She's Got Legs

I shot this photo with Sol in mind. Though I'm not quite sure why. :)

Coastal Cleanup

Some good people got up super early to help clean up Hillsborough County's coastline. They found hypodermic needles, lots of beer bottles and broken glass, a bra and some shoes, baby doll parts and miles of fishing line. Last year someone actually found a goat's head!! Where was I? Anyways, the cool thing this year is that Bank of America made a $20 billion environmental donation over a 10-year period to the Ocean Conservancy for research and clean-up efforts.

Munchkins

I got to photograph little ones trying out to be munchkins in a live version of the Wizard of Oz at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Now I can't get "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" out of my head. I can also do the entire munchkin dance. One of the perks, I suppose.

McCain Flag

Amongst the thousands of people packed into the Tampa Convention Center, anxiously awaiting the appearance of Sen. John McCain, stands 19 of the 29 students in Stacie Cleary's AP Government class at East Bay High School. Cleary felt it was important for her students to be informed since many of her juniors and seniors are voting for the first time this year. Although the school board did not approve of the field trip, the silhouetted form of Natalie Coker, right, and 18 others decided to miss classes Tuesday in order to attend the rally and experience politics first hand. With the backdrop of the American flag, Coker, a 17-year-old high school junior, is not old enough to vote yet, but she said that several issues brought up in this election intrigue her. "Right now, my personal preference would be McCain," she said. She and her classmates also plan on attending an Obama rally if he comes back to Florida in the next couple of months.

HandPrints

After placing her painted hand on a new Hyundai vehicle, Krystine Carter, 3, of Brooksville, leaves her mark on a blank canvas that will later be framed. In May 2008 Carter was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, and is just back at the hospital to receive treatment. Pediatric cancer patients from St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa joined forces with Hyundai and its dealers to present hospital officials with a check for $40,000 Thursday. The kids then got to place their colorful handprints on a white Hyundai Santa Fe to represent and share their personal triumphs with other children and families across the country. To date, Hope on Wheels, the non-profit organization responsible for this, has collected hundreds of handprints and Hyundai and its dealers have raised more than $10 million in 10 years to fight against pediatric cancer.

Disppearing into Darkness

Gone. The last rays of light. The last glimmer of hope. No more new beginnings. The sun has set, my friends, and darkness is upon us.

McCain in Tampa

More politics. More fun. More flags.

Gray Team: Grant Morris

Last year, I was lucky enough to have some amazing students on my team at the Eddie Adams Workshop. When watching the final slideshow at the end of the weekend, it was hard not to take pride in the fact that our show was the best because their pictures were the strongest. That final night, you realize the entire weekend - headaches, no sleep, stress, juggling 10 things at once - was totally worth it and that it was rewarding in so many ways.

I've been wanting to do this for a while now, to write about what life is like as a producer. What it's like to have 10 students that you want to try to pull the best out of and that you want to push to get out of their normal habits and excel past where they started and what they thought they were capable of. 10 students that you know very little about at the beginning of the week and you now feel a strong bond with a few days later.

So, I'm going to start by talking about some of last year's students.

Grant Morris. I liked him instantly because he's charming and disarming and had his eyes set on something bigger than himself. At the time he was just finishing up at Brooks and preparing for entry into the real world. He had just had some fabulous pictures from the California wildfires published in Time Magazine. He came in with a solid college portfolio of news, sports, features -- colorful, loud and in your face. So I wanted to give him something that he wasn't used to. Something subtle and quiet.

I gave him an assignment to document life in a 24-hour taxi stand. After a few hours, Grant got a little frustrated. Nothing was happening. It was really, really quiet. So he called to tell me what was, or rather what was not, going on. He told me that he'd found a dance studio down the street and that he thought there was something there. Now as a photo coach, all you can do is probe and push. So I asked Grant if he was sure about his decision. If he'd given the taxi stand all he had and there was nothing more he could do. If the dance studio was going to prove visual and interesting. Yes, yes and yes.

I let him spend the rest of the day there. When he got back to the barn and I started editing his take the dance studio images were ok. Typical. Nothing special. Shitty lighting. And without knowing it he had made some really nice frames at the taxi stand. Much to his dismay, his task the next day was to finish what he started and to keep working the shit out of his original assignment.

We talked a lot about what the story of the taxi guys were. And a big part of their day is sitting around doing nothing. That is the story, I told him. Take pictures of nothing. And boy did he go out and produce. I think he even surprised himself in the end.

One of the best things he said all weekend was toward the end. "These pictures don't even look like I shot them." That's a change of style and substance. That's getting outside your comfort zone and exploring a new way of seeing. That's growth, my friend.

There's a lot to be said for a workshop that can change your life. In a variety of ways, the workshop and Eddie came into my life at a very opportune time. Only a short time before the workshop a relationship that I was in ended very quickly and very poorly. My heart ached and I had no idea how to project that hurt so it stayed bottled up inside. One of the biggest things I took away from the workshop is that everything that we do in this life needs to be centered around love.

Professionally speaking, I left the workshop with key contacts that would help me secure a job after I graduated. It gave me a sense of security that I hadn't possessed prior.

Overall, the workshop changed my life. I could care less about winning awards and receiving praise, but to effect change....what is more rewarding than that?

The thing about the workshop is that when you're going through it, it sucks. It sucks a lot. In the three days the workshop runs, 3-5 hours of sleep might be hard to come by. On top of that, you're producing content that could help you stand out among your peers and the professionals there. It's when you get home that you realize exactly how amazing the entire workshop actually was. It's not until you work on your first project after getting back that you see that your style has changed. You see light different. You see social interaction is a way you never imaged.

