I really love concert/event photography, and I want to keep practicing and getting better at it. 

A friend of mine plays guitar for Coyote Talk, so when I saw that they were playing a show in Indy I asked if I could shoot it, and they kindly obliged. 

It was a smaller room than I've shot in before so I was a little intimidated, but that was also exciting because smaller rooms can offer more intensity and intimacy. 

I discovered the main spotlight and camped myself on the other side of it in the corner of the stage, channeling my inner J.J. Abrams as I played with lens flares. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for lens flares. One fun thing about shooting right into a spotlight in this environment is playing with the aperture settings, because a lens flare at f/3.5 can look pretty different than the same lens at f/2.8. 

The bands themselves were great, and I just loved being that close to such high-level musical expression and unity.

I learned a lot through the experience, and one of my biggest technical take-aways was that if you want to capture the connection that a whole band has with each other during an intense moment, a wide angle lens is a great way to capture all of them and still have an immersive shot. The last shot above is the best example of that. I spent much of the evening missing moments like that until I finally decided to get a little more bold and get closer with a wide angle shot over the top of the band. I probably could have gotten even closer but I didn't know the guys very well and didn't want to be intrusive. Something to try next time!

The Church Staff As A Football Team

Quarterback - Lead Pastor, obviously: Leads the offense, making crucial play-calls of eternal significance.

Center - Executive Pastor: Equips the Lead Pastor, does thankless work and tries to protect the Lead Pastor.

Offensive Line - Elders: No one really knows what they do exactly or just how hard it is, but it’s more important than people think.

Running Back - Youth Pastor: Good ones are rare and highly sought-after as their high output causes them to burn out after just four or five good years.

Wide Receivers - Worship Leaders: Super sensitive and highly talented, they get all the glamorous highlights and most of the attention.

Defense - Children's Ministry: Always preparing for the worst, trying to decide who to to keep a close eye on.

We were sitting with Ezra feeding her by a window, and as she was laughing at Karissa I realized, "Hey, this is a precious moment that I want to remember...and we're sitting in my favorite lighting conditions--by a window on a cloudy day, in a room with no lights on"

So I grabbed our camera and started shooting!

From a technical perspective, one thing I learned is that when shooting an infant/toddler that moves spontaneously, f/1.4 can just be frustrating. I was having trouble getting the focus right on her eyes, so I kept stopping down to open the depth of field, first to f/2.8 and then all the way to f/4. The very last photo is slightly out of focus and a good example of why f/1.4 wasn't worth it.

From a sentimental perspective, I'm so glad I took these shots. Ezra has brought so much joy to our life and I'm so grateful for her mama Sarah's willingness to bring her over and share her with us from time to time. I hope to show her these photos when she's older one day and show her how loved she's always been. 

I got to spend a day and a half in NYC with my friend Brad, and it was everything that I hoped it would be. 

Times Square was just an incredible sight to behold, and looking over the city from the top of 30 Rock was surreal! Kenneth the Page wasn't there though, so that was disappointing.

The different famous sites were amazing, but my eyes and my heart always gravitated towards the people. 

I've always wanted to try street photography in a crowded place like NYC, and I was thrilled to finally get my chance. I used a 24-70mm f/2.8 for the first part of the trip before switching to an 85mm f/1.8, which turned out to be an awesome lens for street photography. 

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to explore this now-understandably-famous city. It lived up to the hype!

After shooting videos for a day and a half at Merrimack College, Brad and I had three hours to kill at the airport before our non-stop back to Indy, so we took a water taxi across the bay to downtown Boston. It was easily my favorite hour and a half or so of our two-day trip.

The arms outstretched photo was originally a joke as Brad and I each video'd the other re-enacting the "I'm the king of the world!" scene from Titanic, and then I realized it might actually be a cool photo. But as I was doing it I realized that I was just posing for a photo, and not actually enjoying the fact that I was at the front of a boat on a beautiful body of water during sunset, headed to a beautiful, historic city that I'd never been to before. 

As if someone had flipped the lights on in a completely dark room, I looked out and saw the view as if I'd just opened my eyes there for the first time, and it was amazing. The moment only lasted about four seconds but it was the most refreshing four seconds of this fall season so far, and it was much needed for my soul as I've been tired and stressed lately. 

