suffering from severe arthritis. she moved to columbia five years ago to meet her soul sister and she has lived at paquin for the last four years. she is moving out on monday. she said it is time for her to move on. marlene is a big fan of wwe wrestler john cena. she said she never misses his fights.

gwen ervin

ervin is 65 and he recently moved to paquin tower. he lost his right leg in august 2007. initially the doctors amputated only his toes because they were frost bitten. the leg didn't heal and they had to amputate it over the knee. ervin is from florida and at the time he started having problems with his leg he was living in waynesville, mo. he has no friends or relatives in columbia but he wants to stay and live here.

golf and layers

i've been trying to work on the layering lately. first impressions? it's not easy. but it's fun. this is what i came up with today at the old hawthorne golf club in columbia. mizzou golf players taught some golf lessons to 8th grade and younger kids.

i miss (real) football

yeah, i know people here call it soccer but i don't like to call it like that. this is football 'cause people who play it kick the ball with their feet!!! makes sense, no?
anyway, here this is a sport for women. from where i come from this is a sport for men. i had this interesting conversation today with a friend. i was trying to explain to her that when women play it this sport loses a lot of its beauty. i am not a misogynist pig. i just think that girls are better than guys at some sports and vice versa. she didn't agree with me.

the blue (magenta?) fugue

Another Advanced Techniques assignment. This time it was the gelled flash. I'm not a big fan of flash photography and I definitely am not good at it - the picture bellow is an example - but I have to work my butt hard and learn how to use that tool. It might be useful sometimes.
So The Blue Fugue, downtown Columbia. A band from Nashville, Tennessee. Their music sounded pretty good.
Let there be ROCK!!!

snapping in the rain

Rainy days in CoMo. That was on Monday. Now the sun is shining again. Hurray for that!!!

game/set/match

For some reason I feel like shooting in b&w lately. It will probably go away, but for now, I like my stuff better this way.

BALLS!!!

Second studio assignment for the Advanced Techniques in Photojournalism Class. This time my task was to photograph metal objects. I had some troubles finding an idea. Finally, I decided to take the chance and play with some steel spheres. Challenging, risky and fun. A lot of fun! The idea is not 100 % original. I browsed a lot of stock photography sites before going into the studio and my picture is the combination between two images I saw on the internet. One of them was a photograph of iron spheres arranged like pool balls, the other was a 3D rendered sphere on a checkered surface. I tried to reproduce the 3d rendered sphere in the studio, and I added a few other balls. I couldn't find big spheres so I had to use a macro lens. That's why the depth of field is so shallow.





Camera: Nikon D2Hs
Lens: Nikkor 60 mm Micro
ISO: 200
Shutter Speed: 1/250s
Aperture: f/36

splash!

I finally got the chance to go through my outtakes from the Missouri Swimming Grand Prix. I went there hoping to get some great shots, but it didn't turn out that way. Nevertheless it was a very interesting experience. And a very humid one.
First some b&w selects...

And...splash!

And here's the color...

Classmate Portrait Assignment

First studio assignment in the Advanced Techniques in Photojournalism class. Chelsea was my partner for this assignment. Hard task. She's a great person but not many people get to see that. That's why I chose to focus on her eyes. If you spend time looking at her eyes you'll see subtle changes in them and those changes can tell you something about the way she feels. I think that's the way to look at Chelsea. Through her eyes.



And here's how I did it.

Art...or something

John and I went to the studio last night. What a great way to spend a Tuesday evening! I tried to get aquainted with the lights and work on some ideas. My buddy John is a terrific model!!! Look below.

Columbia Regional Airport

I shot this a couple of weeks ago. The passenger flights will be stopped in April.

Obama Watch Party

There were several watch parties in CoMo yesterday evening. Very few people attended.

His wife was the "First Lady". What would he be called if Hillary wins?

I don't think I did a great job. I tried though.

high school swimming contest

There was a swimming contest at Hickman High School's pool, on Saturday.









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spring days in january

Columbia, Mo, was blessed with three unusually warm days at the beginning of this year. I went out to photograph some people having fun outside.