Corey Nolen

moving on... you can come too!

2010-07-12T19:23:00.001-07:00

so obviously i don't love this blog like i used to. truth is its really hard to use. not really but that sounds better than the real reason. so what do i do? i create another one!

actually i have for a long time wanted to start a more professional blog to show off the now hundreds of images that have never made it anywhere but print... let's be honest who reads print anymore.

my world is quickly transitioning. videography and outdoor adventure lifestyle photography. i don't know how this happened. but in order to do it justice i've decided to move my blog presence over to wordpress. sorry google i know that probably just set a siren off in california. so i invite you to a new blog. if you bookmark or do reader please mark it. i'll be showing off lots of fun shoots over the next few months. thanks

theothersideofnp.com

grayben's been paying attention

2010-03-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

between erin, myself, and the business we have 3 facebook pages, 3 blogs, and 1 twitter account. when i realized this this morning my first thought was that i need to simplify. unfortunately we have subdivided our life into so many categories that each one serves a different purpose. i know it sound ridiculous but it is somewhat tried and calculated. for example erin's clients don't want to hear about my brush with birmingham's premier homosexual landmark. so naturally there are times that we want to share something and don't know where to put it. i finally after hours of deliberation (right) decided to stick this video here.

when i'm in the office all day erin will bring grayben down a few times to see me and hang out. it is his favorite place because there are tons of things that could injure or kill him (shredders, damp rid, glue, scissors, paper cutters, etc). he really loves to come downstairs now because his new bff alyssa (our assistant) is down her a couple afternoons a week. so here's a video of him telling us about everyone in our house and then showing us what you do when it's time to put the camera away.

sewage... the great equalizer

2010-02-22T18:38:00.000-08:00

there's a saying out there that eloquently sums up the point i'm about to make but i'll refrain from profanity in this post.

where to start? a couple weeks ago we had some issues in our front yard. i'll avoid description but let's just say it wasn't very civilized. so i call the experts out. as i'm standing over my septic tank looking in with my plumber beside me i said something like, "this feels really personal... you looking at my poo". really it kind of felt like i was standing there naked. okay, pretty gross thought but it was very humbling and yes very personal... i mean you can't exactly blame it on someone else. {aside} you know the jefferson county sewer issue is bad when your looking at a tractor (which grayben still is talking about and saying bye to) digging up your yard, smelling the raw sewage filling up your neighborhood, and watching your bank account dwindling yet still are thankful you're on septic.

okay fast forward to this weekend. we just got back from a great weekend of skiing. as i was driving up i thought to myself "i wonder what will be the defining element of this trip". my first thought was an injury. turns out it was sewage. i should preface this by saying we were staying in a NICE house... one of the nicest on the mountain. saturday night we come back in from skiing, all tired yet pretty happy about our day. (cue ominous music). everyone else has gotten a shower and we walk downstairs to our room only to find our bathroom filling up with water... not clean water. again i'll spare the details but from here it only got worse... lot's worse. the rest of the trip we were washing dishes outside (among other things) and giving ourselves sponge baths. the irony was tremendous.

i unfortunately have several other stories along these lines i could share but i'll go ahead and get back to my point. there's really not a whole lot separating the civilized world from the uncivilized. just some pipes. no matter where we live or what class we're in there will always be some things that put us all on the same level. it's a good reminder though some might think it stinks.

i'm happy to recognize feb as black history month. i will also remember it at "sewage epiphany month".

keyframe animations

2010-01-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

okay this is totally techy and boring to most but i'm really excited that i'm actually learning how to create animations. i would have never in a million years thought i would have a need for this much less think i would enjoy it. turns out my photography venture has led me to video which has led me to motion graphics. any pros out there will tell you what you are about to see it extremely elementary but i'm stoked. pretty sure this will not make it into the video i'm doing but am happy to have figured it out anyway. the video's about an actress who starred in the play "parade". this would lay over the video.

2010-01-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

i have not posted in a very long time. however, every once in a while something happens that i just have to talk about. in this case it's more like therapy.

below is an email I received for a shoot. if you got this email and are familiar with bham, where would you go? even if you're not from birmingham, where would you go?

"Fashion preview –– Thurs. 1 p.m. Coldwater Creek at the Summit (Will take pictures in front of waterfall off Cahaba River going East on Hwy 280) Three models involved. Want group shot and three separate shots."

the cahaba river waterfalls off 280 right!

well some of you may know where this is going. unfortunately 2 hours ago i did not.

so i pull up to the parking lot which appears to be a nice little access to the river and waterfalls. i am 1 of 4 cars... check that, 1 of 5... another car just pulled up. what was interesting, i noticed, is that everyone was sitting in their car, oh yeah and everyone was a man! now excuse my naivety but i did figure since it is lunchtime these guys are just having their lunch by the park.... although no one was actually eating..... okay they've already finished their lunch and are killing the rest of their lunch break enjoying the falls.

my job at this point is to find a good place to photograph 3 middle age women so i get out of my car and descend the hill to the waterfalls. i'm walking around the banks looking for the right angles and some solid ground. i turn around, satisfied with the location and notice that 4 of the 5 men who were sitting in their cars only 2 minutes ago are now coming down the hill towards me. okay, this is a growing up moment. my innocence is in the process of being destroyed and i'm hoping that's the worst that's going to happen to it. still my first thought was drugs... but then i just kept watching these guys. they were pacing, occasionally looking up at me, then looking down, pacing some more... all except this 1 guy. this guy looked like a suburban little league coach and he was coming right for me.

we made eye contact, i nodded, trying to be polite! (in hindsight i'm thinking that must be the code) realizing nothing good can come of this location i hurry up the hill, quickly get in my car, look in my rear view and see that the little league coach is also already in his car. i step on it barely looking both ways only to catch the longest light on 280 where he enjoyed sitting behind me and getting all the info off my license plate. i then got into the slow lane, called the editor on the phone to gently explain that her email description was unbelievable wrong! (she meant the waterfalls at Grandview Parkway)... the cahaba doesn't even got over there!! thankfully my potential assailant must have concluded that based on my volvo wagon with a roof rack i must be more likely to be a lost outdoorsman than (as my mother so eloquently described it) "fresh meat". so he drove on by.

i called a few people after that and apparently EVERYONE! knows what that place is except for me! i came in and told erin and she was like "oh yeah i saw that on the news". i don't watch the news! stokes comforted me by asking if i thought he was still following me? thanks. another thing that bothers me is why did only 4 out of 5 guys get our of their car? was i not good enough for you #5? doesn't seem like the place for standards.

anyway i feel like i got punched in the stomach. thankfully i didn't really. seriously though look at where this is. that's 280! how much more public does it get? also notice how many cars are there. mine will never be again!

isn't it sad that i felt the need to edit the google satellite image?

beauty in the SC

2009-07-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

so i've been gone on vacation for about 3 weeks now which i really don't feel bad about at all... despite all my friends and coworkers attempts to try and make me. 1. because i had to come back home to work each week in between and 2. because if you added up all the Saturday's i have to work over the course of the year it would still be about 10 days more than what I just took off. i consider it self-employment comp time. so anyway....

i spent hours of my vacation looking at new places and appreciating their beauty. a lot of that time i had a camera with me. i was able to really enter into my scenery and try to capture the beauty that it impressed upon me (philosophical, i know). one of my favorite things to do in life.

as i was back on assignment in between my vacations, it occurred to me that yes the places i went were beautiful but i thought they were more beautiful because i had never seen them before. as i looked around i began to appreciate what was around me (in Shelby County) a bit more. they say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". i say "beauty is. and the beholder is the one who makes an effort to see it". that is deep. but really, there are beautiful things all around us. it is usually us who are too busy or distracted to see them.

so i've decided to try and look a little harder at the simple things in life. try and find a little more beauty.

bump n grind

2009-06-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

no, that's not the name of the latest kenny chesney album. actually this was the most recent event i covered that made me feel like i needed to get in shape. last week was xterra this week bump. these are both basically outdoor extreme sports races where people, who border on actually being non-human, compete against one another to the death (or at least that's what it would be for me). in this event there were lower categories and i did see a few people that made me feel like i could get by with running 2 miles a day this week rather than 10. still, the amateurs in this event were quite impressive.

part of my assignment was to get shots at "blood rock". needless to say a lot of people fall there. i felt kindof bad sitting down to watch/hope people busted so i could take their picture. i'm sure the other 20 people there felt the same.

one of my favorite things about assignments like this is that you get to experience pockets of culture... a variety of things you would never know otherwise. birmingham cycling is definitely it's own culture... quite a big one at that.

i ain't rich but Lord i'm free....