We didn't make it very far into the city--we found this neat fountain, filmed ourselves running through it a couple times, and then headed back to the boat a little wet, pretty chilly, and very grateful for the short but sweet time we had in Boston.

Brothers.

We helped put on a party for the clients of BlueFuego as they were all in town for #NACAC, and a good time was indeed had by all. Best bowling party I've ever been to!  I did photography for the event, but these shots are some of the more meaningful ones that I got along the way. I love new photographic opportunities (like being on the top floor of a hotel downtown) and I love taking photos of my friends, so this was a blast for me. 

Really enjoying the challenge of maintaining brand consistency while also trying to create colorful and unique expressions of each event or promotional piece for our student ministry at Genesis.

Each one is a challenge, but it's a fun little project.

Encouragement to New Photographers

I had an incident earlier this year that I felt perfectly illustrated the journey of a young or new photographer. Young meaning, "in the first few months or years of getting into photography". 

We were in San Diego, and I really wanted to get some inherently "California" shots, and nothing says California to me like a REAL LIVE SURFER. My friend Brad had brought his waterproof point-and-shoot, so I had the option to get out in the water and give it a shot. 

I had three things against me: 

Finally I just made myself run straight out into the water--the "band-aid" method, if you will. The problem with this method in this context is that you can't just jump all the way into the water when you're running into the ocean. The water hits your legs and works its way up as you awkwardly attempt to keep forging ahead at full speed. 

Really dramatic, I know. But I'm telling you, it was COLD.

I finally get to the point where I'm not touching the ground anymore and I realize that I'm nowhere near the surfers. I begin swimming and immediately realize how out of shape I am. I quickly become tired as I try to fight through the breaking waves to get to the other side of them so I can try to catch one at the same time as a surfer.

This took forever. I quickly became very tired and even more cold. I thought that all the physical activity would warm me up, but this frigidity was too much to overcome. My swimming weakened and my breathing became more labored, and I started to struggle to even stay above the waves long enough to breathe. I started having really dramatic thoughts like, "What if this is how I die?"  (My fears were later somewhat validated by a seasoned surfer who said, "You should be careful--it's really dangerous to be out there without fins or anything!")

I finally break through to the other side and there's some calm water, although it's still very cold. All that just to get here and not know what to do next! 

I decided to try to track a surfer and body surf into the wave that they chose. Here's my first attempt:

How funny is that?! haha...such a well-documented swing-and-a-miss.

And here's a selfie I took of myself laughing at how badly I had failed:

I learned two things on that first try: 

1) I need to get a lot closer to the surfer

2) I need to take a deep breath right before the wave hits

Ok, let's try this again. I took a few more stabs at it and finally ended up with the shot I risked my life to get: 

I really like it and I'm so glad that I took a chance and went out and gave it a shot. 

Here's the thing: every new photography opportunity I've had has followed this pattern. 

That was the process at the first wedding we did photography for. And the first one we did videography for. You don't want to see anything from either other of those. 

It was the process I went through the first time I tried doing a photo session with a couple by myself. I found out that I only had two pose ideas: smile at me, look away and don't smile. I freaked out and thought, "Man, I dragged them out here in the snow and I have no idea what to do!" I just kept moving, and eventually settled into some things that I liked.

It was the process I went through the first time I did concert/event photography at a big venue, wondering how do I get dynamic shots that stand out?

Same process for a photo assignment I took recently for documenting a university's campus orientation, following tour guides around as they introduced freshmen to their new life on campus. 

It was the process I went through earlier this year when I shot a wedding without Karissa for the first time.

___________________________________________________________________

My encouragement to you is that there are great photos and great learning opportunities on the other side of those crazy waves that are seemingly insurmountable! 

Maybe for you it's a family or newborn shoot, or even just portraits of your friends, or you're taking a stab at sports photography...when it's new to you, there's just going to be a learning curve. 

Keep swimming, push yourself farther, be courageous--this is the only way to learn and get better! And this is a process that every photographer has to go through--there's no substitute for experience.

