For me, 2011 was a dizzying mix of adventure, growth and sheer joy. As I sorted through my Lightroom library trying to make sense of what happened – to glean lessons, to remember successes and relive the stories I had the chance to tell – I was overwhelmed by the kind and quality of work I was blessed to do last year & the people I had the privilege to work with and for.

Beyond the travel and the experiences, 2011 was unique in that it marks the first time I was hired as filmmaker more often than photographer. I guess going to film school wasn’t a waste of time after all. As a life-long student of story, I’m excited that visual storytelling has come on so strong in the last couple of years and can’t wait to see what the future holds for this industry and the friends I’ve made who share my passion for connecting organizations with their audiences in deeper, more meaningful ways.

In trying to sum up the year that was, I thought it would be fun to retrace my steps, in a sense, through the photographs I made. The video above is composed of the 2850 images I delivered to my clients; what isn’t in there are the thousands of stills I shot as part of time-lapse sequences for the various film projects I worked on, the hundreds of personal photographs and Instagrams I made along the way, nor the thousands of images that just weren’t good enough. Still, the effect of watching is equally as dizzying as it was to live.

Here we are five days into this new year & things are already ramping up; in four days, I leave for India to start the process all over again and my solitary prayer is this: “God, please help keep me balanced.”

It’s always an amazing experience when you can work on an incredible project or have the opportunity to work with your friends. In this case, I had the amplified blessing of both. Steve Durman (from FMF) and I dreamed up the basic concept together and when we presented the idea to Shutterfly, they were excited because our approach to the microsite (really, there’s nothing micro about it) addressed a number of the things they had been trying to solve internally – making the web experience sharable, introducing video, etc.

My role, specifically, centered around the content on the site. I was tasked with producing & directing 19 films that are equal parts informative, inspiring and fun to watch. Because of the size of the project, that meant I had the opportunity to bring in other talented people to fills rolls I might normally fill myself.

photo by Sara Kerens

Creatively, it was a fantastic challenge & really wonderful to work with a brand that knows who they are and how they want to be represented. They provided us with a wealth of talented people to help shepherd the project and, yet, gave us the freedom to execute the vision we shared from the beginning.

photo by Sara Kerens

That vision, however, wouldn’t have been possible without an incredible team of people. I owe a debt of gratitude not only to Steve & the guys at Four Man Furnace, but also to Jonah Ingram from Ditore Mayo Entertainment for his editing prowess, my good friend Kevin Shivers for his work on the motion graphics, Jeff Taylor & Doug Hale (of Air Review fame) for composing a score that I can’t get out of my head and Dallas Taylor’s team at Defacto Sound. Beyond those people, the film at the top of this post wouldn’t have been possible without help from Allan Thompson, Rachael Currie (whose production design has inspired everyone that’s seen it) and Sara Kerens beautiful still photographs. I also owe a huge thanks to Ana Schecter, Meg Bohnert (Shutterfly’s card stylist) & Jenn Falik for stepping in front of the camera during the New York portion of our shoot, which makes up the bulk of the content on the site. Finally, I owe the largest amount of thanks to the families who came out to participate in the Family Photo Day we produced here in Dallas – literally, the film wouldn’t have been possible without you guys.

photo by Sara Kerens

Take a minute to check out the website and feel free to leave some comments on the films or share them with your friends on Facebook. And, if you end up organizing your own Family Photo Day, let me know how it goes, or better yet, send me the Christmas card!

One of the most important relationships you can develop as a photographer is with the designer who will be using your work. Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with some incredibly talented designers, which is why I’m really excited about this clinic. I’ll be co-hosting it with one of my closest friends & favorite designers – Josh Wiese, the man who brought my 2010 Annual to life.

We will be focusing on portraiture, in both studio & location environments, talking about the entire process, from picking your gear to delivering your images. The entire clinic is designed to be hands on, so bring your cameras & laptops. We will also have some time toward the end of the day to work though image processing, file management using Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop – and Josh will show you how the things we create as photographers integrate into a design.