2009-03-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

it was a toss up between "much too young" & "amarillo by morning". garth brooks apparently has pulled a Beatles move and made his songs off limits to the downloading community. anyway, there are few better lines in country music. it's become my business motto.

a couple weeks ago i got to cover the rodeo. not the big one at the BJCC where all the big dogs ride, but the local one... regional at best. no endorsements, no big checks like in Happy Gilmore, and no real fame. just guys (and girls) traveling around from small town to small town doing what they feel like that have to do. the purse on this rodeo was $5,000. $5,000! to almost die! and that you have to split among the other winners.

there are few times in my life that i felt like i have been truly submersed in another culture (another was when i worked for the JCCEO). really what i mean by that is there are few times i've been submersed in culture. most of us are so homogenous and vanilla that we really don't belong to any real culture, myself included. i think that made me have even more respect for them. they did this because it was a part of who they were and how they were taught to live.

if you've never seen a rodeo you must go. i wouldn't suggest the big ones that tour around the big cities. find a small town or county rodeo. you will see what i'm talking about. i guarantee no matter how different you think the experience is, you'll come away respecting them.

here are a few shots. also, i felt like a slideshow with some appropriate music would help define what i'm talking about. Here it is.

this is supposed to be the off-season.

2009-03-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

i look forward to this stretch of time. i should have learned by now. in my head it's peaceful, restful, slow moving etc. in reality it's planning, deadlines, conflict, rainy etc. i'm almost ready to say i'm ready for the busy season.

one of my assignments last week was a civic event at the university of montevallo. i arrived right on time for the shoot which was advertised to start at 7. 2 hours later i was standing in the back of the room trying not to fall asleep from lack of calories in my body (oh and they ate a 4 course meal right in front of me). all i could think about was my sweet homewrecker from moe's. as the event was winding down, i was inching towards the door. i literally got my shots that ran in the paper as i was walking out of the venue. now for some reason the workers at moe's in alabaster don't like to make money or at least not from me because they close at 9 o'clock which has been too early for me on several occasions. you know that feeling when you're hungry and ticked. it's a very entitled feeling. so i went to chick fil a and of course nothing was good enough for me. so i did all that was left to do. griped all the way home to my wife who was in nashville with a sick baby. i'm sure there was a lot of true sympathy there. in my 2 hours on assignment i did manage to take some pictures of a watertower that i really like. the reason i like them is because i didn't have to do a thing to them before i posted. i rarely get that luxury. so this is about the best thing that came of that night for me... did i mention it was a friday night!

musical justice

2009-02-10T19:18:00.000-08:00

i am a bit of a conspiracy theorist when it comes to mainstream music. i am and have been for a while, under the impression that if a label pays enough money to get their music in a stations rotation enough times, people will EVENTUALLY begin to tap their foot to the crap being put out there. Toby Keith is a great example of this. as i write this it occurs to me that maybe i should narrow this theory down to country.. though i'm pretty sure the pop and hip-hop genres are the same.

thankfully there is (was) Napster, XM, Rhapsody (i'm protesting ITunes at the moment) etc... where people can actually find music they like the first time they listen to it!! i think if you break that down it actually means people simply like the music. as everyone knows, finding music that YOU like can move you... dare i say change you.

this year there were a handful of songs and artist that i would say this is true of for me.. Ollabelle, The Weepies, 2Pac (only kindof kidding), Amos Lee, & Coldplay ... however THE artists of the year for me were hands down Allison Krauss & Robert Plant with "Raising Sand". i first heard that album last Christmas (which technically makes it last years album) through my always musically hip (seriously!) in-laws. i've been listening to it ever since. i've heard NO ONE else talk about it though i would occasionally hear it playing at a restaurant or store. it seemed to fly under the radar completely.

2 nights ago when flipping through the channels i saw them on the grammy's with producer T-Bone Burnett (Oh Brother Where Art Though). the category they were up for was "Best Album of the Year". they were up against "Lil Wayne" "NeYo" "Coldplay" and somebody else...oh yeah the "NKOTB reunion album".... all of whom, with the exception of AK & RP, every living person has heard a song off the albums. well guess who won?

finally some good music is getting some recognition. it's a fantastic album that i highly suggest. that being said i was actually and literally sad that "Viva La Vida" didn't win but later found out that it did get rock song of the year. again, couldn't agree more.

Poll 1: WHO IS MORE FAMOUS?
1. Allison Krauss
2. Robert Plant

Poll 2: WHO IS A BETTER ARTIST?
1. Allison Krauss
2. Kenny Chesney

These actually stem from recent conversations i've had and would love some input.

learning in reverse

2009-01-22T08:19:00.001-08:00

on our first wedding anniversary 4 1/2 years ago, erin & I went to Charleston. i took my father in laws 1970's pentax (before either one of us really took pictures) because we didn't have a digital at the time. we walked the streets & alleys. i remember getting really excited and i guess inspired by what we were seeing. i began flying through rolls of film. in my head i had the perfect shots and could not wait to see them. unfortunately that never happened. a full week of waiting and anticipation only led to devestation when wolf returned the film unexposed. i felt so defeated. it was the first and last time i tried to use film... until last month.

erin bought me a full canon film kit complete with lenses and camera. everytime i'd take a shot, i would look at the back of the camera. oh yeah. it began to teach me patience that digital pushes right past. it also made me a lot more careful in what i shot considering that every 24 exposures cost me around $7. learning a bit backwards than the rest of digital photographers out there, i am coming to find i've missed some valuable lessons in composition, focusing, and anticipation.

erin and i sat down with grayben, her with the new digital and me with the old film. i obviously love her shots but there is something organic about the film that has really drawn me in. i hope to incorporate this into more of our shoots though i'll have to get a lot better and faster. here are some of the results....

and the digital....

housing crisis

2008-11-26T20:11:00.000-08:00

i usually get assignments that are ordinary, around county stuff. most of it is good news which i think is a finer point of the SCR. however, i've had to do 2 shoots at the humane society both about overcrowding. this story is pretty sad. i usually think of stray mutts at the humane society but when i was in there recently it looked like dogs lining up for a show. a lot of full breed family pets that were pushed out. not trying to go all sarah mclaughlin on you but it really made me want to adopt a bunch of animals. here are a couple of my saddest pics.

met this guy in a dark alley...

2008-11-07T05:58:00.000-08:00

oh wait no this was sports blast on 280... sorry i was thinking of someone else.

if you could only see....

2008-11-04T18:38:00.003-08:00

tonic released this song 12 years ago... 12 years ago! you officially are not young if you remember this song. when this song came out, 12 years before that songs like Hall & Oats "Out of Touch", Michael Jackson's "Thriller" & Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" were being released. And those songs seemed ancient in 1996... but now all my alt rock favorites are some young punks "oldies".

so last sunday i was asked to cover this benefit which i also shot last year. this year the headliner was Emerson Hart... former lead singer of Tonic. i almost didn't stay because it was getting late etc and i wasn't expecting much. for some reason i am always surprised when a professional singer actually sounds good. i don't know why, i just don't expect much out of singers these days. Emerson Hart sounded great. he basically performed a consolidated Tonic's greatest hits ... though i'm sure he'd rather us know him for his new stuff. anyway quite an unexpected treat that made me feel more like an out of touch 30 year old (i'm not really 30). but at least i had 200 drunks there with me to help me make it through.

glass class

2008-10-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

this is a glass making class at the university of montevallo. i kept waiting to get branded by one of these pokers but the students were especially careful and attentive to my clumsiness.

the thing i found most amazing besides the fact that people ten years younger than me were skillfully using 2,000 degree ovens, was that these students worked for about an hour tediously creating their glass bowl... they would shape it and reheat it, dye it and reheat it, over and over again. .. then at the end they would have to separate the rod from the glass. half the time it breaks and half the time its a clean cut. one of the students that day actually did have their glass break at the very end. i thought it was pretty dramatic to put that much work into something knowing that in the very last step it could all be ruined. that's why i love art. people will sacrifice so much and risk coming out empty handed just for the chance at something beautiful. they did have some make it all the way through and they were very much worth it.

grayben

2008-10-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

alright so clearly i am in procrastination mode right now since i've posted twice in 3 hours.

there's usually a lot of crying in our house between 5-7pm. not complaining because that really is the only time there is crying but when it rains it pours. so today grayben went on 2 shoots and out to lunch. he is quite social so he didn't choose to sleep through any of those events. this guaranteed a solid 2 hours of crying for our dinner time entertainment.

erin was cooking dinner so she brought him to me while i was working and for about 20 minutes he cried his eyes out while in my arms staring at the computer screen... maybe they were bad pictures but i'm betting it was sleep deprivation. i can stand it a bit longer than erin but i still have my breaking point. my philosophy is to make more noise than him whick usually works. so with the incessant wailing in my ear, i pulled up itunes and "kicked" a little alicia keys. as soon as the beat started he stopped crying. it was like magic. funny thing was that a kids song that we sing to him came on after alicia keys and he started crying again. so i guess i'm gonna have to start brushing up on my hip hop.

i decided this little story would be a bit more realistic set to a slideshow, so i found some pics on my desktop and set them to grayben's new favorite artist.

