Happy Veteran’s Day

On my way home from work every day, I drive by the Springfield National Cemetery. It’s a somber sort of place as one can imagine that is surrounded by a 4 foot high limestone and concrete wall, protecting the final resting place of our service men and women.

image by IPBrian ©

Recently, on the busiest of corners, as happens from time to time, someone ran into the wall knocking part of it down leaving a large fissure. I found what must have been I violent opening to have a sort of lyrical structure that made me think of the sacrifices of our service members and their families.

The photo was begging to be taken so I packed up my gear and headed across town.

image by IPBrian ©

I always find cemeteries to be an overly serene place and the National Cemetery is no different. Even with one of the busiest streets in Springfield running adjacent, it has a quite sense of peace. Perhaps the guardian wall does help provide some shelter from the outside.

image by IPBrian ©

image by IPBrian ©

I never like to actually stand on the graves of the deceased. For some reason I find it disrespectful; I always have.

After taking photos of the graves I made sure to brush off the headstones and clean up any debris around the site. It was the least I could do, but a humble gesture I of gratitude that I could offer.

On this Veteran’s Day I send out my thanks to all of our service men and women past and present. Thank you for your service to our country, and stay safe.

My Jasmine Star Experience

Because of the weird way my schedule worked out this week, I had the opportunity to sit through most of Jasmine Star’s creativeLIVE class. Some of the class was listened to in transit, via my iPhone, but I did watch or listen to almost all of the five days of training.

Rather that review the class, which was my first inclination (darn you left brain), I thought I would write how it made me feel. Boy were there a bunch of feelings in this class. I laughed a lot. I teared up, more than once. I was terrible nervous when the creativeLIVE 5 were put on the spot and reveled for the world, some of their photos. I think I even grew a bit.

The Wonderful World of Me

I am not a wedding photographer, or a professional photographer (I actually don’t have any desire to become one). As Jasmine put it at one point in the 5 days we spent together, I am a guy with an expensive hobby. I have for years have a distinct love for photography and design. I buy expensive equipment, I use it for a few photographs, get frustrated with what I produce and put the camera back in its bag. I spend quite a bit of time book learning, but I rarely ever learn or grow by shooting.

Since a very early age I have been this strange mix of technical and creative. I started playing the piano at age 4, I was singing before I was two and even as a small boy I remember dismantling things that were broken, only to find them working again when I put them back together.

By day I am a network engineer a distinctly technical but uncreative job. My day is filled thinking logically about problems, and dismantling why a particular action is occurring and how that problem can be fixed.

Recently my wife and I started our own business. The venture has been terrible exciting and my role is both technical and creative as I take care of web design, advertising, graphic design, photography, video editing, etc for Thrive Personal Fitness.

Though I don’t have our branding anywhere near where I would like it to be, every day I learn more about creating images and advertisements that can help build our business. I have been terribly thankful this creative outlet came about because it in many ways removes the excuses I have used in the past when I failed to create.

When we need a head shot of Pamela for a publication, I make it happen. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have the lighting setup that most head shot photographers use (a common past excuse…I don’t have X piece of equipment). I find a way; I create something out of nothing.

One Hot Mess

Jasmine Star is, by her own description, a hot mess. She describes herself and her photography as fun, fresh and fabulous. I was thinking about the one word I would use to describe her and I settled on effervescent. She seems to radiate both energy and emotion.

I think what I appreciate most about creativeLIVE is getting a REAL sense of the artists. These are some of the top people in their fields, but they feel self-doubt and worry. They second guess themselves and they don’t have answers to everything. The final edit of Jasmine’s photos revealed lens flare, harsh back lit conditions, washed out photos, tilted shots that needed straightening, did she really say auto white balance…seriously? I use AWB!

These less than perfect images are the same kind that has kept me from creating all these years. She seems to thrive while I make excuses. Of course everything isn’t perfect. Of course not every photo stops you in your tracks, but many do. Those that do work propel her forward while I let my less than perfect images foster stagnation. Why have I missed this for so long?

I think I have come to realize recently that I have to stop being afraid of failure. I have to stop giving so much credence to the things that don’t work in my photography; I simply need to learn from them. I NEED to fail in order to grow as an artist (it’s really hard for me to refer to myself as an artist). I don’t have anywhere near the grasp of the art and craft of photography that I would like to and I will never learn that while my camera sits safely in its bag.

Don’t take any of this the wrong way. Jasmine Star is a strong woman, she is proud and confident and a shrewd businesswoman. She knows where she wants to go and I don’t think anyone can stop her. She is a fantastic photographer, she takes incredible photographs, but she is also a real person. She takes real pictures. She is not perfect and she is not afraid to show it live on the internet. I love that.

I am so happy to have shared this time online with Jasmine, her husband JD and the creativeLIVE 5. Thank you all so much for sharing your time and being so brave with your talent and so open to let us all share this little slice of your lives.

B

Slow Burn

I went back and looked today and realized, it has been nearly four months since my original post proclaiming this shell of a website was online.

My intent centered around spending some quality time on the things I love and sharing them will all of you…well the 22 people who for some reason visited last month, and promptly left.

Perhaps it is an indication of the shear amount of work my other project, Thrive Personal Fitness can generate (I am the technical person for our Personal Training business). Perhaps I am just lazy.

Some of the problem lies in trying to figure out what I want IPBrian.com to be. You see I tend to have the attention span of one of those small yippie dogs. I can easily be excited to death about fitness, only to put that excitement on the back burner for the latest in the world of tech (iPad…drool…).

image by Johan Larsson

Currently I am mad obsessed with Photography. I joined the National Association of Photoshop Professionals and then signed up for Kelby Training and have been spending quite a bit of personal time watching Computer Based Training (more to come on this world in future posts). A good deal of this probably goes back to Thrive Personal Fitness.

We need a decent number of images, specifically of Pamela, and in typical fashion I want to do it in house rather than hire someone to do our photography and retouching. I am not the best photographer in the world, but I am learning. I need to spend more time honing the craft, but have to balance it with everything else I am doing.

We spent an afternoon recently taking photos in the studio at Drury University with our friend Justin and I fell in love with strobes. Much of my Kelby training thus far has been watching Joe McNally ramble (Joe you do ramble, but it is brilliant much of the time and as evidenced by my own post, I appreciate a good ramble) about lighting. That sort of control of light is something I just love working with; trying to sculpt the light.

I can’t make grandiose promises about daily posts, but I do need to better allocate my time to get in here an blog on a more regular basis. I surely need some more structure to my normal yippy dog, key jingling, attention diverting……SQUIRREL!!!

B