It should be a fun day, so mark your calendars – Oct. 22nd from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m at Irving Bible Church. I’ve included schedule of events below. Space is limited, so please RSVP to Josh (jwiese@irvingbible.org) to secure your spot.

PHOTO CLINIC SCHEDULE:

9-11:30 a.m. – Studio-Style Portraiture (based on the I Am Second campaign)

11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. – Lunch Break (bring your own or join us at a local restaurant)

1-2:30 p.m. – Location Photography & Available Light

2:30-4 p.m. – Post-production and Design Implementation

In light of Mike’s retirement, I thought I’d share my 9 favorite images of Dallas’ favorite (adopted) son & the stories behind them.

9. Reset

My love for this image is less about the image and more about the place the image showed up. I’d had this idea during the 09-10 season to do a stop-motion piece for the team, but we weren’t quite sure where or how it would be used. As the season approached the Olympic break, they decided it might be cool to create something to use as a season seat holder renewal piece. What came from that was this film, entitled Reset. The image above wasn’t originally shot for Reset, but had the perfect contemplative mood and gave the entire story another level of dimension. Without it, I think Reset would have been far less meaningful.

8. Husband

It’s hard to imagine athletes as fully human, sometimes, especially the one’s who are the best of the best. And Mike Modano certainly fits into that category – he’s the single greatest Dallas Star as well as the greatest US born hockey player of all time. But he’s so much more than that and this image, more than any other in my archive, shows that multi-dimensionality. He loves his wife; he’s human after all – and that makes what he accomplished on the ice all the more incredible.

7. Linemates

Mike Modano & Jere Lehtinen played the better part of 14 seasons on the same line. Mike’s grace and speed, matched with Jere’s work ethic produced mesmerizing results. I love this image because there’s such story tied up in those skates and the character of the player seems reflected in them.

6. The Stanley Cup

What needs to be said? These three guys rewrote history for the Dallas Stars franchise. Brett Hull with the goal to bring home the Cup, Jere with the assist, and all three of them on the ice that fateful night in Buffalo. Watch the film, if Hull hadn’t gotten to that puck, Modano would have and in this photograph, just before the ceremony to honor Hull’s induction into the Hall of Fame, they’re laughing about that very thing.

5. A Sort of Homecoming

I jumped off the plane first and ran about halfway down the steps. I didn’t know what would happen. When Modano stepped off the plane he just looked off before walking past me. I don’t know what was running through his head right then, but I can’t help but wonder if he was contemplating the first of many “lasts” he’d be going through as a Dallas Star.

4. Pre Game

This is the last time Modano pulled on a Stars sweater just before the third period in Minnesota. I love the lack of ceremony, as if no one seemed to notice this really special thing that was happening but me. That’s the thing about ritual, I guess; they can get to the place where they’re mechanical, no more than muscle memory. I don’t know, maybe the lack of ceremony was everyone’s subconscious way of expressing their hope that this wouldn’t be the last time or, maybe, I’m reading a whole lot into a guy getting dressed to go to work.

3. Opening Night

Opening night of the 2009-2010 season, and even then, we were all wondering, would this be Mike Modano’s last opening night. As he watched the video on the scoreboard over center ice, it’s like he was experiencing opening night for the first time, not the twentieth.

2. The Ovation

If you were there, you know why this image is so special. For more than two minutes during a break in play in the third period of the final home game of the season, 18,000 fans rose to their feet to say thanks to the guy who brought hockey to North Texas. But it wasn’t just the fans who saluted him – his teammates, trainers, coaches and even the guys on the other bench, all stood to say thanks to Mike. And stayed in his seat, face in his hands, overcome with emotion.

1. The Speech

I was standing outside the locker room just after that final home game when Stretch opened the door and pulled me inside the room. I’d been in there a handful of times, but never during team time; it was like getting called into the holy of holy’s After a few minutes, the room got quiet & all eyes turned to Modano. I don’t think he wanted to, but he started to give a speech about not taking “what they do” for granted. He only managed a couple of sentences before he could say no more and we all sat in reverent silence as, again, Modano placed his head in his hands, then stood up and left the room.