Here's the slideshow

fall portraits

2008-10-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

tis the season for pictures with pumpkins and hay bales!

photo essays

2008-10-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

recently i sold my artistic soul to corporate america. i'll borrow a line from the greatest movie of my era and opinion, Oh Brother Where Art Thou.... "for that you traded your everlasting soul?" "well i wasn't using it." quite true of me recently... i sure wasn't using it. just like Tommy Johnson it's kindof worked out... now I get to get better at my art while working for the man. although in retrospect i should have brokered a deal to play guitar better too.

so anyway, i've really enjoyed my gigs so far. i do think it's advancing me as a photographer and a lot of the time i get creative license to come it with what I think are the best shots. nothing like being judged creatively by thousands of people. this was a photo essay from my first week at the fair.

i'm still here

2008-09-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

it's been a long time and lot's of things have changed. i'm starting to shoot more consistently for the paper so hopefully i'll have interesting events to post. this is one i did about a month ago for the top recruited high school football players in shelby county. it ran as a promotional preview magazine just before the season started... so i guess they're not available anymore. i just saw it for the first time this week. anyway, it was a lot of fun technically & creatively figuring how these shots would work. chris, the sports editor had a lot of great ideas. this is what we came up with.

best boomboomhuckjam ever?

2008-08-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

i can't tell you how many boomboomhuckjams i've been to in my life. i'm sure you could say the same. this one however was the boomboomhuckjam to end all boomboomhuckjams. why? because this was tony hawk's boomboomhuckjam. sometimes when you go to these things you leave wishing you could've had a little more huckjam or not so much boomboom. but this one seriously could not have been any more tasteful in their boomboom or their huckjam. glad i went.

you see i was always too scared to skateboard and was never allowed to ride a motor bike. seeing these guys perform for an hour so fearlessly was very impressive. erin and i have been watching the Xgames 14 this week. we both are fascinated at these guys willingness to put their life's in danger for something they are so passionate about. i'm glad my passion allows me to generally stand in one place and press and depress my pointer finger.... sometimes however my legs get tired and my fingers cramp. i guess i can relate.

seriously these guys have my respect and if you've never felt that way about extreme sports, listen to tony hawk for 5 minutes and i'm sure you'll feel otherwise. was there a skate park in homewood that got shut down? tony hawk said something about it to the crowd and how he had written the mayor about it. i still would never get on skateboard but sign me up for the picket line to bring back the skate park. i have been enlightened and it's time for change. "yes we can"

my son...

2008-07-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

sounds weird but it feels right. meet grayben andrew nolen.

i love this little boy more than i ever imagined i could love my own biological child. we had less than 3 days to prepare for him but now that we have him it was too long. i know the rest of my life will be about this guy so i'll spare a long blog post now. he is just about the cutest & sweetest thing i've ever seen. sleeping like a champ as i write. i cannot say enough good about adoption. it can be hard but it is hands down the most incredible thing i've ever experienced in my life. grizzlies in yellowstone are still up there though.

much much more to come.

montana wildlife...

2008-06-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

i have never before been to a place that i felt genuine concern for my life and those around me. it's unlike anything i've experienced... it's no estes park. hiking in glacier you actually have to think about bears because they really are there and really can jack you up if you don't know what you're doing... and sometimes even if you do. so we spent our whole trip both hoping we would see a grizzly and also hoping we never saw a grizzly. there was one day in particular that josh and i hiked almost 5 miles in to a frozen lake. i've never felt more vulnerable & humble by creation. not only was it beautiful but it was eerily void of civilization. we were in something else's territory and i don't mean the US government. thankfully josh is far braver than i am and we made the trip anyway. i will never forget that feeling of isolation & insecurity. it was great. thankfully we didn't see any bears on our hikes but did see them while we were driving. some of the photographers below worked freelance for national geographic.

i think my wife already posted these pics. this was actually about 2 miles in on a hike. the ranger said we were more likely to see a bear than a moose in glacier... he's only seen 4 in 2 years. we saw 6 in 3 days. this guy was literally 30 feet from us at one point (the moose not the ranger... the ranger was literally 3 feet away... it was amazing). it reminded me of the opening scene to "northern exposure" where the moose just strolls through town like nobody's around. he was totally chilled out trying to take a swim. flying out to washington the guy next to us told us how ferocious moose are and to never get close to them... doesn't he look tough?

erin has wanted to see one of these for a long time. this one decided to come in the car with us.

elk that we thought was a caribou.

if you live in the east & most of the west, black bears get all the glory. when you get into grizzly country, black bears get treated like teddy bears. this one was asleep in the tree which completely debunked my theory of climbing a tree to get away from one.

marmot

it is actually where the deer and the antelope play.

it wasn't hard to see a buffalo in yellowstone but this one was huge and just walking down the road.

honor among thieves....

2008-06-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

alright, quick neighborhood check

# of times i called the police in 3 years living in helena: 0
# of times i called the police in 8 months living in bluff park: 2

2 nights ago stokes and i were watching a movie when we heard something banging around outside. i let attie out (like that would do anything), turned on the floodlights, and went back to watching the movie. next morning i walk out front to find one of 2 pieces of our yard furniture missing. what?

why would someone want to steal 1 bench from my yard and nothing else? maybe i scared them off. maybe attie bit a chunk out of their leg and they ran away screaming. or maybe as the police suggested it was just a neighborhood kid pulling a prank. if that is the case, i hope when they got back to their home or tree house or prison cell they tried to sit down on our bench. it was only ornamental. if someone ever tried to sit on it they would end up on the ground.

sad part is it was my great granddad's so it does have some sentimental value. my wife therefore tried a different approach to achieve justice by writing them a note should they come back for the second piece of furniture. i guess some thieves do have a conscience.

tim mcgraw...

2008-06-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

tim mcgraw (i will call him tim from now on) is one of those people who i really could care less about but knew i would regret it eternally... or at least a few years... if i missed the shoot. he really is a phenomenon. not the greatest singer but i think everybody knows that. what you may not know because i sure didn't, is that women would throw themselves at his feet if they could. i would actually hear sighs when the big screen would inadvertently get a shot of his chest or booty. seriously i think a lot of folks paid to look at him... and $75 a pop at that.

i don't know if it was the mix but it looked and sounded like "the dance hall doctors" could have kicked a few physicians out of the practice. seriously there was a point where at least 2 of them stopped playing and i could tell no difference. i bet there were 27 of them... or maybe 8. somewhere in there.

i'm being careful not to give tim any real props (besides his chest & booty of course) for this reason. i used to like country music , a lot. somewhere in the mid to late nineties though it started turning into something very different. i won't blame tim entirely but "indian outlaw" is on my list of "songs that changed country music for the worst". also on there would be the tractor's "boogie woogie choo choo train" neal mccoy's "wink" & joe diffies "welcome to earth third rock from the sun". i mean really, do these sound like country? the problem is now there's no turning back. i have to listen to X Country (xm) to hear any true modern country songs now. tim you owe me $12 bucks a month.... you can split it with joe diffie. anyway, i digress. tim is a superstar who married up and is worth seeing (depending on your gender) for various reasons. mine was because i was certain faith hill (i call her faith) would show up.... she didn't.

my living room....again

2008-06-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

it occurred to me as i was prepping this post that the last 6 months of my blog have mostly been about my house. so keeping with the theme, here's my living room.

i'm about to shoot for a company that specializes in commercial VR photography. i had to do a trial run using some new panoramic equipment. i thought it was super cool... at least enough to waste my time on a blog post.

sheryl crow...

