I recently had the opportunity to work with Spike’s K9 Fund and CrossFit Chesapeake. Spike's K9 is a non-profit that supports the working dogs that keep us safe! They provide ballistic vest so K9 officers are as well protected as their human counterparts. They supply protective equipment to protect from heat injury. Spike's even covers medical bills for injured and retired K9s! They need help to continue this mission, find out how you can help at https://www.spikesk9fund.org
This was a short project I have been working on to capture portraits of some of the climbers of Virginia Beach. Anyone who has been to Virginia Beach knows it’s a long way from any form of non-artificial climbing, which is why I found the thriving climbing scene to be so odd when I moved to the area in 2015. The local gym, Virginia Beach Rock Gym, is one of the oldest in the nation and seeps character from the high warehouse rafters. With the history of the gym comes a community of climbers that feels more like a family, even if you don’t know everyones names, you know who the regulars are.
So every morning I wake up and I meditate, but not like a monk. My meditation consist of making one damn good cup of coffee. I don’t bother with keurigs or K-cups, I prefer my coffee making to feel more like an art form.
As a photographer light is everything. That’s why many professionals invest tens of thousands of dollars into proper studio lighting, but what happens when you need to leave the studio? I found myself asking this question today as I was headed out the door to the Virginia Beach Tattoo Festival. My goal was to capture the awesome and unique personalities of the artist and attendees, but I knew that the harsh florescent lighting of the convention center wasn’t going to cut it. I dug into my gear closet and found a solution that kept me mobile and provided the quality of light needed to produce work that I would be happy with, the Godox AD200.
The mobile nature of this strobe afforded me the ability to go from booth to booth and speak with the artist. My goal was to isolate the individual I was photographing, something that can be tricky at a festival with cluttered backgrounds and large crowds. Using this strobe with high speed sync (HSS) I was able to pull the subject out of the background by painting them with light. The concept of HSS is simple, you set your shutter speed to a ridiculously high number (I was shooting 1/800th) and when the flash fires you capture the light as it hits the subject but before it hits the back ground. It’s pretty rad that you can manipulate light so precisely!
At the end of the day I walked away with some amazing shots, and even better I got to meet a ton of great people.
Special thanks to you guys who let me shove a camera and flash in your face!