I'm glad to say that I'm a member of the Gray Team from workshop number 20.

-- Grant Morris

Check out Grant's website and his blog.

Left Hand

High Rollers

Here's a sneak peek on an upcoming project writer Alex Zayas and I are working on. Can't tell you much more about it until it runs, but this first one involves wheels. So Alex found a bar in town that has a roller skating night. The whole project involves a lot more freedom than standard daily work does. I've really enjoyed shooting images that wouldn't normally run though, because our main medium here is going to be the web.

Gaines Adams

6'5" + 280 lb. + defensive end = one heck of a nice guy

9/11

Hillsborough County's September 11th ceremony took place at Hillsborough County Veterans Memorial Park Thursday morning included a moment of silence, a flag-folding ceremony and rifle salute by the MacDill Honor Guard and the playing of taps.

Beware of Dog

Skeptics

Had to shoot two skeptics, members of a group that debates the validity of things like the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast and stuff. The assignment was to meet them in their office and make a portrait... Yikes. Worst case scenario.

Decided to take my mag light and tripod and try to have some fun. A little light painting to spice things up and make them look ethereal. I shot about 25 frames at shutter speeds ranging from 10 seconds to 30 seconds. I had a few that worked, and a lot that didn't. Still a fun shoot, and the guys were really into it, once i explained what I was doing with the lights off and a flashlight highlighting their faces. Once I showed them the back of the camera to give them and idea of what it would look like, they said "cool, keep going." This is the result.

Lexey & Nina

One of the best days in recent memory started with the Dali Museum, lunch at one of my favorite burger places, a little airhockey at a local bar and was capped of with dancing in the street. It was such an amazing moment. One that I keep going back to in in my head. Replaying over and over. Like a new CD that you can't get enough of. Car door opened. Music pumping. Not a worry in the world. Thoughts and problems pushed out of our minds. A return to the joys of being a kid, back to the point where what other people think doesn't matter. And I was lucky to share the experience with Lexey and her little sister Nina.

Postcard Project v 2.0

I really enjoyed the postcard project last time. The push to start conversations with some I've never met, and others of you that I like but don't get to talk to nearly enough, was a fun challenge. I also appreciated the ones I got in return. So thank you, thank you, thank you -- you know who you are.

I'm ready for round 2. I've been making more than I've been sending out lately, and would love to get a new batch out to friends. If you're interested in receiving one, please leave your address in the comments, and if you would rather me not publish it, I'll respect your wishes if you make a note in the comment field for me. And if you send one in return, you get bonus points.

Faine's tats

The tattoos on Tampa Bay Buccaneers new center Jeff Faine, 27, tell a story ranging from the tales of Japanese samurais that make a full sleeve on his left arm to the cross he bears on his back.

Jeff is a really nice guy. Big teddy bear type. I always love talking about tattoos with people, and learning the meaning behind them. Jeff's are very personal, back to Japanese literature that inspired him as a kid, while growing up in Hawaii.

I hate wasting people's time. And with pro football players, you usually only get a few minutes anyways. Although I think Jeff would have given me all the time I needed, but I didn't want to push things. So I had one of our writers stand in while I tested the lights. Kept things very simple, and hoped that the harshness of the light would make him look like a bad ass.

Mmmm Pineapple

Meet Bettye, I have a feeling she is going to be one of my favorite sources.

You've Got the Whole World in Your Hands

The Storm

I knew what the storm tasted like, even before I could smell it. The steady calm of grayness enveloped me. The calming sound of absolute quietness, was interrupted only by a distant boom of thunder.

Before the first drops hit the ground, puddles had formed in my eyes, tears, like rain, streaking my cheeks. The rain washes away things, the dampness of the earth waiting for a fresh start. I was ready for that. The new beginning.

Accepting what pours down on me.

Like holy water.

A baptism, of sorts.

A rebirth.

Lord knows I needed one.

Maybe, just maybe, those fat, warm drops falling from the sky in buckets will make me feel something different.

Tabula Rosa

Sometimes I wish I could pour the contents of my head out. Gathered are so many fragments of useless information: lyrics to songs from the 80s, words spilling out from the pages of books trapped within the recesses of my brain, scenes replaying from countries visited and trips taken, many pictures cataloged and filed away as part of the photographic library in my head. I want to fill it with something real. Something important.

To start anew is to go back to that sense of wonder and awe, somehow as you grow older, that's replaced with disbelief, skepticism and cynicism. I don't wish to go back in time, knowing what I know now. I want to go back to being 5 where everything is a new experience and the thought that everything is cool. Rent and mortgages, bills and insurance are so not cool.

Sometimes I wonder if what I do, the photos I make, have any impact... Because isn't that what we all want. For our work to make a difference in this world. To bring about social change. To right wrongs. Most photojournalists I know don't do it for the money or the awards; it's done for the love of people and the appreciation of the craft.

Though, I've watched many a good photojournalist cross over from a healthy ego and a desire to keep getting better into the world of narcissism and self-righteousness. They are great. Their work is great. They forget about what's really important. They forget that the pictures they take are not theirs, they belong to the people in front of the camera. It's about them, not us.

That's as close to wonder and awe I get these days. Reminding myself that I'm merely the conduit. That all I do is push a button. That everyone has a story to tell. And if I shut up and forget mine, I can take in theirs. And hopefully fill my brain with their stories, ridding myself of my own.