2008-05-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

today sheryl crow has no idea who i am. shocking, right? well at about 9:10 last night she did.

erin and i were lying in bed talking about the concert last night and it hit me. for a brief moment in time... maybe just seconds, sheryl crow knew who i was, what i looked like, and what i did for a living. kind of fun. i've had some cool opportunities lately that have put me in contact with some fame. people who would never remember me nor care after the show (or during the show for that matter) but during those 3 songs i was on their radar. does this sound psycho? sorry, i think it's cool.

anyway, i've got to write a review of the show and am using my blog to prep. overall it was a great show. she is a far better singer than i would have imagined and her stage presence was really second to none. as a former stage lighting tech, i appreciate the lighting more than most but hers was truly impressive. only downside for me.... wait there were a few. we got there at 7 being told she started at 7:30 only to find out she went on at 9 and had an opening act. what's worse? her opening act was shawn mullins. what? spent $10 on a snickers and 1 piece of pizza then almost got into a fight trying to break up a fight between a disgruntled middle aged man and a few young women. seriously the man was going to fight the women. then he wanted to fight me for stepping in. crazy thing was most people were on his side! go birmingham. anyway, we stayed the whole show which really was great and left looking over my shoulder in the dark parking lot. all in all an eventful trip. here's the pics.

this was actually the first song... "God Bless This Mess" which was really good. when you only get three songs and the first one has the lighting of my closet, you get a little antsy... but i really like the feel of this one.

moving on....

2008-05-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

the other day i was at a shoot with another photographer. she said, "i think i know you. you shot somebody famous." certain she had the wrong person and certain i had never photographed anyone famous i said "who michael warren". she said no so i went down my short list of potential candidates. apparently my friends act of congress are more famous than the pop phenom. congrats guys!

so anyway i get a call the other day from one of the guys in the band. he kindly informs me that my photos will soon be replaced. turns out they've gotten in with ryan russell. i don't know ryan but he's shot a lot of folks. he is certainly one of the top entertainment photographers in the area.... so i guess if i'm going to be replaced, it's a good thing it's him. i look forward to seeing what he comes up with. it will not doubt have a yellow tint.

all that got me a little sentimental and i realized i never posted anything from that shoot. so 7 months later i present act of congress... quite possibly the last time you'll see these pics.

derek trucks band

2008-05-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

i got to shoot a concert the other day. i was an official photographer... i felt like a rock star or a least a person taking pictures of a rock star. this is the opening act which i don't know why more people didn't come to see this. he is amazing. only 28 years old and he's played with all the living legends. lots of signatures on his guitar... see if you can make out any. headliner pics to come.

the cowboy way...

2008-05-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

funny this wasn't how i pictured it.

i've been wanting to post something for a while but haven't had the time to put in a good one. these pictures just crack me up so this will work for now.

finally some photography

2008-04-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

for some reason i haven't wanted to post much of my photography recently. not sure why. i think partially because i've been doing mostly commercial stuff and haven't felt like the time was right to show the images.

anyway, i went out and shot for a paper the other day and my assignment was to capture the atmosphere of the event rather than get the typical newspaper shots. they were running a gallery on their website and wanted a little different style. nothing special... just wanted to post some of my stuff since i haven't in over a month.

beer, art, & God

2008-04-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

well this post is going to be disappointing because there are no threats on my life or fictitious love affairs... and no photography. but it is quite relevant to my current state of life and thus photography.

there is only one beer out there that has ever made me want to create a blog post. it's called Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale. it is one of the best tasting beers i've ever had... actually it is the best. i won't bore you with why but one of it's highlights is it's label. you can't find this beer just anywhere in fact whenever i get together with my friend Brave we go on a scavenger hunt...it's seems Fresh Market & Diplomat Deli are the safest bets. anyway the reason we first tried this beer was because of it's label. that's right it's a clothed bird eating a naked human with birds flying out of it's booty. about as weird and hedonistic as one could imagine.

the story behind is that this brewery opened in an abandoned abbey. this artist, Hieronymus Bosch, apparently lived in the area when he painted his masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights around 1504.

if you look closely in the lower right hand corner you can see the Tilburg logo (sorry if it won't open... sometimes blogger bites... do an image search for it if it won't open... it's worth it). so what's the point?

point is that i was made aware of a historic masterpiece because of something as trivial as my pursuit of a better tasting beer. this painting is quite imaginative and somewhat uncomfortable due to the uninhibited nature of the creatures depicted in it. i think it's fascinatingly sick. furthermore the real point of this painting was to depict the extreme nature of a fallen world... creative imagery of the garden of eden post fall... anything goes. my understanding is that Bosch's point was not to be humorous but rather to provoke thought and some real emotions about the severity of mankind's situation as a result of sin and brokenness. who want's to live in a world where giant birds eat humans who apparently eat birds who pass them as they are about to be passed by a bird. really this is an amazingly creative and Truthful piece of work.

there's a new documentary movie coming out from ben stein... you know "bueller, bueller, anyone... bueller". his objective is to show how creationist are being "Expelled" in academia because they don't fit in with modern science and evolution. he makes a great point that science is divorcing itself from God (and i'll say vice versa too... the church and science) which is giving an incomplete view of the world, science, and nature. his point which i think is excellent is that life/matter/gas must have started somewhere by something thus making God & science married or joined together. evolution was a great 19th century simple solution to some issues but it does not do a good scientific job of filling in the gaps of the 21st century. we know way too much now about the complexity of cell structures to not demand more answers to the bigger questions. his greater point is that Einstein, Newton and even Darwin operated on the premise that there is a God and thus a creator.

it is historically substantiated to suggest that the majority of influential & timeless thought & art was based on the idea that there is a Creator and there is Truth in that paradigm of thought that all other things can safely be placed on. i know this to be true in my own life, with my own emotions, with my own world view etc. as an artist however i believe that i can make truer more significant art as i base my creation on the premise of this Truth that there is a Creator. i believe thought & art based on this Truth tells a much deeper story than that which is not. back to the beer....

my favorite beer uses a logo from a painting that debuted over 500 years ago... that author of that painting had a connection to the Creator and made a magnificent, imaginative, creative yet truthful piece of art because of his beliefs.... the product of that creation has been getting attention for a very long time. my point to all of this? i long for our art to have substantial significance and hope that we will always draw from this same source that has historically proven to provide a timelessness to thought & art.

things they don't teach you in business school...

2008-03-17T06:58:00.001-07:00

i didn't actually go to business school, but if i had i don't think they would have taught me about last night. (this is long but worth the read)

let me first say that yesterday was a great day. church was great and immediately after that we set out for chattanooga with some friends to see the aquarium. i should also say if you live in birmingham and think birmingham is a cool place to live... don't go to chattanooga. they've got it together. as we were discussing with our friends, we think the key to their (and many other city's) success is that they have a river (and actual mountains), so what we suggested is we tweak/scrap the whole dome idea (as great as it is) to include a lazy river around the city. we could turn it green for saint patrick's day (is that today?) or you simply take a ferry tour for the evening. yeah, yeah, i know some of you may be saying "but we have the cahaba river." i know, and i'm very thankful for the cahaba and the medication i have to give my dog every time he swims in it.... but it's just not the same. anyway, i digress.... on to my story.

i would like to think i'm an optimist but i must say that when things start going really well, i start looking for the other shoe to fall. and, maybe through a self fulfilling prophecy, it actually does.

so it's getting late. erin and i are having some ice cream and watching some story on national geographic about people getting killed by polar bears (don't ask).... basking in the memories of a great day.... mind you there are only about 2hours left in this day. around 10 o'clock my cell phone rings. i check the caller id and it's not anyone in my directory so i let it go to voicemail (there's your proof stokes-if you read this). eagerly i wait for my message indicator so i can figure out who this is. Q: i mean really who would be calling someone at 10pm on a sunday night. A: someone who thinks i'm having an affair with his wife. still there?

the message goes something like this.... "corey nolen, i just checked a message from you on my wife's voicemail that said "hey baby, just want to know if you still want to do this, i still have the files". just letting you know that you better get rid of this number because if i ever see it again i'm going to track you down and kick your ass."... more or less.

let me really emphasize the lack of words i have to describe my feelings at this point. i'm being made aware that i'm having an affair with someone's wife and soon going to die.

so i call the guy back thinking we can somehow figure this out and come up with an explanation but unfortunately this guy really did just want to kill me and wasn't entertaining any other options than what he initially thought. after being threatened a second time i decided to pray and call the police.