Keep clicking and keep learning. 

Our family got to spend a beautiful summer evening on the back patio with our beloved Mama, eating exactly the kind of grilled meal you'd expect from my dad (several different kinds of meats), all of us mostly focused on Jackson most of the time.  I read a post recently about how photographers don't take enough photos into their own families, specifically of their parents and grandparents, and I realized that was true of me as well. So it was with great sentimentality that I did my first ever photo shoot with my mom, just the two of us. It was odd for me to talk to her like she was a client, and it was weird for her to interact with me and see me in work mode! But I'm so glad we did it, because even as I was taking the photos, I knew that they were shots that I would cherish for years and years to come.

Hillsong Young & Free came to a church right down the road from us in Carmel, Indiana, and I had the awesome privilege of taking photos of the event! They are the student worship band at Hillsong Church, comprised of college-aged band members.

First off I have to say that the guys I talked to really honored their church and their King with how they treated everyone. I got to chat with youth pastor Peter Toggs for a bit and he was very kind and encouraging, and I worked with their media director Johnny who was exceedingly kind as well. 

After the evening was just about over and things were getting loaded up, I was about to film a short promo video for them for their next stop. Taya, who sings "Oceans" on the Hillsong United "Zion" album, said she hadn't met me yet and introduced herself. At that point in the evening it'd be forgivable to revert to a closed-off, worn-out, introverted state, so I found it impressive that she was still looking to be outward-minded. 

My biggest take-away is just that I was reminded that despite the success of their debut album, and despite the enormous amount of talent they each have, they're just ordinary people serving Jesus. The more that I meet the Christian artists that I look up to, the more I find them to be humble, sweet, and often funny people.

I loved taking their photos. They're probably the most photogenic band I've ever shot! Their energy and joy is infectious, and even more enjoyable knowing that their joy comes from Jesus. Their music is so fresh and refreshing, and it was much needed in my life when it came out about a year or so ago, so it was really neat for me to be able to capture these moments of them singing songs that have accompanied me in my walk.

From a photography perspective I learned a lot from this experience--one example would be that I need to keep an eye on my shutter speed when the vocalists are jumping all over the stage! 1/60ths of a second is fine for someone standing still but when they start moving the images get blurry, so I have to crank the shutter speed up and then accommodate that with a higher ISO. I've just never shot a band that was so active! 

I've watched these guys from afar, seeing photos and videos of their high-energy worship nights...and after spending an evening with them, I can tell you that they are as good as advertised.

I call this one "Introverted Construction Worker Lunch Break"

A Wedding Without K

I've probably shot over 60 weddings so far, but I've never shot a wedding without my wife, Karissa. Until now.

We've been shooting weddings together for about four years and she has always been the point person, and I've always been the "second shooter".

Her relational approach to photography earns the trust of her clients, and as a by-product they often end up relying on her to make sure the day goes as planned! And she's great at it....detail-oriented, task-oriented, a planner...just fantastic. 

This time I shot a wedding with my friend Brad for his cousin, who got married near Springfield, Illinois. Brad and I have both been second shooters, but neither have ever really been The shooter for a wedding.

We had a blast, especially once we got into a groove and the day got going. But there were many things throughout the day that made me appreciate Karissa's leadership and talents on a wedding day.

Here are the three biggest ones.

Karissa is fantastic at finding a way to make people look flattering yet natural. There were many times when I was in a moment where I was frantically trying to remember the things I've heard Karissa tell people to do for pictures. 

I've got my "stand by the window and kind of smile but not really" move and then after that a lot of improvisation. Karissa has a huge library of ideas, both reliable stand-bys and new things she'd like to try.

Usually it's the women that run the show on a wedding day, and Karissa does a great job of developing relationships with them throughout the day. She's the kind of girl who brings out the best in other girls. They trust Karissa.

I, on the other hand, am a male....so...yeah, pretty much had zero relationship with the mother of the bride, mother of the groom, bridesmaids, and bride all day. That's a big deal! I can do my best to be thoughtful and encouraging, but no matter how fun or friendly I am, they're not going to let me past a certain point emotionally, and that's another thing that Karissa does well. They let her in. And that allows Karissa to do things and get shots that I never could.  