Heidi Burkey, Esther Havens, Matt Knisley & me

I owe a giant thank you to Matt & Fellowship One for inviting me up, the conversations & the conference were amazing and to my friends Colin & Jaime Faulkner, for letting me stay with them, I miss you guys.

There were more than a few highlights that really stood out to me – Ed Dobson’s presentation on his battle with ALS and the screening of Consider the Birds one of the films from Ed’s Story, Esther’s talk about the power of empathy when telling stories overseas, the music of All Son’s & Daughters, finally meeting Barton Damer offline… the list is long.

from Ed’s Story, Consider the Birds, produced by Flannel

However, one speaker shook me to the core; her name is Ann Voskamp, author of the New York Times best-selling One Thousand Gifts.

From the opening lines of her talk, describing the experience writing the book in a cabin her husband built on the edge of a corn field where she would “sit and listen to the corn tassels scratch the belly of the sky,” I knew we were in for something special. I knew she would be speaking my language. And for 45 minutes, Ann’s words massaged places in side me I didn’t even realize were sore and neglected.

At the heart of her message were three habits that creative people cultivate: gazing, gratitude and giving glory.

Gaze because it’s counter to this generation’s habit of “taking all the moments & blurring them into one big smear.” Gaze because it slows you down. Gaze because it’s in the details you find poetry and poetry “sees the beautiful in the ugly; that sees what we all might become by grace.”

Create in gratitude because your ability to create is a gift. Ann reminded me that “there is nothing covetous about creativity; God will take what you have to give and make it more than enough.”

Give glory because it’s our calling, to enjoy the God in whose image we’ve been created… “to take what seems like waste & plow it back to the honor, wisdom & strength of our God.”

In that spirit, I’d like to share some of my instagrams from the trip; these are my attempts at gazing and lingering on the details and trying to see what we might become:

DFW gate A24 // AA flt. 2362  // seat 11B

from the suburbs to the city

the L

“We are not our circumstance.” – Esther Havens | “Art is not about applause; it’s about an altar.” – Ann Voskamp

If you were at Story 2011, I’d love to hear what really made an impression on you.

This morning when I read the news about the plane crash along the Volga River, near Yaroslavl, Russia, I was stunned. It’s been a tragic summer for hockey fans, losing three NHL players already, but then this. An entire KHL team – at least 43 reported dead so far. Families lost sons & fathers & brothers. Anyway you measure it, this would be a tragedy even if it stayed thousands of miles away, but it didn’t.

Karlis steals a quiet moment during the anthem in Calgary, Jan. 21, 2011

37.

Karlis Skrastins, formerly of the Dallas Stars, was among those lost today. The former NHL ironman (who played a defenseman record 487 495 consecutive NHL games) wore this number on his back and just this summer celebrated his 37th birthday. He also celebrated a new chapter in a pretty wonderful hockey career – a chance to play with the KHL’s Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team. I was happy for him. He was a good player and, beyond that, a good man. His kindness to me wasn’t anything special, simply because he was kind to everyone. For this kind of man, 37 years are far too few.

I first met Karlis in the 2009-2010 season, his first as a Star, while photographing the four players representing their country in the Olympics (above) and watched in amazement before every game I shot as he went through his pre-game warmup ritual. The man epitomized discipline & hard work and it’s clear in reading and listening to his former teammates, colleagues & fans, he was well loved by all who knew him. I think Brandon Worley over at DefendingBigD.com said it best:

“People like Karlis Skrastins make sports fun. He wasn’t the most talented player in the league but he was one of the hardest working men in the NHL and he proved it night in and night out… Today I found myself affected by the loss of Karlis Skrastins in a way I would not have guessed might have happened. He was no longer with the Dallas Stars and he only played for two seasons in Dallas, yet he will always be remembered as one of the better guys to have set foot in the Stars locker room.”