erin and my first thought was "who would call someone saying they are me". honestly that was the worst moment, thinking someone was playing a prank/signing a death warrant on me (which is not beyond some of my friends). my sharp, smart, detective like, wife began to think outside the box and we thought of every single person i've called in the last 3 months. we even went into our cell & office phone records to try and find this #. during this time the fine officer who (really did a great job) i filed the report with called my assailant to try to figure out what was going on. he actually listened to the message that was left and ACTUALLY AGREED that it sounded like "hey baby!" i explained to the officer that "baby" is not in my vocabulary. i've never in my life called anything baby unless it was a baby. my wife was there to verify. i also, explained that we run a business and have to call clients on occasion, so the explanation must be somewhere in that.

no matter, the pressure is now on us to figure this thing out. it felt like some movie where the innocent guys fingerprints are all over the crime scene. erin and i sat at the computer for what seemed like forever looking through phone records. we found an outgoing call to these people on thursday afternoon... FROM OUR HOME PHONE! okay so erin's thinking who's been in our house... and who's in our house right now.... i'm thinking, am i having an affair and forgot? after maxing my brain out, cross referencing phone records, going through every phone number we have written down or in our directory, my beautiful and smart wife (i'll call her baby now) figured it out.

i am beginning to do some freelance work for a company who's CEO is named "beatty". beatty gave me 2 numbers to contact him with 1. his actual office 2. his home office. the number beatty gave me for his home office was the number of the assailant. apparently i did leave a message with beatty that was asking him about "the files" he had given me in which i was about to "do this" presentation with. it was like we cracked the case... it was awesome.

so i called the officer back, explained everything to him. he talked to my assailant explained the mistake to him. my assailant apologized and i was finally able to go to sleep. the end.

because this is a photography blog i thought you might like to see what it looked like through the various stages of this nightmare... all before the end of an otherwise wonderful day. and btw, the other shoe did fall.

the following is a dramatization...

my first love...

2008-03-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

before this blog was about photography, it was about music. i love to write, play guitar and sing but especially love it when it's with ethereal. there has always been chemistry with us and somehow we have made it for almost 10 years.

we don't play very often at all. in fact we actually thought that we had quit. but somehow we keep getting sporadic gigs and we still throw a set together from time to time. a few months ago we all sat down at panera, the place where business happens, and talked about our future. we're not young any more and we all have fairly demanding jobs and home life's. but if you've ever performed music you know that it gets in you and stays in you and when you don't have it you feel a void. with an accumulation of new and in my opinion much more versatile songs, we decided to give this thing another year of focused attention. now remember we had thought we quit so this is a big deal. so we've been practicing for a month now and it's just like old times.

anyway, this weekend we had one of our bi-annual shows which was actually a 2 day event. we went up early and pretty much had the whole day together to play music and then just play. i had more fun friday than i have in very long time. i think after times like this we would all agree that it's as much about our friendships as it is about the music. i am very thankful for this part of my life which i feel like has been suppressed for the last year or so. hopefully it will re-emerge soon.

the pictures: at some point in the last 2 years stokes became an outdoors man. as soon as we had finished rehearsal stokes got us all to go "mudding" (and i use that term loosely) with him. after that we had a friendly game of paper hand baseball where will actually had a sustaining injury. it was a good time. here are some pics.

never done this before...

2008-02-28T15:48:00.000-08:00

alright i've never posted my wife's photos on my blog before. i do most of the editing, though she still does a good bit, however we have always done so separately. after some discussion about what we want our pictures to look like now and what we hope for them to look like in the future, we decided to both sit down and work together on a few pictures.... give input on the things that matter to us individually. i should say, working together is hard... very hard sometimes. having 2 points of view and coming from 2 different sides can be difficult. i felt the need to show these pics since it shows the combination of our styles and reveals the efforts of our attempts to work together. did i mention it is hard? you will also find these on my wife's blog if you've never been there before.

oh and by the way we did not resolve that this is how we want our pictures to look. but it's progress.

michael dulin

2008-02-28T05:11:00.000-08:00

mike is a piano player... a really good piano player. i don't know much about piano skills but i know he sounds good and his resume is impressive. also, one of the nicest guys i've met.

we spent several hours with mike at gorham's bluff. if you don't know where that is, you are not alone. it's about 2.5 hours away from birminghm, near chatanoogo. we got to hear a lot of his stories and a good bit of his music. i told him going into the shoot that i had been looking forward to having some great, peaceful music playing while i worked. i wish i could have that on every shoot. anyway, mike plays all around the country and back at home he owns and operates a recording studio. impressive guy to say the least.

one of the most challenging things about this job is shooting for someone who knows what they want and it becomes your job to capture that. that was just the case with mike. he has a new album coming out and wanted to capture the album title in photos. you'll have to get the album to see those pics, but here are some i did for his personal promotion.

primary colors...

2008-02-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

alright this has brought on some discussion in my household so i figured i better do my research. here's what i found out....

apparently if you are involved with art or painting or can remember what you were taught in elementary school then you would most likely say that the primary colors are red, yellow, & blue. the reason being, they say, is that you cannot make these colors by blending other colors. they are unique and will not be replicated. and if your old enough to remember the Glad commercials you heard that yellow and blue make green not blue and green make yellow.

now if you are involved with graphic arts, design, photography, or have a television you may think of the primaries as red, green, & blue or RGB. the reason these are considered primaries in these fields is that the combination of the three creates white. these are considered "additive primaries". now, when the different combinations of 2 of these additive primaries overlap they create 3 other primary colors (where i was wrong in my previous blog post). the difference is that when you combine these three new primary colors, they make black and are therefore called "subtractive primaries". in my fellow bloggers defense, yes it is still a primary but in my defense, yes it is still a secondary since technically you can combine 2 colors to make yellow. sounds weird i know but the more you combine additive primaries, the lighter your result is.

bottom line is our kindergarten teachers were wrong! here a good link for how to make yellow .
and here's a visual of the new and improved additive and subractive color wheel.

oh yeah, and turns out yellow and blue don't make green. looks like the happy days guy was wrong too! color combination misrepresentation is apparently a big deal these days. apparently lots of artists are scratching their heads trying to use old science.

family portrait...

2008-02-14T08:47:00.000-08:00

erin just posted our family portrait on her blog so i thought i'd post one on mine. this is the perfect example in the difference in our styles. she'd rather be outside on a big open wall with ton's of natural light and i'd rather be inside a narrow hallway with diagonals and manufactured lighting. the composition is a product of our individual taste but the photography rights actually go to my sister. she is starting to learn photography and just got a digital slr (canon of course) for christmas and had her first lesson in mexico. she did a good job. keep it up!

the other side of the camera...

2008-02-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

erin and i had a great weekend cruising the gulf of mexico and eventually strolling through mexico. we carried but one camera, one lens (we are not insured out of the country and i can't lie) and of course it turns out mexico is the best place i've ever been to take pictures. it made us want to call everyone we've ever taken pictures of and tell them to fly down to cozumel to re do their shoots.

most of the locals are very poor and clearly have very little. still we found ourselves really envious of the culture. they seem to have much more wealth in that department. i think that's the case in most areas like this though. one way that came out was how they decorate. there are so many vibrant colors in cozumel. the streets just popped out. granted a lot of it was the yellow in the corona signs but still. at least they weren't neon bud light signs. why we don't use more primary colors in the states, i don't know (and yes i know yellow is not a primary color).

anyway, erin and i snuck away and had ourselves a mini modeling shoot. thankfully for you all she was the model and i was the one taking pictures. i've been doing so much editing lately, i haven't shot that much. it was fun to be the photographer for a photographer. we had a good time and i thought others might want to see the person who is usually behind the camera. more to come.

lesson for the kids...

