Old Barn, Old Guy and Natural Light

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet and shoot photos of Frank Tarantino, 80, beside the old dairy barn he owns in Carmel Valley, Calif.  

Built in 1889, the barn housed the cows that produced the first batches of Monterey Jack cheese.

Frank is working with friends to restore the barn before the historic building falls apart.

He's a classic old guy with an amazing piece of history. This is why I love being a photographer!  

For the first two shots I used natural light. I met up with Frank at the barn in the early evening and by then the sun was filtered through a tree. I moved him around to position one of the small slivers of sunlight on his head. 

Then in the third photo we went to the other end of the barn. I zoomed my strobe and dropped it down a stop and then popped the light to his left with an off camera cord. I had some help holding the strobe up as I shot from a low angle.

When I first chimped at the images on the back of my camera I liked the high key effect the of the strobed image.  Later after looking at the images on my computer I decided that I prefer the ones shot in the natural light.

I was in a rush to jump to another assignment but I did have a few minutes to walk with Frank and hear about the history of the place. I hope Frank gets his wish.   

St. Patrick's Day Glasses

My life as a freelancer is evolving quickly and I am starting to develop work in new areas for myself. I will post more about that later for all you interested fans (all three of you) as things develop. For now I'm sending out my best wishes to those at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I feel the pain of those who lost their jobs as I am still adjusting after loosing my staff job.

Here are a few photos from some assignments I shot today. I covered the Otter Open Golf Tournament which is hosted by CSU-Monterey Bay. I was lucky to catch CSUMB golfer Oscar Nystrom as he knocked his ball from a sand trap on the ninth green on Bayonet Golf Course. Sometimes the golfers wait until you have moved on before they hit it into the trap other times they dive right in! 

Later in the day I covered the beginnings of festivities for St. Patrick's Day.  I was lucky enough to find a few folks who were in the spirit early in the evening at Crown and Anchor pub and the Farmer's market in downtown Monterey. 

Meeting and photographing Ted Holt, 80, who wore bright green St. Patrick's Day glasses as he shopped in the open air market, was the high point of my day.

Moments

Over the past weekend I found myself with my camera looking for moments in two widely differing situations. I covered Salinas High Basketball team as Bellarmine Prep. hammered them to a 65-36 loss. The morning after that I was just looking to get something different of my friend and his son as they played in their backyard. 

And while these two assignments may be as different as night and day I walked away from them with a reenforced appreciation of why I came to photography in the first place: The ability to capture moments in time and harness raw emotion. 

And while these photos may not be my best, they serve as an excellent example of photography's ability to isolate these fragments of time and stir new emotions as we view them at a time removed from that moment. 

entering the blogosphere

Here goes! Out of shear boredom or the naive belief that I may have something to add, I'm throwing this up for the masses.  Don't expect too much. If you walk out of here with any new tidbit of information I have achieved more than I expected. If you emerge with a smile I have achieved a triumph. With any luck I will learn more than you in the process.