More Daffodils

Laura and I hiked the Daffodil Trail at Furnace Run Metro Park in Richfield on Saturday. It was a short, half-mile trail with patches of daffodils every so often. To be honest it wasn't that exciting. We went back to the main part of Furnace Run afterwards and hiked one of the longer more interesting trails.

Here we are by the lake and shelter...

Daffodils

Spring keeps springing in my yard - this is my second flowers post. Whoever owned and planted the gardens at my place did an amazing job. First I get the little purple and yellow flowers, next come the daffodils and my tulips are about ready to open up - it continues on like this with roses and such and ends in the fall with the mums. I love watching the changes in my yard and I'll continue to document it with my camera.

Beta War

Beta War is a new Akron punk band featuring two friends of mine - Mickey(laying down) and Ryan(in the air). They had been talking for a few weeks about needed some shots. Being that they both love to skate and drink I came up with the idea for this photo.

I took it behind the Matinee in Highland Square. I used one flash with a diffuser that is low and to the left to light this picture.

Akron Sunset

This view is from the roof of a building on Grant Street. The buildings in the picture are Canal Place and the Gojo HQ. I hadn't taken a "pretty sunset" photo for a while - so here it is....
Not that it really matters, but for the record there isn't too much Photoshopping going on here - a little bit of saturation, vibrance and clarity in Camera Raw was it.

Lord of the Yum Yum

I met 'Lord of the Yum Yum'(aka Paul) from Chicago last year when he was playing a show at The Royal Oaks in Youngstown. He had a few dates fall through for his Spring '10 Tour so I hooked him up with shows at the Akron Matinee and the Happy Dog(see previous post) in Cleveland. We(Paul, my room-mate and I) decided to stop in the National Park on the way to Cleveland to take some promo shots(and show him a little of Northeast Ohio's natural beauty). Paul had the idea to shoot some pictures in a lake with a trombone - I told him I couldn't supply a trombone but I did have a lake.

Happy Dog

Last night some friends and I ventured up to the Happy Dog on Cleveland's west side. This place serves hot dogs anyway you want them - and I mean anyway. You want crunchy peanut butter, fruit loops, fried eggs, cole slaugh, BBQ sauce, smoked gouda? They got it...and tons more.

Also - I was there to catch Trouble Books, Lord of the Yum Yum and Gabe Schray play. The above photo is 'Lord' and below is Trouble Books.

Cascade Race

These shots are of the remnants of the mill race at Cascade Locks Park right outside of Downtown Akron. The mill race ran parallel to the canal and fed a 36 foot water wheel. This area is were Akron had its first industrial boom. Schumacher Mill, later Quaker Oats, is the mill that made use of this race. Besides this tunnel it now mostly looks like a stream of water filled with old junk.

Brian Wenner

This is musician Brian Wenner. My friend Kyle and I shot some promos for him in Kyle's basement last Saturday. Brian brought his cool LED lighting and I brought my Canon Speedlites. Together we made music...

Art Worked

On Monday night I went up to Legation, a Gallery in Cleveland to shoot some of Annie Stimson's art for her portfolio. It was an interesting experience. The piece pictured above was the easiest one to shoot. The others took some experimenting - most were made out of stringy materials and hung close to a white wall. By far the hardest was a piece that consisted of opaque white squares with white lettering hung on a white wall with pins - it was the polar bear in Alaska in a blizzard. Annie's work was very interesting - I'll post more photos here soon....

Youngstown Rebel

So last Saturday my girlfriend, I, and our friend Lindsey went out to Youngstown to visit my friend Eric(photo above) and see a band play. When I was getting my stuff together I started debating in my head, "should I bring my 7D or not". For me its so hard to go on any trip(even a short overnight) without my nice camera. I knew we planned to meet at a cool bar(but it was in the ghetto), then we'd be heading to a crowded club, and after that wherever the night/drinks took us. It was unsettling to think of carrying over $2000 worth of gear with me. Finally I decided - I was gonna bring my older Canon(a Digital Rebel XT), with the cheap lens it came with and my least expensive flash.

East Park Redux

I did a post about this strange little park near downtown Akron last year. I wanted to show "East Park" to my girlfriend so we went back there on Friday. Its a park that seems to have been left to time - I'm not sure when it was built. Its centered on the canal and sits in the shadow of the former BF Goodrich World HQ. Both times I've been there I've barely seen another soul. Its a pretty photogenic park surrounded by two condo complexes.

The amount of trash that is in this part of the canal is astounding - I think we counted about 6 bikes.

Homogeneous Zone Opening

Tonight Greg Milo and a few of his friends had a poetry reading at the Matinee to celebrate the release of the book "The Homogeneous Zone". It was humorous and thought provoking R rated poetry. After the reading we all moved down to Square Records where there was a "visual representation" of the poetry. A good night, with good people.

The "art show" portion of the show allowed audience participation. There was a table set up with various items on it that could be written on and added to the collage.

Now That's a Pretty Picture!!

Today I wanted to mess around with some lighting set-ups that I had in mind. I didn't want to wait until I could get some one to model for me so I figured it was gonna have to be more self portraits....so I came up with the frame idea.  So for any lighting geeks and or strobists this was my set-up:

430ex with a shoot through umbrella up and to the left at full power.

550ex bare to the right at 1/8 power.

580exII with a snoot behind and right at 1/4 power.

All of these are Canon Speedlites and I triggered them with my Canon EOS 7D's flash.

Neon Pabst

In my ealry 20's my friends and I were all about Pabst Blue Ribbon. At the time it was only $4.20 for a 12 pack and I thought it was by far the best tasting of the cheap beers(not to mention having the coolest looking cans). My friend Brad came to visit me one day and brought with him a neon Pabst sign - I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. He didn't technically give it to me but allowed me to "borrow it long term". I proudly placed it in my front window. One night after getting dropped off from a long night at Annabell's I stumbled up my stairs and into my apartment. Little did I know that my brother had moved the sign to the edge of the window sill to open the window. When I pulled the chain to turn off the sign for the night it went crashing to the floor. I don't remember what shattered more - my heart or the glass tubes.

With how ultra-hip PBR has become over the last decade I didn't think I would ever be able to replace Brad's sign for a reasonable price - so when I walked into Abby Ann's on Tallmadge Ave the other day and saw this sign I was excited and nervous. The price turned out to be very reasonable and I talked them down another 1/4.
So Brad this is for you....but I want to hang on to it for a little while....

Trouble Books

Akron band, the Trouble Books, were interviewed for the forthcoming issue of Cleveland Magazine. They called me up to do the photograph for the article. In the interviewed they talk about how they mostly like to hang around home - so they had the idea to have the photo show them at their kitchen table playing with Magnetic Sticks. The above photo was one of my favorites - I'm waiting to hear which one they will pick.

Palm Bush

This is a small plant that is a relative of the palm tree. My uncle gave it to me a few years ago when I was visiting him in Florida. I snapped this sitting at my desk the other evening near sunset. There is just something about it I love - so I decided to share it with you, gentle reader.

View From The Roof

This is the view from the roof of the former Acme Bakery. The orange-ish brick building to the left is the Thirsty Dog Brewery on Grant Street. The whole complex in the background was once the Burkhardt Brewing Co. a major beer brewery in Akron. I thought that this photo made for a pretty cool view that most people don't get to see. I want to get a view facing the other way but I would have to do it at a different time of the day - this was taken near sunset.

Sign of Life

Unless you live in Northeast Ohio its hard to understand our excitement at the early signs of warmer days. Spring is coming - I took some photos around my yard today to prove it!