2008-02-03T20:21:00.000-08:00

cheaters don't win. go giants.

much is expected

2008-01-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

if you know me at all you know that i have tried to "succeed" at number of ventures that just didn't pan out the way i would have liked for them to. with those, i worked very hard, only to watch them fade away over a few months or years.

this past year erin & i both went from being employed with other institutions to being self-employed through our own photography. we did not plan or ask for this. it really did "happen" to us, and i think that's how most good, significant things in life work out. of course we work hard to maintain & grow the business but we will be the first to tell you that we are not responsible for its presence in our life.

it's still completely terrifying and we feel like fish out of water most of the time. but as we look at where we've been and look ahead to what's on the horizon, there's a sense of security & assurance about what we are doing.... something i failed to ever obtain with my other ventures.

all this to say, that we feel like we truly have been "given" everything we have. we don't feel like it started with us but we feel responsible for its upkeep. it may all be taken away this year... we don't know. but while we have it, we are going to be grateful and do our best to pass it on. one of the greatest aspects of what we've been given is the flexibility to pursue things of substance (not related to photography). which for me is represented in the video. if you want to watch it, you will get a glimpse into another passion in my life ... and also some of my photography. for a download in full quality, click here. otherwise, watch this one.

at long last

2008-01-01T13:36:00.001-08:00

okay, here's what (some of) you all have been waiting for. not the greatest shots but at least you see the final product. to view the first week for comparison click here or start in September's posts and move forward. Thanks for all the encouragement and support... I never felt like I was doing it alone.

the house

2007-12-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

okay, i realize that i haven't posted anything on the house in over a month. i have been a little embarassed with how long it has taken us to get the inside wrapped up.

we had to have a new home study (for the adoption) for our new home. our social worker who is very easy to work with and has been very kind to us, was unable to completely check the house off because of the unfinished guest bathroom which has remained untouched since the last photos i posted of it. it makes sense. who wants to send a child into a construction zone to be raised.

the middle of last week orders started settling down and i was able to actually really finish the inside of the house. so i promise that when we get back in town i will take pictures of the finished product. not that most of you really care about the inside of my house, but to those of you who have been faithful in the process i owe you the satisfaction of a conclusion. thanks for the support.

things to come.... hopefully

2007-11-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

erin and i do weddings together now. she still calls the shots and is definitely in charge but has let me run with some things as of late. we actually are very different in how we approach photography. sometimes that's stressful but mostly our strengths compliment the others weaknesses.... for example: one of erin's strengths is her undying devotion to auto focus which i often forget to turn back on. she kindly reminds me that if we want to keep taking peoples pictures our shots should be in focus. it's a good point i think though i just call the blurry ones "artistic".

one of the coolest things about this past year of starting our combined business, has been figuring out where we each fit into the puzzle. amazingly we don't overlap all that much which just helps to confirm what we are doing.

one of my jobs is to get good at photo editing. sometimes i think this is harder than learning the camera. i am a purist for the most part, meaning i don't like a lot of manipulation on the photo. i used to accuse people of covering up bad photos with effects but really i objected simply because i didn't know how to do the things they were doing. turns out it's been a long time since most people have seen a truly pure photo anyway.

i was talking to my aunt over thanksgiving and she used to develop film. i learned (because i've never been in a real working dark room in my life) that people would manipulate their photos in the dark room in a very similar way that photoshop and other software allow you to manipulate your digital images. obviously it was much more difficult and tedious but still the good photos where probably going through some sort of intense post work.

all this to say that i'm feeling more liberated these days and trying my best to make some really good photos turn into really great graphics. we have been doing a lot of planning this fall and are making some major adjustments in how we shoot and process. here's a shot from a wedding that reflects some of those changes.

whiskey falls

2007-11-24T13:57:00.000-08:00

it has been a long time since i've posted any of my real work. the last 3 months have been dominated by the house but there have been a lot of shoots in between. i hope that this blog gets back to actual photography at some point soon although it's been fun documenting the house. its a little strange to have people you don't know come up do you and ask how the house is coming. i'm just glad i've offered some entertainment on some level.

if you listen to rick & bubba and admit it then you've probably heard of whiskey falls. my wife is all about poppy, 3 chord progression, 3rd person written, 3part harmony songs. i typically am not. in fact i really did not like whiskey falls before i did this shoot.

i was asked to be the photographer for this big oak ranch benefit concert that featured michael tolcher and whiskey falls. both were great. i will admit that whiskey falls was exceptional. their harmonies were tighter than i've ever heard in a live band. their version of seven bridges road was unreal. i felt really bad because i told erin she couldn't come because she had too much work to do. i know, it was really mean but i did hold my phone up and let her listen... which we all know is just like being at the show, especially with our awesome free motorolla's.

anyway, i got to meet the lead singer "seven" after the show and i'm hoping they will post a few pics on their website at some point. i'm not holding my breath. anyway if you ever get a chance to see them, i would recommend it.

week 7&8

2007-11-18T20:03:00.000-08:00

alright, i'm finally able to post some of the progress from week 7 & 8. the real crunch came when the kitchen floors had to get done so the cabinets could be put in and then so I could start on the hardwoods. while i had the tile saw i also had to finish the tile in the bathroom. all of this was with the deadline of the moving day and then a week later the renters in helena moving in. oh yeah, and this has been one of the busiest times for the business since we've started. as jackson browne said, we have been "running on empty" these last two weeks. anyway, i'll spare the life commentary for now.... i'll have the holidays for that. there is LOTS more to post since these were taken but lets not get ahead of ourselves okay.

no time

2007-10-30T20:18:00.001-07:00

sorry... there is lots to update on the house, as well as shoots that have been accumulating. for now though, i have no time to post extensively. there's still a lot to do in the 10 days left.

if you want to help us move, we are doing so on saturday nov. 10th. email me if you can
info@nolenphotography.com

week 6

2007-10-19T06:34:00.001-07:00

well, this is supposed to be the post that i show all the finished work. 6 weeks was my goal anyway. it sort of reminds me of the show "flip that house" where the people go in really naively and in the beginning they're asked how they expect it will go and they're like....

budget: $1,000
timeframe: 1week
est profit: $1 million

during the show, TLC will make you think they're about to file bankruptcy because of all the added problems they found that they weren't expecting. it'll show them crying or throwing a temper tantrum. their family dynamic crumbling. then in the last minute of the show they go back and ask them what it really took and they look all tired and realistic and kind of laugh as they give the update which is like...

over budget: $50,000
actual amount of time took: 4 months
actual profit: $40,000

and they're always kind of disappointed but totally relieved... and we're like shut up you just made 40,000 dollars!!

well, this is not really an analogy but more of an aside. we're NOT flipping this house nor are we way over budget thankfully. but we have experienced the great stress of renovating a house on a timeline with limited financial resources. so here i am near the end of the episode saying that this is when i wanted to finish but we're still at least a couple weeks away.

the real news this last week was that 1. we rented the helena house, which was what this whole thing hinged on, and 2. i sold my jeep. talk about sentimental.

the house in helena was every bit of a remodel that this new house is, just on a smaller scale. it is where we learned to do most everything. we love this house and really weren't planning on moving until about a month and a half ago. we've pretty much fixed this house like we want it and it fits us so well. but, with a baby coming and a crazy dog that was supposed to settle down after year 3, it would soon become a little cramped. we are thankful for God's provision.

i've had the jeep since my sophomore year of college. it made me cool on many occasions. in fact, it played a large role in landing a girlfriend who eventually became my wife. it was hard to watch it just sit in the garage the last 3 years but lets face it a jeep is a completely impractical car. it was actually a lot harder watching someone else drive it away... to mississippi at that. anyway as a friend expressed to me so gently the other day, i need to grow up. here are some updated pics.

our new office

the long awaited bathroom remodel

plumbing and pantry

week 4&5

2007-10-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

well i got a week behind in posting, so hopefully you will find a lot of change.

first, it's worth noting that i thought i was going to die or at least go to hospital in an ambulance in week 4. apparently ceramic tile is the sharpest thing in the world. a broken piece met my soft leg and cut it about an inch deep. i looked down, in relatively little pain, and saw blood flowing like a river. my heart sank. i had no idea how or if i could stop it. i stood there with my hand on it for about 5 minutes wondering how i was going to get to the phone without getting blood all over my new hardwood floors. anyway, my dad was quick on the scene and he and 6 firemen agreed that stitches were needed.... not tomorrow, as i would have preferred but immediately. so for the first time in my life i was in the "trauma room" undergoing some mild surgery. the good news is the doctors know my name now. all in all, it set me back about 6 hours but i did manage to get some good pics just for the blog.... i saved them for last if you want to see. WARNING: don't scroll down if you don't like blood.

other than that it's been a lot of painting the last 2 weeks. basically every room in the house has gotten 1 layer of kilz and 2 layers of paint. i used to really hate painting but for some reason this time it's not been too bad. on that note i should really thank my mom who has been working at the house with me (and sometimes by herself) whenever she has a free moment. i pretty much run everything by her before i do something.... and when i don't she still usually lets me know she thinks, which i appreciate.