This is perhaps the most underrated aspect of wedding photography: managing a huge group of people. All day.

The grooms can especially be exhausting. Some of them wear out on pictures very quickly, and some of them don't want to be in pictures at all, and then the bride has to try to act like he's not always a butthead...and we're never allowed to say, "It's your freaking wedding day, could you at least ACT like you're glad to be here?"

The photographer basically has to stay "up" all day. Always excited, always optimistic, always energetic. Because if they don't, that will start to wear off on people and come through in the photos. It also will impact people's view of the photographer and the way that they interact with them.

Karissa has incredible social strength, an ability to maintain a positive, engaging, forward-moving vibe through the course of an entire wedding day--often ten or twelve hours! 

___________________________________________________________________

The expectations and tone of this wedding weren't intense because it was basically a favor/gift for a family member, so I had a great time with Brad trying some new things and solving problems on our own. 

But at the end of the day, my take-away from shooting a wedding without Karissa is that she's in a different class of photography, and the value that she brings to a wedding day goes well beyond what most people can see or know.

___________________________________________________________________

I think these clouds are just glorious. 

It feels so good for me to see these shots all together.

When we made plans to vacation in San Diego with our friends, The Wards, I began to think about the photo opportunities we’d have out there, and I was both excited and anxious because I knew it was a great opportunity and I wanted to make the most of it.

Looking at these ten favorite shots (non-sentimental edition) of the trip I feel the way one does when they finally scratch that spot in the middle of their back and the itch is….satisfied. These shots may not mean much to anyone else but for me they represent a specific flavor of photograph that I’d had yet to take, until now. 

Spending time in California totally validated every song I've ever heard about how cool California is. California is so cool!

I was actually struggling with not wanting to leave, but on the last night I heard God's voice very clearly say to me, "San Diego is great, but the work I've called you to in Hamilton County is greater", and that was just what I needed to hear in order to feel ok about leaving such an amazing place. 

I’ll remember this trip for being just what I needed it to be: therapeutic time away with close friends and their adorable daughters.

That friendship is built into each of these shots that satisfy me so--in that, in many ways, these shots wouldn’t have happened without my friend Brad’s loving support and encouragement in my life. He orchestrated the trip, drove us around and set me down in beautiful scenes, called my attention to nearly-missed opportunities, and let me use his waterproof camera for the surfer shot. He understands and enables my thirst for new artistic opportunities.

So to Brad: thanks man, for everything. Here’s to many more nearly-missed photo ops!

And to San Diego: you were everything I hoped and more. I hope to see you again someday. 

Creating Culture

One thing I really enjoy doing is using outtakes and bloopers as intros in my  videos to show people the personalities of our staff at Genesis Church. 

It humanizes them and makes them relatable, and it chips away at the squeaky-clean perception that some people can have about church leaders. In a small way, it creates a culture of authenticity and of being able to laugh at yourself. It says, "We're not perfect, and we know that."

And isn't that humility what you want from someone who is leading you? Don't you want to know that they have a balanced view of themselves?

We're asking people to come and be vulnerable and open themselves up to others and to God, and even something small like leaving in the silly mistakes in the videos is one little way to create a culture of transparency.

___________________________________________________________________

Danielle is fun, funny, and easy-going, but most of our church doesn't get to see that because she's always back in GenKids taking care of business! When I edited this little recap I decided to show people a little bit of her personality.

Kevin had just arrived from Kentucky to join our staff and this video was basically our church's first on-screen exposure to him. I had already found him to be a sweet, charming guy and I wanted people to begin to connect with him. I thought that he showed humility in asking how to start, and charm with how he responded to my demand that he not say "ya'll"

Paul is one of the best communicators that I've ever met. He rarely makes verbal mistakes and he usually nails his videos in one take, so I wanted to make the most of this opportunity to show people that even in his gifting, he makes mistakes, too!

We showed this video as a treat to our volunteers at our annual volunteer appreciation party that we call "The Big Event" and it was a HUGE hit! 

We decided to make it an annual installment--the content creates itself any time I shoot a video with a staff member! 

Enjoy :)