Karlis’ going through is pre-game warm-up at American Airlines Center, in Dallas, TX.

saying goodbye to Marty Turco in Dallas, TX | checking the damage in Calgary

It’s times like this that I’m reminded of the fragility & preciousness of this life. I’m also reminded of the inadequacy of words. I will be praying for Karlis’ wife Zane & their two daughters as well as the families, friends and fans of the other 42 men on board.

Here’s one more great article I found on Karlis, written by Pete Weber, the Nashville Predators play-by-play guy.

“Karlis was one of those guys who… played through the pain & never complained…” – Stephane Robidas

EDIT: here’s a beautifully written (but gut wrenching) post by a woman who took Karlis’ family to the airport yesterday.

I shoot a ton with my phone while I travel & I think of these images as a visual journal of sorts. They range from sketches that may become images I attempt with my big camera to the mundane details & minutia of international travel.

Leg 1: DFW ✈ IAH // CO2725 // seat 3B

Leg 2: IAH✈FRA // LH441 // seat 36F

Leg 3: FRA ✈ ALA // LH648 // seat 30D

I woke up as the sun went down over the Aral Sea.

after dropping through the clouds, I got my first glimpse of Tajikistan.

Dushanbe, Tajikistan, June, 2011

punx not dead // Зонт & автомат газвода

Shahristan Pass

Khatlon: the land of epic 50°C heat

exit visa

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Roxi // the boarding student whose parents are ex-pats in Almaty, Khazakstan // Jose

Darren Mabrey, sitinthechair.org

But first, a quick story – something much more personal than I typically share here:

In the late summer of 2006, my marriage was on the brink of collapse. The infidelity of my heart had bubbled to the surface and it seemed I’d lost complete control of myself. Thankfully, God intervened in the form of wisdom. Not mine mind you. My wife’s.

Knowing that I was incapable of making God-centered decisions, she called my best friends – men I’d been close to since before I could drive – and they and their wives, without kid-gloves but always with an abundance of love, began to help us pick up the pieces of our life. In time, repentance came & it was like a fog lifted inside my heart.

In the years since, I’ve come to understand that I do not have a unique story. At some point, every marriage gets rocked to its core.

Fast forward to last fall and a very strange phone call from that incredibly passionate client  - a man named Darren Mabrey. I wasn’t sure what to make of what he was asking of me but we set a date to get together.

Over lunch, I sat with Darren, his wife April & my long-time friend Steve Durman and listened. The story I heard was eerily familiar: a selfish man, a strong-willed wife and a marriage on the brink of collapse. I recognized the turn immediately. Where I had long-time friends, Darren had a chair.

And it was the chair – and what it symbolized – that drew me to this project. I, like Darren was desperately scared of being found out. And when the truth came out, I expected my wife and friends to cut & run. They didn’t. Where Darren expected to find judgement & ridicule he instead found this thing called abundant life – and with it came his purpose.

The poetry of God’s way is overwhelming to me sometimes.

Darren’s message is simple: surrender completely, at the risk of shame & ridicule, to the unyielding mercy of God. And for me, with my past, this is a really compelling message. My friends, like Darren’s chair, didn’t let me off the hook. They didn’t let me make excuses. They forced me – for the first time in my life – to take stock of who I was and confess it.

At the heart of all of this is the simple truth that we need each other. Badly. I needed my friends & my wife to love me well. Darren needed the men in the bookstore bible study the night he sat in the chair.

My hope is that when people see this film something stirs inside them. Something begs them to follow Darren’s lead. And that they find The Church, without kid gloves but an abundance of love, waiting. The future of our families and marriages and churches hangs on the willingness of God’s people to daily sit in the chair and be honest about who they really are and to show others it’s safe to do the same.

Please take a minute to watch Sit In The Chair & if you’re so inclined to visit Darren’s website (http://sitinthechair.org). This is a startup ministry, in its infancy & it needs all the support it can get. But trust me, as someone who’s sat in the chair, this is a message every one needs to hear.

It’s fitting that today is the day it goes live, because I’m headed out again – this time for Central Asia. Hopefully the stories I find there will find their way into this year’s annual sometime well in advance of June 2012.