week 4, i FINALLY finished the sheetrock in the kitchen.... now my newest least favorite thing to do. i also gave up on my idea of trying to save the tile in the bathroom and just tore it all out. week 5 my friend josh came up from orlando to help me for 3 days. it was really fun and a huge help. we painted and layed tile in the kitchen.... he was really good at it. also, the ac/heat was finished up, so we now are working in a cool house. just in time for the 90 degree october weather.

this week should be plumbing and hopefully finishing tile... maybe starting hardwoods instead. the end is approaching but there are still some huge projects left. the yard for instance, which i won't bore you with on the blog, is an out of control beast. i don't even want to think about what it's going to take to tackle it. all in all though i don't think i'm going to be much beyond my 6 week timeline for the inside renovations. here's some pics for you enjoyment.... remember the last set of picture looks like a CSI crime scene... okay not really... i did't post the bad ones.

mom doing her thing & the long awaited thermostat

"the injury", not as great as michael scott's

week 3

2007-09-24T19:53:00.001-07:00

alright, here's week three. i did manage to get the hardwoods laid down which was an experiment. the pics show the process. also, the kitchen sheetrock is getting very close to being finished. i learned from my previous sheetrock experiences that i have to be very patient. my lumpy bathroom and studio walls are a testimony to that. so, i have at least one more layer of mud to put on those walls but it seems to be coming together.

my friend stokes came over today and helped me paint the ceilings and closets. next (this week) will be the walls (i bought all the paint today). hopefully the kitchen and guest bath will be ready for tile. the guest bath needs a LOT of work.... first by a professional. as it turns out though, its pretty hard to get a subcontractor to do anything they say they're going to do. i'm sure most people knew that already. i was supposed to have a couple estimates from plumbers for the guest bath but never heard from either.... and my ac/furnace has not been worked on since last monday... i don't know if they're still in business. anyway, on the helena side of things, we have been having to keep the house clean to show to folks who don't show up which is real nice. i am hoping that that adventure is about to come to a close.

most of my attention this past week was on the floors and kitchen walls, so here are those pics.

after one coat of mud

as they were being laid

the finished product

kensington road studio

2007-09-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

i believe i've hit a wall. my body is aching from the work i've been doing on the house, so i gave myself the day off today.... from renovations anyway. this has given me the chance to post a shoot i did few weeks ago.

i got this shoot through a fraternity brother (but i can't really call him brother because i depledged). i was running at the park with a friend a couple months ago and he was there walking his dog. pretty random but we caught up and he's been really supportive of my photography. he referred me to a friend of his who is starting up this studio. really nice by the way with some great equipment. if you are interested in some very high quality recording for some startup rates, this is the place.

here are some shots for their promotion.

week 2

2007-09-17T11:07:00.001-07:00

its hard to believe that we're in the 3rd week. we are hoping to rent the house in helena by nov 1 now at the latest giving us about 6 more weeks. the guy installing our ac/furnace asked if we thought this would take about 6 months or so..... i think we can do it in 4 weeks but we'll see.

since the last post, a lot has been done. the pee drenched floors have come up. the wall in the kitchen has come down. the new kitchen sheetrock has been hung. all the walls except the ones in the basement have been kilzed making the smell a thousand times better. the new furnace has been installed. the kitchen cabinets have been ordered. the master bath toilet has finally become usable.

all the while i've managed to slice my finger nearly to the bone, smash my finger with a hammer, step on a nail and have to get a tetanus shot, and drill into a live wire that nearly caught the house on fire and apparently almost fried me. that's what fuses are for.

this week i lay new hardwoods, finish the sheetrock in the kitchen, ac is installed, and paint picked out. hopefully a few more things in addition. here's some updated pictures.

middle last week

this past weekend

erin's family came down from tenessee to help

what exactly do i do again?

2007-09-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

i'm not very sure how to answer this question. last week we bought a house. not just any house but one that needs a LOT of work. under most circumstances this would be an insane venture. i'll spare you the details, but these circumstance were not typical. anyway, i've basically put my entire work life on hold to fix this house up. it's not for everyone, but i can honestly say that i enjoy it. i already have lost hours of sleep due to the anxiousness of getting back in the house and doing more work. it's like a puzzle... a big, scary, expensive puzzle that you just hope you don't lose a piece to in the process of putting it together.

so my plan, as suggested by my sister, is to document the progress of the house. we hope to have everything done by the end of october. these pics are from late last week after i had already done some work. i hope to catch each of the stages meaning my blog will be boring for a couple months. i'll try to post some photos shoots in between.

this is on the way to the house. i don't know if you can see, but this dog had on goggles. funniest thing i've seen in a long time. attie kept barking at this dog as if to say "take those stupid glasses off, your making us look bad."

colorado

2007-08-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

when you take photographs for a living you expect to really take some exceptional shots when you go to a place like colorado. we actually didn't take as many as i thought we would and what we did end up taking were not exactly the shots i had in my head. everybody says its really hard to take a bad picture in a place that is beautiful. i agree with that but it also is really hard to take a great picture too. after viewing some of the art galleries in the town we were staying, i realized that my outdoor pictures have a long, long way to go. a lot of it has to do with the time of day and some had to do with the equipment differences. i think the biggest difference though is experience.

anyway, here are some of the keepers. probably too many for a blog.

my cool wife in colby, kansas "the oasis"

along trail ridge road... highest paved road in us

aspen trees... one of my favorite things about colorado

tons of elk

erin and i had a debate over whether the fly fisherman adds to the pic or takes away.

my try at ansel adams

act of congress.... from the vault

2007-08-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

if you don't know about act of congress, you better ask somebody. i got to know the guys in the band through ethereal's music as well our little studio venture. individually they are stellar musicians. put them together and its one of the best groups around. they have been getting a good bit of attention lately from various folks in the birmingham music scene and it's looks like they are on their way.

a couple months ago i went to help them film a dvd to use as a promotional piece. i took some quick shots while they were playing but thought i lost them. well, an external hard drive crash and a computer later the pics resurfaced. i was happy, so i decided to post.

the university..... of alabama

2007-08-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

my wife asked me why i keep calling it "the university". probably has something to do with the brain washing i experienced as a child. clearly there is another university in the state that is just as (or more) deserving. however, it's history & reputation is respectable... maybe subconsciously that's why i keep honoring it with that title.

anyway, a few weeks ago i was commissioned to do a shoot for a publication by "the university" of alabama. my main assignment was to replicate a photo that had been taken 30yrs ago. i had a lot of fun experimenting ways to make all the different aspects of the earlier photo come out in our shoot. in the end i got shots of a couple buildings. word is they are giving 2 of the shots a prominent place in the publication.

structural photography is becoming my favorite, i hope to keep getting more gigs like this but i'm pretty sure they are rare.

michael warren

2007-07-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

one thing i've learned about doing photography for people is that what you think is good and what they think is good often are different. erin and i have had the priveledge of seeing our images used in various mediums of marketing and often the one(s) we would have used is the one that they don't like & vice versa. this brings me to mw.

i did a shoot with michael and his band a few weeks ago. michael has been an up and coming artist here in birmingham for a few years. his future looks bright (hence the shades). i was thrilled to have the chance to do a shoot with such a high profile artist. i thought it went...well, just okay.... it turns out i was actually using a bum lens that i thought was working properly, at least until i got back home. the shoot was the first one i/we did since it came back from being repaired after a tragic fall. anyway, that along with a few other things i felt like I didn't do well made this shoot average at best.

i learned that when you go into a gig working for someone, you are actually working for them. in other words you need to make dang sure you get what they want before you get what you want. i learned this after the fact when all the good shots were the shots his manager did not want. any of them with his shades on were going to be cut....too bad since they were the only reasonably good ones in the batch. it looks like my names not going to be in lights with mw. if you want to see some of the shots that were kept, check out his myspace. if you want to see some that were cut, look below....

this one was a trial attempt. i wanted to give the impression of him being most significant as the lead man.... it's just hard to get good pics in low light.

citizen cope

2007-07-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

i love music however i would not say i am a huge fan of many musicians. like most other people it takes a lot for me to get excited about a song or artist since there are about a billion out there. and though i may like an artist it is extremely rare that i get hooked on their music. well, i can honestly say that i discovered an artist that has changed my life. that sounds extreme i know but it is true. it is like an addiction.... i cannot stop listening. this is a blog about photography but when something really significant happens you just want to tell as many people as possible.

i went to see citizen cope at workplay before i'd ever heard a complete song of his. i went with my friend stokes and his pastor burt. it was good, but it wasn't until weeks later that it reeled me in. i don't know what it is.... i never really do, but it is just solid, authentic music. i write all of this to hopefully turn some others on to the music. here it is.

