Feel Good Day

Today I had the opportunity to feel like a dad is supposed to. I got to work with my two boys (Jacob & Liam), helping them build something of their own.
I can't fully express how good it felt to be able to share knowledge that was shared with me at this young age. These are lessons that they can use no matter where life takes them, and I hope they do.
My childhood was full of learning moments like these. I have to admit that I am saddened sometimes that I haven't recreated that for them, but, I am not sure I really want to. I don't want the things I learned growing up to be so foreign to them that they have  zero understanding of them and/or think of them as invalid. But, I also learned a lot of those things out of necessity, and those specific necessities are something that I want to avoid for my family.
Going back to the beginning of this post; I stated that "Today I had the opportunity to feel like a dad is supposed to." I say this because so often I dont feel like that. I come home from my job, I see my kids for a couple hours before they need to be in bed. During that time we have dinner, finish homework if needed, read some stories, and get ready for bed. Hardly enough time to leave my mark on their lives. Weekends are better because of the extended time we can share as a family, but I must admit, often I am spent by the time the weekend gets to us and a lot of that weekend can be used by me as a reset button for the next week.
The boys' projects this weekend helped me to see how important this time is for them, and that is all the reset I need. I look forward to many more projects in the garage:-)
Thanks for reading.

Wow What a Year

I know, I have been terrible with this blog. But, in my defense, this has been one crazy year. My family moved to a place with a larger yard for our kiddos, and they now have room to be kids. My position at Amazon has changed a couple times. I am now a manager at my studio and therefore no longer doing any imaging at work myself. I gues that means i should change the ad on the right to say "something my studio imaged this week" or something like that.:-) I remain confident that even though I no longer use a camera every day that there is a place in this world for images that i have created or brought to light. I will continue posting images that are taken with my camera on my phone as this is a very practical way to share my world with others.

I feel the hardest part of continuing this blog is now complete with a new start. Thank you for reading.

New Idea, or Been Done Before?

So I was thinking about this blog and what I would like to do with it. Particularly, how can I incorporate video in a relevant fashion. This train of thought started at the realization that video is the future of product photography, and therefore I need to gain experience in this medium in order to remain relevant in my field. As it is with still photography, the best way to learn to image something with video is to play and have fun with it. My problem was that I love still photography and haven't wanted to jump off and start making complicated videos. My photography is generally simple and clean, relying on composition & color to provide interest. In my mind this didn't translate well into video. I like composing my work to rely on these basic elements, which lead me to ask myself; What is a basic element video offers that stills don't? The answer is of course; movement. So now I have this awesome idea in my head about how I can have very short videos that have the look and feel of a still photograph, but with a single element of movement. The first subject idea I had was a close up of a vintage doorknob (something I could see myself shooting anyway). The frame is completely still for 2 or 3 seconds, and then the knob starts turning. That is it, nothing else. What do you think?

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