Photo credit: Jo Ann Wilson
Yep, that’s me, with the Nikon. No, I wasn’t grimacing. I was having fun shooting Coffee After Dark at the Wired Beans Cafe last week. This is one of three images shot of me by Jo Ann Wilson, who just happened to be there that night.
Peace and blessings.
Hello everybody and happy full moon Monday!
Last week was quite a busy one for me photography-wise, and for that I’m extremely grateful! It’s nice when others acknowledge my work and give me more photography projects to complete that showcase what’s going on here in Philadelphia. So let me say my thank yous before I get down to the nuts and bolts of today’s post.
First off, let me extend my thanks to De Lantz for shouting me out Thursday at his inaugural Coffee After Dark open mic session at Wired Beans Cafe in Mt. Airy. I really appreciated that. Thanks to all of the poets and artists who performed that night, and thanks to all of those who chose to connect with me on Facebook. Just so you know, the photo set is ready and will be posted up on my Facebook page later today.
I just want to say….the Philly underground spoken word community is really dynamic and I have some ideas that I want to explore via the photographic medium along these lines. More to come in the coming months!
Also, I want to also give a big shout out to Rob Wheeler, owner of Wired Beans Cafe, and the Wired Wednesdays crew of musicians, singers, spoken word artists and others for being so supportive of my photography efforts. Much love to each and every one of you all. You all are so talented, and I am so honored to be able to view all of it through my lens every week.
Finally, thanks to Zach Subar, editor of the Mt. Airy Patch, for giving me my first photo essay assignment that I completed over this past weekend. Check it out here. Many thanks to the Philadelphia Fire Department and Captain Tygh who granted me access to the crew on duty that I photographed. I had a lot of fun. I also just found out that one of the images of the photo set was named Photo of the Week! Cool!
Okay. I’m happy to report that I’m very close to meeting my goal of 100 Facebook likes before my birthday this coming Thursday, September 15th. Right now, I’m at 98. 98 is a good number…don’t get me wrong. 100 would be really nice, though.
Basically, it comes down to this: The 100th person to like my page will be eligible to receive a free 8X10 print of his or her choice from my body of work, which includes images posted here on my photo blog, my Flickr photo stream , my 500px site, Facebook and PictureSocial.
If this works out okay without a Jerry Springer-style brawl breaking out between #99 and #100 (I kid, I kid), I plan on sponsoring more giveaways in the near future to keep things interesting. If you have ideas or suggestions regarding fun giveaways, feel free to contact me at any time. I welcome all feedback.
It’s funny…no one wants to be #99. LOL!! But someone is going to have to be #99….Sorry!
At any rate, see you over at my Facebook page, and good luck!
Thank you all. Peace and blessings.
Hey everyone, sorry I’m late with today’s post…this weekend was pretty stressful and I didn’t have time (or the energy, quite frankly) to schedule posts for the upcoming week. So we’ll see how things go.
At any rate, I wanted to share with you this black and white image of a local singer, Bethlehem Roberson, that I took while she was rehearsing one of her songs for last week’s Open Mic. This image is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it as much I as do. The rest of the photo set appears here.
Taken August 3, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA
Taken April 7, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA
Backstory: I was standing somewhere on Arch Street, snapping photos of passersby. So my plan was to snap a photo of the guy in the rear, who is peeking around the other guy in the foreground. He was walking kinda slow…I think he was using a cane or something. Along comes Mr. Philadelphia Parking Authority agent (or whatever they call them) and catches up to the other guy and this is what I got when I pressed the shutter button. Oh, shit.
So Mr. PPA guy says, “Did you take my picture? Are you with Fox News? Are you trying to catch me up?” Me: Uh, no. It was never my intention to even photograph you in the first place, Mr. PPA guy.
However, since I’m always one to have a little fun, I asked him to strike a pose by one of parking kiosks, to make it look like he was actually working or something.
Taken April 7, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA
Backstory: Came across this church..took some photos because I was amazed at how red it was. The woman in the photo, who was panhandling, walks my way, and as soon as she walked into my line of sight I snapped this photo.
Now, I believe in eternal hope, but I also believe that we have a responsibility to give hope to those who are down and out, right here and right now. There are so many hurting people, suffering in the wake of our current economic crisis, whose ears are closed to the idea of eternal hope because they don’t have a place to sleep or food to eat.
Not your typical panhandler, either….think about it. This economic meltdown is affecting EVERYBODY!!!
I was caught cold busted by this little girl while I was taking photos, so I decided to take a few of her. Notice her giving me the side eye, like, whatchu lookin’ at, nothin’ to see here…. Love it!
This image, by far, is my hands-down favorite this week.
Happy Friday errbody and have a great weekend!!!!
Congratulations! We made it to the last day of what has turned out to be a pretty eventful January. 2011 has gotten off to a pretty interesting start wouldn’t you agree? I know it has for me.
At any rate, I hope you all have found this month to be a productive and positive one. I have a confession to make: I haven’t been all that pleased with my work output lately. I know it’s cold outside, and it’s the dead of winter and we’ve got like 10,000 feet of snow, but there’s only so many snowy landscapes a person like me wants to take.
So when I went out today to check my PO Box and pick up some items from the supermarket, I took my camera, as I always do. Upon leaving the post office, I pulled it out, and headed up the street. As I was walking along, a woman was quickly coming up behind me, and she looked to be pulling something, like a rolling cart or luggage of some kind. She caught up to me, and in a fit of annoyance, picked up her cart and pushed ahead of me as if to say, hey you, you’re walking too slow, I got places to go.
Well you know what? Perhaps I was. I have a bum ankle, and frankly, I’m learning in all of my pain, to take things much slower. The grocery store will be there, and I’m not rushing for anyone anymore.
However, I realized, at that moment, here’s your chance! Before she could speed off, I took a photo:
Bye!
What’s funny about this situation is that once I got home, I realized that the autofocus toggle switch on my lens had been switched to manual. As it turned out, this was the only image out of the handful I took today that turned out to be of any use. Lucky me.
Hoping February turns out to be a lot better than January. Maybe not, since it seems that we’re gonna get hit with more snow this week.