The 96 page book features six stories that I worked on with all kinds of clients – from non-profits to ministries to my favorite hockey team, the Dallas Stars. It’s available through Magcloud, should you want the hard copy (and believe me, you want the hard copy) for $29.99, which includes a digital copy – but, if you get one & are ever in Dallas and want to grab coffee and talk about the work or the stories or what  I do, I’ll include a cup of coffee with your order.

from the Cuban photo essay Hope Amidst the Ruins

a cultural Essay from Armenia

You can also download a PDF version of the book here or view it for free on the Magcloud App.

Brad Richards takes the ice in Edmonton.

His tenure as a Star started with an incredible 5 assist outing in his first game and only got more dynamic in the 219 games that followed. In 220 games played he racked up 227 points (70 goals, 157 assists) and led the team in points in two of his three full seasons here. The dude was worth every penny he earned and, on most nights, worth the price of admission just to see him make magic happen on the ice.

Richards high-fives fellow centerman Mike Ribiero after a vicotry against Detroit.

As a tribute to an incredible player & teammate, here are a few of the more poignant images that I made of Brad Richards & the stories behind them:

1. The Warrior Sword

Brad Richards boards the team plane for a Western Canada road. trip.

Back in January, I had the opportunity to travel with the team to Western Canada. When Ralph Strangis picked me up, theteam was in second place in the West & fighting with the Vancouver Canucks (who are currently in the Stanley Cup Finals) for the top spot in the conference. Fandom as a Dallas Star hadn’t been this good in several years. Brad pulled up at the airport just ahead of us & as he got out of the car, I noticed the Warrior Sword on his back. The sword was a symbol of what made this team special. In a ceremony that mixed ball busting and big laughs the guy who’d fought through the most ridiculous injury (like hurt feelings or a stubbed toe) would be presented with the sword after a win. At the time, the sword was a national story, so I waited in the terminal while he did an interview with a local news station and then followed him out to the plane. Everything came together in this image – the story, the light and the moment. I jumped on the plane and felt like I was joining a team destined for something incredible.

2. Brad Richards & James Neal

Brad sits on the bench with linemate & roommate James Neal.

The relationship between Brad Richards & James Neal seemed like something special. Yes, they were roommates, but for Neal, Richards was also a mentor. One of my favorite stories that shows the kind of guy Brad is & the voice he was in Neal’s professional life happened on a California road trip. Apparently Neal had purchased a really, really expensive pair of socks at some store on Sunset & when Richards heard he looked at Neal and said, “We don’t spend $100 on socks.”  It seems strange to think that a guy who made $7.8M each of his three full seasons here considers $100 socks to be extravagant, but he understood that $100 socks represented a mind-set of misaligned priorities.

But it wasn’t just words. From the time Richards arrived in Dallas, he got involved with the oncology department at Children’s Medical Center & supplied tickets to every home game for men & women in the military – not to mention his ongoing support of several charities in his home province of Prince Edward Island. Everyone Like many, I wondered what Neal’s trade this year to Pittsburgh would mean to both players.

In the 2010-11 homeopener vs. the Detroit Red Wings, Richards & Neal were named 1st & 2nd stars of the game in a 4-1 victory.

3. Cover Story

Early in the 2010-11 season, I was wanting to shoot the game differently than I had been & push myself to make ordinary situations more dramatic. So, when the Washington Capitals came to town, I brought a couple of flashes and an umbrella. The results were pretty startling – a moment, shot in my typical loose, journalistic style, but with studio-esque lighting. Apparently it grabbed some attention in the front office, because halfway through the 2010-11 season, the Dallas Stars decided to change up the game programs.

Nineteen of my images ran on the new-look covers during the second half of the season. The image on the left, from that Washington game, was the first cover to run during a Jan. 7th game against the New York Rangers. The team hadn’t told me they were making a change, so when I got to my seat, I pretty much freaked. I don’t care how many times you have had an image on the cover of something, it’s always exciting. That use of that image really changed the way I thought about shooting during a game. I shot more in portrait crops, like the image on the right, and left room for the masthead. Sadly, with Brad Richards moving on, images like the one on the right won’t be making next years programs.

