On Commission: Non-profit photography for Plant It Forward Farms

A recent commission to create fresh imagery for a Houston-based non-profit organization allowed me to see first-hand how refugees are being helped to establish themselves in their new country. Plant It Forward serves mainly Congolese refugees by allowing them to farm unused land in urban areas while letting participants keep all their profit. Farmers sell their fresh veggies at local farmers markets as well as farm-to-table based restaurants.

The images were used to build a new website, create print collateral and for social media publication. 

Golf Business Magazine cover shoot

Last month I had the opportunity to shoot for a trade magazine, Golf Business magazine. The art director told me they consider the book more of a business magazine than a golf magazine and that I should treat the shoot as such. I photographed the general manager of Moody Gardens Golf Course Bill Pushak. We tried a few different locations around the course, but finally settled on a grey and black runway strip of tile in the banquet hall. It had a nice pattern, offered plenty of room to work with and would make an interesting background (not to mention winds were gusting up to 30 mph on the course, making things really tricky for outdoor lighting). I'm really impressed with how they incorporated the tiles into the headline of the article – "Blurred Lines: In Pricing, Nothing's Simply Black or White".

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Basketball hotshot Jenzel Nash

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Jenzel Nash, the nation's leading scorer at 39.9 points a game. She was great to work with and needed very little direction. As a senior, she is sure to be rocking it in the NCAA very soon. The photos were made with a single 580EX strobe and a STS transmitter. The Pocket Wizards are in the shop, so it's been a good push to try and keep things simple.[gallery orderby="rand"]

Natural light versus lit

Last month I had a couple of portrait assignments that contrasts how I work in different situations. In the first, the assignment was to photograph a long-haul trucker who was having trouble with his CDL license. Initially, I was told his truck would be at his residence. In fact, it was out at a yard that happened to be on federal property. For the moment, my lights are strictly AC powered although that is supposed to change soon. Instead, I had the blessing of a day with full sun, although clouds were slowly creeping in (at one point, we had to wait 45 minutes at a railroad crossing because his truck was just on the other side. Sometimes I really LOVE Houston...). I had him point his truck into the north so the grill would be in the shade. I then used a simple reflector to point the sun back into the shadow and photographed him with a 35mm/f1.4 lens. The next image was more controlled, but alas, the weather was crappy. I think it was Sam Abell who said bad weather makes good pictures. Because the sky was dark, it was a Saturday assignment and I had time and because I had a willing subject who was proud of his home, I was able to pull out some stops and practice my lighting. I lit the subject with a medium softbox from camera left and used a flood camera right to put a hard light on the side of his face and to also light up the house. Because I lit the scene, I was also able to create a more dramatic sky.

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Shoes Shoes Shoes (and Boots)!

A small sample of work I completed for Gloss, a magazine-like broadsheet produced by the Houston Chronicle. Myself and the reporter spent three hours inside the huge closet of Joyce Echols. I don't know a whole lot about fashion but she had a lot of everything.