Working with my Friend

Photo by Noah Darnell

My good friend Noah Darnell took this photo of me on a College of Nursing photo shoot.  I always love working with Noah and on this shoot Ashel Parsons as well.  They inspire me with their photography and I am better for working with them.  Well I always wonder what I was seeing when Noah shot his shot.

I didn't have the exact same frame but we were close.  I think its fun to see myself working.  As the photographer there are not always so many photos of me.  Thanks Noah, you got a good one!

You Should Read This Everyday

Here is the link. Noah Darnell is one of my student workers and he has started a photo a day project for 2010. The photos are beautiful, but the writing is exceptional.

READ Poster

This year the homecoming I mean Jeff Fest Musical was Scrooge. Jean the Librarian decided that Robin Miller, the Director of Scrooge, should be the December READ Poster. Robin even got in character and costume and we used the lovely set for the location of the shoot. I have to thank my student photographer,Noah Darnell, for helping with the lighting and with the loaning of the wonderful Nikon 50mm F1.4. I did the Graphic Design myself with some consultation from Tom Buterbaugh, the Harding University Graphic Designer.

I have Great Photographer Friends

I love being a photographer. I get to do really cool jobs and you get to work with some Great People. These are some of my photographer buddies at a recent Harding football game. Noah and Craig are in the back and they are my student workers. I have had both of them the entire time they have been at Harding and they will both graduate this year which will leave a tremendous hole in the Photo Services Office. I know from experience that more students will come and that they will be great as well but I am truly trying to enjoy my last year with these two guys.

The guy with glasses is Wally Jarrett. I met Wally years ago when he took one of my continuing education classes. He was all about digital way back then when I was still skeptical. Wally founded Searcysports.com and became a big time sports photographer. Now days he just shoots for fun, but he is still a great photographer and an all around great guy.

These guys were giving me heck as I took this photo with my new Canon G11. I had owned the camera almost 24 hours when I took this photo. Noah suggested I use the self timer and set the camera on a end zone pylon but I couldn't find the setting for the self timer so I ended up shooting it holding the camera myself. I am thankful that I get to hang out with these guys on a regular basis.

I also have a great band of brothers and sisters in the UPAA. I have been a member of that group for 6 years and I have been to their summer symposium 5 of those years.
That brings me to my buddy Donny Crowe. We roomed together this past summer at the Jamestown, NY Symposium. I took the photo below as we went to shoot the Jamestown Jammers ballgame. Well my friend is in ICU today having surgery to remove a bleeding brain mass. Please take a minute to say a pray for my friend Donny and then be sure to let your friends know that they mean a lot to you.

I used to be in the Band and I almost was again

When I was in HS I was in the band. I played baritone which is the best low brass instrument. Baritones look like baby tubas and they have the rich sound of a french horn and the range of a trombone. Like I said the best low brass instrument. And while we are on the topic of HS Band, I just became Facebook friends with my HS band director, Barry Lumpkin. I worked for him as a student aid for three years. Yes I was a Band Aid so let the jokes begin.

As you can see from the photo above I was photographing the Harding Bison Thundering Herd band this past weekend and my friend Mark Fonville got this photo of me working. Now that you have seen me working let me show you what I was seeing. Keep in mind the famous Robert Capa quote,"if your photos are not good enough you are not close enough."

Nikon 12-24mm F 4 1/15th

I hope you liked the photo I did. After all that Robert Capa quoting, the truth be told I had no idea they were about to come up to the sideline like that. I had been photographing the field commander and I turned around and here they came.

Nikon 12-24 F16 1/2 sec

I have been teaching my college photography class about different tools they can use like slow shutter speeds that convey motion. I like the ghosting of the hands caused by the 1/2 second long exposure. Also notice in the last photo is my student worker Noah Darnell. Check out his blog when you get a chance.

Don't forget Jeff Fest starts tomorrow.

December READ Poster

The final READ poster for the year. Dr. Burks always does the December poster and he graciously posed the other night after Harding's Christmas Open House. As always the only reason it looks awesome is the talented design work done by Anna Cline our PR student graphic designer. Also I have to give thanks to my student Noah for the use of his awesomely fast Sigma 30mm F1.4 lens.

The Noah Issue of Harding Magazine

At Harding we publish our magazine three times a year, January, May, and October. The October edition just came out and it is dominated by one of my student workers Noah Darnell. I met Noah one day when he sheepishly came into my office and introduced himself. I had already heard great things about Noah from the Dean of the College of Nursing, Cathy Shultz and she had seen some of his photography and told him he should come and meet me and that I might give him a job. I am always skeptical when I hear about a kid who just loves to take photos, because about one out of a hundred has any talent. Noah is the one. I met him about a week before school was out for the summer and told him to come back and see me in the fall. He came back and i started giving him work.

By the way, I have another student worker named Craig Rainbolt who is also a great photographer. Craig and Noah both work for student publications on campus. Noah is the Head Yearbook Photographer and Craig is the Head Sports Photographer for the newspaper. Having two student photographers like Craig and Noah is awesome. They really help me get a lot of work done.

Back to Noah now, he worked all fall and was in my Basic Photography class. In the spring he went to study at our campus in Greece. While in Greece he kept a blog of photos and stories from his travels around the Mediterranean. We in the PR office were faithful readers of the Fledgling Photographer Blog. We decided that his travel stories as well as his photos could be a really cool feature for the October Harding Magazine. Well we have the magazine published and it is a hit. Here is a link to Noah's post about Harding Magazine. Here is a link to Craig's webpage as well. I hope you will go and check out my guys web pages and admire their great work.

On the Road with Joe

One night in the hospitality room at the UPAA Symposium at Auburn, Joe Ruh was looking for people to go out on a morning road trip to see what we could find out in the back country of Alabama.  Noah and I signed on for the 5 A.M trip. We left and our map was Joe's gut feeling about where we might find something.  We found a train.
Joe is giving a friendly wave to the engineer I am not sure his hand gesture was as friendly because Joe was very close to the train as it came by.
I kept a little more distance from the train by shooting from a pile of railroad track rebuilding supplies and i learned if you use a long enough exposure you can see through solid object like trees through moving objects like train cars. I knew this but i have never witnessed it in a photo that I took.
We traveled down more dirt roads and we found a grove of Pine Trees as the golden light was beginning.


I was shooting with my Nikon 12-24 zoom. I am not very comfortable with that lens and I am trying to use it exclusively to get the hang of shooting wide. I tell people who take my continuing education classes that they have to make friends with their cameras so I am trying that with that lens. Well next we found a cemetery.


As we are following Joe and hs gut about where we are supposed to be going we finally end up in Tuskegee,Alabama. The court house bricks were being cleaned and we stopped to take some photos of that. As I walked around trying different angles I found this guy walking down the street.


Well little did I know that while I was looking for an angle on the court house Joe and Noah were taking bets on whether or not I would be able to get up on the boom lift with the guy cleaning the bricks. Well I did better than that I got us inside the court house and up to see the clock tower and the clock mechanisms.

We drove through the Tuskegee Campus and then we drove by the airport where the
Tuskegee Airmen trained. There was a lot of construction going on and nothing about those famous pilots that was open for three roving photographers out just before 8:30 in the morning. You can read Noah's account of the UPAA Symposium on his blog and he details the Road Trip with Joe as well.
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Photos by Noah

This is a photo of Dr. Burks praying with the football team after the last game. This photo is taken by Noah Darnell, one of my student workers. He is an excellent photographer and he is sold on film. If you look closely in the background you can see my camera being held up above the crowd trying to capture the same shot from the other side.