A few weeks ago, Wonderful Machine requested my book for some showings around Texas & then were kind enough to make this very cool video of the book:

When I was first putting my book together, about a year and a half ago, I wanted something different; I wanted a sturdy box that held a simple, striking collection of prints (it was only later I discovered that’s also what Dan Winters did). Back when I was in film school, I always made sure I had a photography class in my schedule so I could have access to the darkroom. There was nothing like walking out after hours under the safe lights with a stack of prints in your hand. I wanted to recapture that kind of experience.

As much as I love the way the book is put together, it isn’t without it’s faults. For durability, I decided to mount the prints on single weight matte board, which adds a bunch of weight (not fun when shipping the box). Also, so much of a good book comes from its structure – how the images play off one another and the edit unfolds the story – and more often than not, my carefully considered structure gets jumbled up between showings.

Even with its faults, I really love the presentation & I think this video does a good job of showing the work. But, nothing can take the place of holding the prints in your hands… but, just like Dan Winters, I only have one.

the Armenian Genocide Memorial, Yerevan, Armenia (part of Armenia series entry)

Spend 10 minutes googling around, and you’ll see there is precious little (read: none) published by contest participants about what they entered and why. There’s tons published on which contests to enter & avoid, but nothing practical, from the people who’ve done it, about selecting work. I don’t know what I hoped to glean from that kind of information, but seeing how people work through their own agony just seemed like it would be helpful. So, since I’ve just been through the process, I thought I’d share my experience.

My hope is that in doing this a conversation might begin and other photographers might follow suit. What follows is very one sided, but hopefully, in time, this starts a conversation.  For the sake of word count, I’m not going to go blow by blow, but I will reveal a little bit of my process & you’ll understand how I answered these questions:

1. How much work should I enter?
2. How do I decide what work is contest worthy?
3. How do I refine my choices?

a decaptitated statue of Vladimir Lenin (part of Armenia series entry)

I started by looking through my work, the contest categories, fees and my personal budget – and I did all that weeks before the deadline. Doing this helped answer a very natural first question – how much work should I enter? For me, the answer was 2 series & 3 single image entries. I wanted an answer because having a sense of scope helped me hone in on the target, much like a writer works from a word count, I was able to limit the possibilities, which helped me focus my time & energy.

Next, I made a list of possible entries. I simply jotted down my best work from the last year – the stuff I thought was visually gripping and had a unique voice – and what category it fit. Thankfully my work only fits into a few categories, so the work itself helped limit the available choices. This is the list I came up with:

Notice Cuba is up top. It’s a pretty sprawling body of work & there are many threads to the story, so if I went that way, I would have to pare it down a little. No matter what I’m working on, I think it’s beneficial to constantly refine your scope. Limiting yourself may feel like putting on handcuffs, but I’ve found I create best when I know my limits. Ultimately, the work from Cuba didn’t make the cut, but it serves as a good example of what I mean by refining scope.

I started by sectioning off the work into themes – children of Havana, Havana at night, urban decay, and so on. While I’m shooting, I think about how individual images relate to each other and how those sub-themes relate to the broader story. So, coming up with that list wasn’t too difficult. But I didn’t have the budget to enter 97 series, so I had to make a choice – what is the strongest, best version of the work? When you ask these kinds of questions of yourself, some images you love may get left behind – and that’s okay. The answer I came to was Havana at night & the children of Havana were the strongest overall. So, very quickly I pulled work together that was strong & fit those themes; here is what I chose for Cuba:

Havana at Night

Havana’s Children

Trust me, there are dozens of images that I have an affection for that didn’t make it to this point; I tried really hard to let my instinct guide my decisions and not let my darlings interfere in the process. It was tough, but instead of having to try and make sense of hundreds of images, I now had two fairly tight little stories that I could work from. CommArts defines a series as no more than 5 images, so, had I made the decision to enter either of these stories, I would have still had quite a bit of work ahead of me in the editing department. Which begs the question, how did I edit the entries I did enter? Let’s look at one of the series.

