Again, digging through old photos and found this one of Steph that I love.

Caleb just showed me this video of mushroom forager Nik Westacott, filmed in Sussex, UK by Carl Pendle.

SO LOVELY.

Foraging and cooking Wild Mushrooms from www.carlpendle.com on Vimeo.

Old outtake from Japan. I'm going through old work again for another possible project.

I got a flickrmail today from user Tomás Cortés Rosselot letting me know he'd build his own large format camera out of LEGO bricks! How exciting to see! Check out his stream for at least one example of shooting with it.

La LEGOFLEX © Tomás Cortés Rosselot

I also ran across a link to a Polish blog called fotoklocek, apparently by run by a photographer called Emil Stankiewicz who has been having fun building cameras out of various stuff.

Fotoklocek na statywie © Emil Stankiewicz

It is so exciting to see others jumping in to building their own cameras. I still plan on rebuilding mine into a Mark II (but I need to commit to a lens first, so I can build based on its focal length. Currently still using the 127mm lens, but may go longer or shorter. haven't decided yet.)

For now, mine still looks like this (shown with a "focus lock" attached, and it's sitting on the top of a tripod by way of the previously mentioned tripod mount.

I think I'll go walking in the woods.

I had the great pleasure to photograph Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper for the September issue of Birmingham Magazine. And when I say great pleasure, I mean it. He was simply wonderful to work with. When I think of people with a lot of power, especially in the realm of law enforcement, I think of hard-headed, bad-ass jerks, mostly thanks to Law & Order. Chief Roper was exactly the opposite of everything I expected, which really shouldn't have been surprising since I read the story before I shot him.

His whole platform pretty much is to work with anyone who is trying to help make the city a better place.

He was warm and funny and down to let me shoot however I wanted.

Thanks Chief!

See the article online here.

Irvin Penn's book Small Trades is one of my favorite photo books I own. It's a perfect slice-of-life, documentation of a bygone era, simply photographed in a way that illustrates unique facets of tradesmen I'd otherwise be completely unaware of.

There's a ton of little things slipping by even still and I try my best to notice them but I'm sure I miss more than I see (which is why I'm glad people like Caleb Chancey exist to create projects like his We Make Birmingham he shot for Birmingham Magazine, which is a series of photo essays on various craftspersons around town).

All that to say, I saw a dude hand painting a neon sign while scooting downtown the other day and 100% had to shoot him working. I have his card somewhere...I'll update this with his name at some point.

Jill & Stephanie at the bee yard.

Stephanie at the bee yard, 28 August 2011

As part of my on-going series on my life as a Beekeeper, I recently photographed Stephanie and Jill at our bee yard. I'll be posting images as they are ready and will eventually put together a proper section for the bee photos.

Had a quick trip to the beach with family during which at least two tropical storms came through.

We went outside as much as we could and when we couldn't, we played games inside or carefully planned our airbrush shirts. So bad.

And....the airbrush shirts.

Stephanie's dad has been growing his beard since November 2009 at the same time I started growing mine for Whiskerino 2009. I try to take every opportunity I can to photograph it / him. Here he is at the beach over Labor Day weekend.

He graduates from college (yep!) in December and I don't know the beard's fate after that. I can only hope it lives on, whereas I image his wife probably has a different plan.

I love Martin Parr. There's no way around it. I'm excited to see an article in the current Aperture Magazine. I've just started reading it, but it's written by him about a photographer he loves who photographs in a rural Lithuanian village. I'M IN!

(Aperture is available online via zinio, if you're into that.)

THIS IS NUTS.

Working on a personal project on Sunday, Steph was kind enough to grab a couple of shots of me photographing Jill on the ole 4x5.

Later in the day we crammed that sucker all up near the hive, threw some light in the woods, and took some photos of Jill cracking that damn hive open. Processed the sheets today and can't wait to get them scanned. I actually would love to do contact prints of them, but to what end, eh?

More to come, I'm sure.

Jarrod Hicks of Jefferson County International Baccalaureate School

Every year, Birmingham Magazine dedicates a substantial portion of an issue to outstanding students in the area who are upcoming seniors. They each have their specialties, and often I see magazines try to illustrate these things in a literal sense...and it's always bugged me. This year, I got to shoot it and I intentionally stayed away from that sort of representation, rather siding with doing my best to pull out each students personality and let that speak for itself.

For more on the students and additional photos, be sure to check out the story on the Birmingham Magazine website.

Here are some of my favorite photos.

David Turner of Holy Cristo Ray Catholic School

Olivia Tofani of Hoover High School

Emily McDuff of Homewood High School

JT Edmonson of Hueytown High School

Chase Payne of Cornerstone Christian School

Katie Kirkland of John Carroll Catholic High School. (Love the enigmatic smile)

Forrest Moody of Alabama School of Fine Arts

Justin Timberlake keeps photo bombing my New York shots. Jerk.

Two auto-related photos from Hell's Kitchen.

I recently had the great pleasure to photograph Will Pearson of mental_floss, which is extra bonus for me as he's one of the funniest people I know and I love the magazine. I wanted to find a way to illustrate the quirkiness of mental_floss with something a bit out of character for Will who, suffice it to say, is not the vandalizing type. But he is a bit of a math dweeb (no offense intended to him nor any math dweebs who happen to read this. If you found this blog by searching for the phrase 'math dweeb' you may and may not be in the right place.) and he is decidedly OCD. Take math + OCD + Will + spray paint and conveniently subtract out the overspray lines from the stencils, and you get this photo. Pi loves, rejoice. Pie lovers, sorry.

Another from the millions shot at Times Square. Outstanding shooting posture on this dude.

On the other hand, if you're carrying it around anyway, perhaps it's more convenient than I give it credit for.

Friggin iPad poptpop.

I'm just going to leave this here...

So I've been slacking big time with posting Poptpops (which, for the unaware, are "pictures of people taking pictures of people"), and for this I truly apologize. The recent post about Richard Photo Lab's Still Love Film blog featuring a poptpop reminded that I really need to be posting them way more often.

And so here are two recent shots...from this weekend in fact. My cousin was in town getting married. They had their nuptials at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens which is a popular place for photo shoots. The above lounging female is being photographed by the photographer on the right (with his off-camera ring flash, which is interesting by itself) and her backup staff with changes of clothes look on, and probably sweat.

Below is my cousin Kendra and her new husband Scott with their cupcake-based cake (complete with LEGO bride and groom (which are tiny in front of the huge cupcake on top of the stand)).

More poptpops to come. I've got a few my recent trip to New York just bursting to get out. Soon!