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Arkansas Adventure

I just returned from Little Rock, Arkansas - where I served as a judge at their state photography convention.  I had a great time, but it was really a lot of work.  Imagine sitting in a dark room, staring at photographs all day- then assigning them a score from 1-100.  Anytime there was a disagreement about how a print should score, we had to discuss it - pointing out the good and bad points of the image.   The thing is, all the people who have entered the competition are sitting in the room observing, listening to your comments about their work.  You have to walk a very fine line between giving someone an honest evaluation of their work, while not insulting them or crushing their desire to ever enter again!

 All in all, it was a great experience.  There are a bunch of very talented photographers in Arkansas, so we saw plenty of stunning images.  I’m really looking forward to next month, when I will be doing this again in Orlando at the Florida State Convention.   It is truly an honor to have a chance to give back to the photographic community and help other photographers improve their craft. 

Heading to Abstraction

As I work on trying out different painting techniques, I decided to try some more abstract subject matter.  I’ve started a new series - based around using symbols and colors to create a mood or feeling.  Here is the first in the series.

painting

Rather than tell you the title and what I was going for - I’d love to know what you think about it.  What would you title it, what kind of feeling does it evoke, etc?  Be sure to leave a comment and share your thoughts!  (please note- blog comments won’t automatically appear on the site - so don’t worry if it isn’t there right away)

A Day At The Pool

I figured this week was a good time to try out using the infrared camera at the pool.   I found a couple of willing volunteers and set out to see what different effects I could produce.  We really ended up with a wide variety of looks:

swim1.jpg

swim2.jpg

My two favorites were these two:

swim4.jpg

swim3.jpg

Overall, I think we got some very out-of-the-ordinary images.  Let me know what you think!
 

MinuteMaid

We just got back from visiting friends in Houston.  It wasn’t really a photo trip - in fact, the only camera I brought was the point-and-shoot. 

We decided to catch an Astro game at MinuteMaid Park - what a cool place.  I couldn’t resist creating this image of the ballpark.   I just loved that huge wall of windows - such a great design!

minutemaidpark.jpg

The other image will be the basis for a painting, so you will have to keep an eye out for it in future blog entries.

The Polo Match

In our never-ending quest to keep the boys occupied this summer, we decided to try somthing different this weekend- a polo match.  It was quite the experience!

I got several shots which should translate well into paintings for the fine art site - so stay tuned for those.  In the mean time, here are a couple of images from the day:

polo65.jpg

polo86.jpg

The highlight for the kids was halftime, when they let everyone onto the field to mash down all the divots.  There was champagne for the adults and  polo gear for the kids to try out. 

All in all, not a bad summer outing!

Toothless

June was a very exciting month for the Lourcey family.   We were convinced that Beau would leave for college without losing a tooth, then right before his 8th birthday, the first front tooth finally fell out (or was knocked out by his brother, depending on which theory you buy into).  The other front tooth held on for dear life until it was finally knocked out in a McDonalds playground incident a week later.

I photograph a ton of children and the missing tooth issue comes up all the time.  People don’t want their child smiling because they are missing teeth.  Sometimes they want to hurry and get the session done before they lose any teeth.  My theory is, when both front teeth are missing, it is the PERFECT time to photograph them.  I mean, this is (hopefully) the only time in their life they will look this way, so why not document it?  After all, you can’t tell the whole story of childhood without touching on the issue of teeth!

To celebrate Beau’s grand toothlessness, I dragged him into the studio for a quick session.  Now his toothless look will be forever captured:

toothless

Enjoy!!!

Finale

This week, I was in charge of creating a slideshow for the graduating 8th graders at Westwood.  I had all nine students in my photography class this year, so I wanted to make sure to end the show with a strong image.

I came up with this shot while photographing the dress rehearsal of their play, “Shakespeare’s Bedtime Stories.” 

finalebow

I thought an image of them taking their final bow would be the perfect ending to the slideshow.  I setup behind them and we adjusted the spotlights to make sure we had the right ones one and the right ones off.  I was thrilled with the final results.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Last week, I was invited to speak to the Heart of Texas Professional Photographers Guild.  This group is based out of Waco, Texas, and includes photographers from Waco - as well as the surrounding area.   It was great to spend time with other photographers and see how we all approach the job differently.

One of their members was kind enough to snap  a few shots of me…

waco1
Slideshow presentation

waco2
Not sure what I was explaining here - but I’m sure it was interesting!

Having served as the president of the Dallas Photographers Guild, it was interesting to see how similar groups ran their meetings.  I also had the opportunity to critique some of the competition entries, which is always fun to do.

I will be doing some more speaking engagments later this year, as well as judging at some state photography competitions - so be sure to check back often!

The Hunt Is On!

We had a great time this weekend at our second Scavenger Hunt.  Couples donated $200 to Westwood to get invited to this party - so we had to make sure it was an evening they wouldn’t forget!

Here are a few of the highlights from the evening:

Team Red members
Team Red

Team Orange
Team Orange

blue team
Team Blue

Team Pink
Team Pink

and the eventual champions….

Camo team
Team Camo

Many, many thanks to the Smiths for hosting the party at their home.  Everyone had a great time and -best of all- we have plenty of incriminating photos of everyone involved!

View From Above

Every year, we photograph the cast of the Westwood play for their promotional poster.  This year, we ended up with an idea that was a little more complicated than past ideas!

The concept was to photograph the entire group (60+ kids) from above.  The people in the Brookhaven theater department were kind enough to let us use their theater for the shot and we arranged the kids on top of each other, near the front of the stage.  Meanwhile, I was shooting from a catwalk way overhead.  I’m not a big fan of heights, so it was a little weird at first.

You’ll have to wait to see the final image for the poster, but I thought you might like to see the view from the catwalk.

overhead
(Look how tiny those seats look!!!)

In the end, we got the exact shot we were hoping for.  This year’s poster is going to be one of the best ones yet!