The question wasn’t which 2 of the 5 choices I would enter, it was which story would fill the final spot. I felt that strongly about entering Untouchable. It had all the criteria I wanted, remarkable subject, powerful images and a unique point of view. In total I shot nearly 50 portraits in this series, which made getting to 5 difficult. But I started by pulling my favorites – turns out, I really loved 10 of them. Here they are:

What came next wasn’t easy. It took days of stewing on it, asking for help from someone I trust and really questioning what made the best edit. I’m sure if I gave you these 10 images you would have selected differently than I did but, when it was all said and done, I had to make choices I was willing to live with.

In order to begin refining to the magic number 5, I had to understand what I was drawn to in each image and what each image did for the work as a whole. Here was my thinking on each image, row, by row:

1. (L) color, expression and mood are striking; (R) to me the entire series hinges on this portrait of Ravanniah.
2. These images were different versions of the same idea – environmental portrait. (L) fairly intimate look inside her home; something special about the mood; (R) wide perspective reveals so much story.
3. (L) beautiful gesture, plus it’s the only true detail in the selected images; (R) it’s not technically perfect, but I’m drawn to the juxtaposition between the joy on the children’s faces and the grim reality that they were born with a disease that would eventually rob them of nearly everything.
4. (L) there is a Grapes of Wrath quality to this image, reminds me of Life magazine; (R) there’s something universally human about the way the little girl is peeking up.
5. Obviously, these are different camera positions on the same scene. (L) close & wide makes you feel like you’re standing there sharing the moment… it’s joy with a backdrop of sadness; (R) I absolutely love the composition of this image.

I knew I wanted variety in the viewpoints, meaning, I didn’t want everything to be at 11mm, the focal length of most of what I chose. And, if I’m honest, 4 of the 5 fell into place rather easily – I went with Ravanniah, the woman in green, the hands & children straight away. In the early stages, I wavered between the images in row 5 to fill out the final spot… but both seemed to color the series rather dramatically – the one of the left made everything feel a little too happy & the one of the right brought a little too much stoic weight to the other images. So, I ended up trying just about every image in that final place. At the end of the day, I kept coming back to the image of the woman on the floor of her home; it revealed something startling – a sense of pride – and that’s what tipped the scales for me.

Finally, let’s look at my single image entries and quickly discuss why I continued to refine my plan. Knowing that I would be pulling far more work than I needed, I had tagged a handful of images as possible single image entries. Among those below, I also thought Ravanniah (if he didn’t end up in the Untouchable edit) & the boy playing stickball (from Cuba) might fit.

Viñales National Park, Pinar del Rio, Cuba

from the story ‘Final days of Mike Modano‘

both images from a cultural essay on Armenia (my other series entry)

Since Ravanniah & the sanctuary image (above, right) made their respective edits, I (quite honestly) didn’t feel like paying double to enter an image. The rules state that if CommArts feels an entry better fits in a category other than the one entered, it will be moved – so, I guess if they are desperate to take either of those images on their own, apart from the series, they have the ability within the guidelines to do that. I also pretty quickly realized that the image of Viñales, while beautiful, didn’t really measure up. It’s a pretty landscape, but not much more & I just didn’t believe that they would have space for something like that.

That left me with the woman at the candles, Modano taking the ice at home for the final time as a Dallas Star & the boy playing stickball. I was right on the mark with what I’d set out to do… but, as I was preparing my entries I started to second guess the stickball image. It was good, it works on many levels, but at the end of the day, does it tell the story, all on it’s own, that I set out to tell? And I just couldn’t answer yes with very much conviction. So, it fell away and I was left with 2 series & 2 single image entries. Even up to the final minute, I continued to refine the submitted work. Why? When it came time to place my bets with hard earned dollars, I just didn’t believe that I had 3 single image entries that belonged on the pages of CommArts.

So, now it’s your turn. Have you entered a contest or edited your portfolio recently? I want to see what you chose & why.