Richland B&O Trail

I had a photo shoot in Upper Sandusky last week(which is nowhere near Sandusky fyi) so I decided to see if there was anywhere interesting to stop on the way back. I ended up bringing my bicycle and riding the Richland B&O Bike Trail from Mansfield to Butler and back. It is a scenic 18.4 rail trail that is nicely paved. I also looped around the couple small towns it passes through on the way. I definitely want to come back and ride this again when the weather is nice and spend some more time.

I shot this with my new GoPro Hero 8 Black at 120fps then slowed it to 24fps in post. Besides the awesome stabilization I'm finding the image quality is also a big upgrade from my older Hero 5.

Gorge the Gorge

A coffee, a hike and then a beer? Sounds like a plan. 

'Gorge the Gorge' was put on by Asterisk Coffee Bar and HiHo Brewing. We started at the coffee bar, hiked the Glens Trail and then had a beer at HiHo. Pretty nice day for it.

Zhug

Erin's friend, Chef Douglas Katz, invited her to a preview of his new restaurant, Zhug, in Cleveland Heights and I got to tag along as her plus one. The place has a Mediterranean theme serving small plates meant to be shared... and with a side of the sauce that the restaurant is named after. We had a couple cocktails at the bar before sitting down and eating some pretty amazing food.

First Snow Ride 2019

I hopped on my bike Tuesday afternoon to test out a few things. First I wanted to make sure my old Trek mountain bike was road worthy - I really only use it as my winter bike now. I had also just bought the new GoPro Hero 8 Black. Its most touted feature is the HyperSmooth 2.0 and it did not disappoint. I can't believe how well it stabilizes the video - attaching my old GoPro - the Hero 5 - to the bike handlebars made the video almost unusable, with the new one it looks like I had it on a gimbal. I also shot a hyperlapse with it that looks really great too. The slow motion bits are from my old GoPro... speaking of which GoPros are never known for their low light capability but I did take the new one out on Wednesday night and it is definitely an improvement. Anyways - I'm all around impressed for this small, inexpensive camera - I didn't think I would have ever bought another one but I'm glad that I did. Although not visible here I did make an IGTV version of this video using the new "auto-reframe" tool in Premiere Pro - and that is amazing too - you can check that out on my IG page.

Another One Bites the Dust

Last Friday I was leaving leaving Earthquaker Devices after picking up some guitar pedals to photograph when I pulled over the car and decided to capture some photos of the demolition of the 1918 building that originally housed Akron Pure Milk Co. The block had a few cool buildings on it that would have been great lofts & more as Akron redevelops - but instead we will get an awesome new surface lot for hospital employees!! Woot. Anyways - I made a lap around the block and took these images.

The Minerva-Swerva

My second recent slow-motion video. This was shot in the same way as the last GoPro video - I just should have realized shooting 120 fps indoors on a GoPro would not look all that great. Is still like this video of our day trip to Minerva though. I hope my next Canon camera has 120fps in 1080 so I can really do this kind of thing better.

Day Trip

Erin and I felt like getting out of town for the day but didn't have any plans. We basically ended up picking a town on Google Maps that had a brewery and a place to eat that was within an hours drive - Minerva. We turned the "no freeways" option on the navigation and drove to Sandy Springs Brewing. They were having a second anniversary party with live music and special beer releases. We had some really good beers and a great lunch then decided to also hit the brand new UnHitched Brewing on our way back home.

Halloween Cover Show

On Halloween evening I went to Akron Recording Company to see their Halloween Show. They had three bands doing cover sets and all were amazing. First was Kate Bush, then Tom Petty, and finally Amy Winehouse. ARC is mainly a recording studio but it is such a cool spot to see a show too.

Back to Boston

I had never been to Boston before going three times in the last two years after my friend Eric moved there. This time Erin came with me as I was in Eric's wedding. We left on Friday evening(I had to work all day Friday) and stayed until Wednesday morning(I had to work Wednesday evening). I spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning doing wedding things and wedding friends' things - which was a lot of fun - and then most of the next few days with Erin and with Erin's friend Colleen who also lives in Boston.  Most of these photos are from the latter part of the trip.

Halloween Charity Ball 2019

The Halloween Charity Ball is a great event that raises tens of thousands of dollars for a different charity each year. It is also one of my favorite event to photograph - people in costumes dancing and having fun. I believe this is the 5th year I have shot it. View all of the photos on the website.

Epic Slow-Mo Ride

I haven't messed with slow-motion video too much mainly because my Canon dSLR's aren't that good at it - they only record 1080 at 60 frames per second. My GoPro Hero 5 Black on the other hand can do 120 fps in 1080 so I shot this video with that. In Premiere Pro I then convert the footage to 24 fps for that classic slow motion look. GoPro's obviously have their image quality limitations but in bright sun like this the footage came out looking pretty good.

Asterisk Grand Opening

Though Asterisk Coffee Bar on Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls has technically been open serving coffee for a few weeks and a couple of days serving cocktails they held an official grand opening last night. Asterisk is Albert Masco's second location - they will be serving the same coffee and espresso drinks as Akron Coffee Roasters but also have a liquor license and are serving beer and cocktails. For now the evening hours are just Thursday - Saturday but that should be expanding in the future.

Morning at the Bridge

I woke up the other morning and was finishing my breakfast when the sun just started to shine in. With Fall color just about at its peak i decided to walk over to the High Level Bridge and snap a few photos before I got to work. I'm glad I did - the light turned out to be beautiful. 

Weekend Round Up

Between work and some social events I had a pretty busy but nice weekend. I will have a few posts based on some of my shoots soon - but here are a few snaps I took that wouldn't constitute a full post on there own. 

Above is my family hiking at Silver Creek Metro Park.

Savor the Summit

'Savor the Summit' is an annual event that raises money for the Summit Food Coalition, an organization focused on promoting local food. The event always features amazing food and drinks as well as a pie auction, wine/beer pull and more. They also give out the Local Food Hero award which this year happened to go to my girlfriend, Erin Molnar. Here are a few of my favorite images from the evening.

Fall-ing Hard

I didn't snap a ton of photos this weekend but man did I do a ton of things. My weekend actually started on Thursday evening when my friend Aaron took a group of us to Pittsburgh to see one of our favorite High School band, The Queers. I didn't want to worry about the venues camera policy so I didn't bring it. On Friday evening Erin and I went to a market at the amphitheater in downtown Cuyahoga Falls. On Saturday I left my house on my bicycle at 11:30 and rode through a festival in Peninsula, to Oktoberfest in Kent, to Oktoberfest in Akron, over to the closing of my show at Summit ArtSpace, then to a house show in Highland Square. Sunday Erin and I hit two farm markets and a makers market in Willoughby. There were also a couple brewery stops sprinkled in throughout....

Ohio to Erie vid

I posted a bunch of photos and a short instagram video shortly after our Ohio to Erie Trail trip over the Fourth of July but I just finally got to editing the long version. Four days of riding captured with my GoPro Hero 5 Black. My goal was to edit the video to the music as best as possible. It took some time but I think it was worth it.
The song is by my old band - The Strange Division.

Kendall Morning 2019

Late Summer/early Fall is one of my favorite times to hike and take nature photographs. Last week I headed out to the Kendall hills in the Cuyahoga Valley before sunrise to make some images. I was hoping there would be a little more morning fog to shoot the sunrise through but I still got some cool shots. The shallow depth photos of the dewy plants were my favorites.