Weezer at the Del Mar Racetrack

Saturday, August 21 was not your ordinary day at the races in Del Mar. The horses put on quite a performance but it was followed by an incredible show by Weezer. Rivers was all over the stage and at several points he actually took off with the wireless mic into the crowd. He even ran back stage for the lucky peeps with special passes and jumped up on the row of porta-poties since there was not a stage back there. I have never had so much fun shooting a concert. It amazes me how I got hooked on Weezers music in High school back in 1994 and they are still adding more high school kids to their fan base today. Be sure to check out Karl’s corner on the Weezer web page for more photos. Enjoy the photos!

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

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5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

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5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

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5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

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5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

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5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

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5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Size

5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

Haiti Project

In September I will be taking a trip to Haiti in support of Daybreak Missions and World Orphans. Shortly after the Earthquak hit Haiti, Daybreak Church felt lead to adopt a church in Haiti and provide financial, spiritual and physical support. Through the help of an organization called World Orphans, Daybreak has been connected to a church in Port-au-Prince that supports and operates a local orphanage and is actively helping the local community recover from the disaster. Generation Church is also partnering with Daybreak with this outreach and I will be traveling with the Senior Pastors from both churches to make the introduction and to pave the way for future volunteer groups. My assignment will be to capture their story visually, through photos and videos, to bring back to the congregations and supporters at home that have made this outreach possible.

I am very excited to volunteer for this assignment and I am hoping to get more people involved, which is where you come in. My goal is to raise $1400 for the project and I only have a few weeks to do it. As part of my fundraising efforts you can purchase some of my photographic prints from my last trip to Kenya. I have compiled a series of 12 prints that you can find on this page with an option of 3 different sizes. A lot of people have bake sales to raise support but…trust me… you would rather have one of my photos than one of my cookies.

Each print is printed on archival photographic paper and every print comes with access to online viewing galleries of photos and video’s that I will bring back from Haiti. Thanks for your support!

Walking Home

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Family

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Baby Elephant

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Cheerful Heart

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Kibera Boy

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Champagne Plains

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Herdsman, Satellite Dish and Coke

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Passing Through

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Eeny Meenie Miny Moe

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Lone Elephant

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Picha

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Stare of a King

5×7 $25.00 8×10 $50.00 16×20 $100.00

Jeff Daniels

Last week I had the opportunity of shooting an interview with Actor, Jeff Daniels as part of NAMM’s Wanna Play Music campaign. Jeff is best known for his acting but said that it all began with his interest in songwriting and playing guitar.

At one point in the interview Jeff said “Songs are stories and they have the ability to capture a single moment in time and the whole song spins around that one moment.” He added “Music has the ability to become your best friend and it is always there when you need it, in bad times and in the good times. You also find out about yourself through music. When you dive into music it takes you on a personal journey that discovers things that you wouldn’t otherwise know about yourself.”

This is exactly why I love working with musicians, actors and others that have an artistic outlook of life. I have always thought that still photography also has the ability of telling a story and in some cases it is more powerful than a moving picture because it captures one moment in time and all of the thoughts about that picture revolve around that one moment.

Find out more about Jeff’s passion for music at www.wannaplaymusic.com

Gary Sinise and Orianthi

I took these photos of Gary Sinise and Orianthi in a studio that I had set up at the last NAMM Show in Anaheim. The photos where taken as part of NAMM’s Wanna Play campaign.

Our appointment with Orianthi was first, followed by Gary Sinise about 15 minutes later so I knew that time was going to be tight.

Right as we were wrapping up the shoot with Orianthi, Gary arrived and struck up a conversation with Orianthi. All of my lights were set up for Orianthi’s shoot and I took a shot of the two of them and this is a perfect example of really bad lighting. Fortunately, my assignment was not to photograph both of them in the same photo and Gary did not have a lot of time so I didn’t want to change the whole lighting set up for this shot.

In this photo I used one Elinchrome head with a softbox attached at about 8 o’clock (12 o clock being directly behind the subject. I also used an Elinchrome head with a snoot attached at about 2 o clock. This is what provided the nice outline around the subject and the intriguing highlights.

A couple hours later Orianthi performed on the main stage at the NAMM Show. In this shot I slowed down the shutter speed to show some movement and fired the flash to stop the action. The exact exposure was f/10 at 1/25 sec with the iso at 800.

I also shot a video clip with my Canon 5D mark ii of her performance. I velcro’d an Edirol R09 to my flash to capture the sound since it was so loud it would have been distorted with the on camera mic.

Lobbying for Music Education on Capitol Hill

On May 11-13 the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) coordinated a unified effort to advocate for music education on Capitol Hill. Altogether there were over 80 meetings with members of congress and their staff, including an event with the John Lenon Educational Tour Bus at the Department of Education with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

The main message that was shared with members of congress was to include a strong emphasis on music education in the reauthorization of the ESEA . To conclude NAMM’s efforts on Capitol Hill there was a Congressional Reception with special guests, Jonathain Cain of Journey and Taylor Dayne . Watch videos of their compelling speeches here . I shot these videos with the Canon 5d mark II

Harry’s Mustung at Tikki Oasis 2009

Several years ago Harry Decker and his wife won a lottery in Germany that allowed them to move to San Diego. Harry’s first job in San Diego was working with me at an advertising agency in La Jolla. I have been good friends with Harry ever since. Upon arriving in America’s finest city, Harry has dreamed of owning a ‘65 Mustang convertible. After several years of saving and searching he found his dream car. He repainted it from red to black and added a custom designed surf board (his own design of course) and entered it into the Tikki Oasis 2009 car show.

These are some shots I took from the show last year and I’m looking forward to his return to the show in a few months.

Spring in Carlsbad

The nice thing about living in Southern California is that I don’t have to go very far to find some inspiring subjects to photograph. Here are some shots that I took the other day on my way to the office.