on a photography note... i think this is a great photo. i've been doing a lot more entertainment shoots lately and trying to get inspired by true professionals. check out my myspace and the website for some of my updated photos....i'll eventually get around to posting on the blog.

the old place

2007-06-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

everybody has a history. i'm not talking so much about our own lives as much as the lives before us that made us who we are... our names, our geographic location, our accents, etc. the older i get the more grateful i am that my family still owns and maintains the home and farm (my family doesn't actually still farm) that my great-grandparents bought over 100 years ago. my grandfather was raised there and all the generations since have in some way or other grown up there.

i really admire my papaw and my dad for spending so much time keeping it up over the years. i hope to do as good of a job as they did to make it last another 100 years. now it serves as a place to just get away. there's a lot of land, a lot of trails, a lot of heat, but now thanks to the TVA, a lot of water too. our dog attie is the most thankful for that. my sister casey, my neice alex, erin, attie, and myself got away a few weeks ago.

alex's first fish

auburn architecture

2007-06-05T05:21:00.000-07:00

the great things in my life seem to happen without my influence. i am the type of person who likes to get out there and push forward and "make" things happen. well, just about every time i try to "make" something happen i get frustrated because it doesn't. the fact that i am doing photography now and not music is a perfect example.

a couple months ago i was put in contact with the head of the school of architecture at auburn university. he has this really cool project www.designhabitat.org that integrates modern design with factory habitat homes. the idea is to make the homes more efficient & enjoyable to live in as well as be used as a training ground for the university students. he needed some good shots for some publications, and through events that i could not have planned, i was able to get those for him. i am learning not to push so hard these days but rather wait on the things that are already headed my way.

here is a collage of some of the habitat house.

places i've never been

2007-05-09T05:08:00.000-07:00

yesterday i was on a pseudo-assignment in greensboro. i'm waiting to see if the shots i took are going to be used before i post them on the blog. anyway, i got up at 4am for the shoot and traveled 2 hours to greensboro. once i was done i got out the map. i figured that in 27 years i've never seen this area of the state and couldn't ever imagine having a reason to be back down there. so i started driving. here's a little of what south-central-western alabama looks like. i know you always wondered.

some field along the way

demopolis, al

one of the weirdest things i've ever seen.
somewhere north of demopolis

newburn, al

band shoot

2007-05-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

it's been a week or so now but i thought i would post some pics of the photo shoot i had with Act Of Congress, a bluegrass band here in birmingham.

we all met at 5:30am and went to a field near my house. we were tired, had to walk forever (some of us in heels- i won't say who), and were dodging cow patties right and left. i got bit by something that i've never experienced before but all in all it was a great session. the light was very even and the yellow flowers were perfect.

from there we moved on to some town outside of montevallo where a family had an old stable with some old equipment surrounding it. the scene could not have fit this band any better. they even played some tunes for the owners who came out to watch the photo shoot. all in all it was a great time, and i was pleased with how things turned out. here's a collage of some of the days shots.

meet chris

2007-04-14T20:02:00.000-07:00

chris is a friend of mine. we got to know each other through music a few years back and he is hands down the best guitar player i've ever met. he plays with 2 other guys in a neo-bluegrass band here in b'ham and they are very good. he also stays busy with session work and lessons.

i asked chris & tim (who i'll post later) to come over to the studio to help me get some shots for the website. i wanted to give them shots they would want to use for their own promotion. they brought their instruments over and we had a good time.

the thrill of my life

2007-04-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

i mentioned in an earlier blog an incredible home in greensboro al that i was dying to photograph. by god's grace it worked out. i had to take the backup camera so they weren't as clear as i wanted but i still think they turned out alright.

this home was built in the 1830's. it is one of the last if not the last of its era to be restored in the state (these picture could be the last ones before it is). believe it or not a descendant of the homes original owner actually lived in the house up until only 20yrs ago or so. imagine living in this home as you see it. in some ways it would be the most magnificent thing imaginable and in others it would be terrifying. i kept waiting on a ghost to show up in my shots, but no such luck.

i have the utmost respect for this house, its architecture and how it was built. it is amazing how well intact it still is. it has held up better over 200 years than some houses around me have in 20yrs. click here for a slideshow. hope you enjoy as much as i do.

click here to see a photo of the house from the 1930's. pictures looked so much better back then.

night shots in helena

2007-03-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

there are a lot of things not to like about helena if you look for them. for example the severed deer head in my neighbors tree. i'm convinced this is either a hunting ritual or a cult ritual. either way it's a severed head.

aside from the cultural differences which seem a bit glaring at times, helena is a really cool place to live. few cities have as many nice parks, and to my knowledge there is no place in b'ham like the river park at old town. i just (personally) discovered miles of trails down the river that lead deep into the woods, crossing through railroads, abandoned houses, and lots of good nature.

coming home last night i stopped at the park to try out some night shots. i've always loved night photography. the streak of car tail lights, the starburst of the street lamps, and in our case the blue glow of the flowing waterfall. for some reason helena put these massive blue lights on both sides of the falls, making them look, in my opinion, like some cheap putt-putt fountain. it did make for some funky shots though... kind of eerie I thought. I should also say that I've been trying to do more work with slow shutter speed, specifically with moving water. in the day though, even on my lowest settings, i still get washed out. so here are some i had success with at night.

an antique effect on the blue water it actually turns it to a normal light.

the park.

the street.

railroad

2007-03-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

i was in the studio most of the day. i began to mourn the loss of a beautiful day. thankfully I live close to some cool scenery. well cool for me. i love warn out stuff... rust, paint peeling, rotting wood etc. not junk but... in tact aged objects.

i was in greensboro, al thursday for work and as I was headed out of town I saw the most incredible house i've ever seen in my life. it literally made me physically anxious... my heart started racing. i'm sure it used to be an old plantation home (i later found out it was built in the 1850's). it looked like someone was about to start renovating it. i had my camera, and thought i was about to begin the best shoot of my life. so like an idiot i called the realtor and got the owners name. called him, left a message and never heard back. that's what you get for asking permission. because i'm an idiot and a wimp, i never got a single shot. i kept thinking he'd call as i was leaving town and i'd turn around and get my wish, but it never happened. i'm gonna call him again.

anyway, i've had a void since then and was glad to get to explore my little country town a bit this afternoon. i just started heading down the tracks. i was mainly getting used to our 2 new lenses. here's some of what i got.

downtown photo shoot

2007-02-23T19:52:00.000-08:00

every few months i come up with a new idea for how we can make a living doing things our way. erin and i value our time more than our money... which is why we're always broke. recently though some things have been coming together. it's funny because the direction we are headed seems to be photography. erin has dreamed of it for years but i would have never thought i'd end up doing it. recently, i was encouraged to persue some marketing style photography (architecture, social settings etc). i had to build a portfolio fast before i could meet with folks to try and get the jobs. so i went downtown one afternoon with my wife's 30D and my newly aquired although limited knowledge of the super camera. here are some shots i came up with, which actually did help us get some gigs.

recent photography

2007-02-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

i have been learning photography the past few months. not so much just taking photographs but really trying to understand the camera. i have a great mentor. erin spent months & months learning how to use our 300D. after many shoots and a handful of classes she really knows what she's talking about. she got a 30D last fall and so now i get the 300D. transitioning from point and shoot-automatic cameras to manual SLR's is a big step. here's some stuff i've been learning. most interesting pictures have a low depth of field meaning there is a limited amount of objects or parts of an object that are sharp. the rest is then blurry. i always thought those kind of pictures were done by using a manual focus and focusing in on the thing you wanted to stand out. that does give some effect but to really pull out that contrast you have to have a large aperture. here's some shots from around the house today practising with low light, low depth of field.

this one's my favorite from today.

and here's some low depth of field shot's with the focus in different places.
attie's always a good sport.

i've got to get good fast. we are doing several important shoots here in the next few months and i've got a long way to go. i've already made erin get off work for 2 days to do shoots that i've scheduled... soon she will run out of vacation days and i'll be on my own.

The Blog formerly known as Ethereal

2007-02-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I used to author another blog that no one read about a band that no one listens to. Once every month or 2 I would post a entry that was angry and bitter and I'm sure really inspired people to want to come back and read more. I decided to can it and start my own. My life is really made up of a lot more than a disappointing musical career and it would do me good tell a few people about it.