GeekFest 2009

It's that time of year again for the best little underground photo conference out there - GeekFest. St. Petersburg, Fla. is the place to be September 11-13. $100 is a low price to pay for inspiration and motivation and fun.

Our list of speakers is still taking shape, but it's already pretty outstanding:

* 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Feature Photography and New York Times stud Damon Winter

* 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Breaking News Photography and Miami Herald super star Patrick Farrell

* former Dallas Morning News photographer turned bad ass freelancer Allison V. Smith

* San Antonio Express-News community photojournalist turned war photographer Nicole Frugé

* photo guru Bryan Moss

Other things we're cooking up include: a shuffleboard tournament, a shoot-out, a silent print auction and more... If you've never been to GeekFest before, it's not your normal photo conference. It's laid back. It's low key. And it's a pretty full weekend of photo goodness. We like to keep it casual and comfortable. Everyone that comes is there for inspiration, plain and simple.

To register, go here and click on the button to donate.

Fingernails

Weekend

Here's how the iPhone pics look in the paper. The Weekend section gave them a great ride.

iDrive

When I handed in my iPhone photos from a fun assignment shooting kitschy culture and places along the gulf beaches of Pinellas, the editors became intrigued with the way they looked and asked me to answer a few questions to run with the project.

Why the iPhone?

My photo editor saw some vacation photos from Fort Lauderdale and the Keys that I took on my iPhone, and he was hoping I could do something similar here. The nature of the assignment lent itself to a different approach. It essentially allowed me to play tourist for a day in my backyard. What says tourist more than photos taken with a cell phone.

What's the most interesting thing you took a photograph of?

The most interesting thing about this assignment was that I got to learn about a lot of great little local spots I've never been to before - full of character and characters. Bras and dollar bills hanging from the ceiling at Mahuffer's, Roscoe the Surf Shack's mascot and a lot of cool murals and colorful wall art I found along the way all made the journey fun and interesting to photograph.

Place in Tampa Bay you'd like to capture next with your iPhone?

They say the best camera is the one you have with you. And I think it's an important reminder that it's not the technology that makes a photo good. I'm always documenting life with my iPhone - friends, funky places, Florida skies, my dog. I'm really impressed with the quality of the pictures from it as well as the ease with which I can post those photos to my blog, facebook and twitter... so I don't think I'll stop shooting with it anytime soon. As far as a specific place or project in Tampa Bay, I don't have anything in mind, but I'm certainly open to the possibilities.

I love the Camerabag app for the iphone. The "helga" filter is modeled after my favorite cheap, plastic toy camera - the Holga. It crops the photo into a square, bumps the contrast a little and vignettes it. And it's what I use for 99% of the stuff I shoot with my iPhone because it's fun and quirky.

Once it publishes in the paper tomorrow, I'll post the PDFs, because the Weekend cover and inside pages looked great. Really nice design and layout. But for now, there's a slideshow of images here.

Red, White & You

Went to a Fourth of July BBQ bash at Edmund Fountain's. Had some fabulous brisket, slow-smoked with Texas love. Ate some awesome strawberry cake with strawberry frosting in honor of Kainaz Amaria's birthday. Took advantage of a beautiful backlit flag hanging to snap some iPhone portraits of folks in honor of America's birthday. Rode bikes down to the Bay to watch the sky explode with color.

Have I mentioned how much I love the Camerabag iPhone app? The "helga" filter is modeled after my favorite cheap, plastic toy camera - the Holga. It crops the photo into a square, bumps the contrast a little and vignettes it. And it's what I use for 99% of the stuff I shoot with my iPhone.

In fact, I just finished my first iPhone project for the paper. It runs Wednesday or Thursday of this week. I'll post it when it's published.

Happy Birthday America!

Gulf & Bay

The SCUBA story got a pretty sweet ride in Gulf & Bay today.

Toss Sol A Bone

If you don't know my buddy Sol Neelman, you should. He's got mad skills. And he's one of the most creative and adventurous people I know. Driven mainly by a constant pursuit of his passion - weird sports. Just to give you some idea, in the last few months alone, he's photographed both a sumo school and dog fighting in China, the Islamic Games in New York and a Lucha Libre match in Mexico.

Now me, I believe whole-heartedly in collaboration and community. So whenever I hear something that might be of interest to anyone, I make mention of it. Like, for instance, I knew Sol was going to be in California for a week or two, and told him if he was anywhere near San Diego, he should check out this dog surfing competition I just read about somewhere. So he did.

Then today, he surprise me with a $20 iTunes gift certificate, and the honor of being the first Toss-Sol-A-Bone-With-A-Weird-Sports-Photo-Op Contest winner. Yay!! So, if you've got any tips for him of weird sports, that result in him making a picture, you could be the next winner. Just be warned... kickball, urban golf and the Redneck Games... he's already been there, done that. Wife carrying, cheese rolling and chess boxing are already on his radar. Anything else might be fair game, so if you've got something good, just drop him an email at sol@solneelman.com with your tip.

SCUBAing

I'm crossing one more thing off my bucket list. Learning to SCUBA dive.

I finally decided I'd waited long enough, and after a snorkeling trip that left me wanting more, I made that leap and signed up for a class. Once I enrolled, I emailed our outdoors editor and asked him a few questions about where to buy gear and stuff. He emailed me back and asked me if I'd be interested in writing a first-person story about learning to dive for Gulf & Bay, our outdoors section.

The story runs today in the paper. And Ted McLaren, our fabulous web photo editor and an accomplished diver himself, asked me to write a little piece for the St. Pete Times' photo blog "All Eyes" on a very specific scene from my dive in the Gulf.