GOOD MORNING BALTIMORE!

Hon Fest 2010. What makes Baltimore great...ish.

  

My friend Katie pointed out to me the fact that they weren't claiming to be the world's greatest crabcakes. No, Baltimoreans are comfortable with there limitations, world's greatest CONCESSION crabcakes is good enough. Much as I claim to be the World's Greatest Curly Haired Miler From Baltimore Who Takes Pictures At Hon Fest. 

Billboard!

Was coming back from Florida and walking out of the airport when I saw one of my pictures!

Snake Pit

Everyday I walk around and see people I would love to take pictures of. Most times it doesn't happen. Sometimes I don't feel like asking, sometimes I ask and get shutdown, sometimes I ask and they seem like they like the idea but never get back to me.  Every once in a while though everything comes together.

I saw Danny at the Ottobar at a Madonna vs. Gaga. vs. Brittany dance party. It was people watching at it's best and Danny was one of the most fun to watch. I decided his name should be Snake Pit. I managed to talk to him quickly before I left and give him my card and tell him I'd love to shoot with him sometime. To my surprise the very next morning I got a call...from Snake Pit!

Snake Pit turned out to be Danny, and Danny turned out to be super nice. He's in school studying journalism after doing 4 years in the Navy. Not exactly the back story I had made up for him, but that's what's great about taking pictures of people, you get all kinds of surprises.

Danny and I shot in several locations and were able to get some images I really like.

Climbing

It has been a while since the last blog post. But, I have good reasons all 11 followers of mine! First I had my sisters graduation in Florida. Then I got sick down there and since have been trying to heal myself. It's been over a week though and still not ALL better. Soooo lame. Memorial Day though I just couldn't take it anymore and got some friends together and went climbing. Here are some pictures I took there. Sorry Alina I think you stopped climbing before I started taking pictures! And sorry to all 11 of you who were hoping upon hope to see pictures of me. I'm not that multi skilled with the self portrait yet. And now I present to you Baltimore's finest: Ben, Carl and Katie. 

Superman Flash Back

Yesterday I had the sad experience of making my only venture outside my dwelling be to watch the Orlando Magic lose their first playoff game to the Boston Celtics. Ughh and it was sooo close! They dug themselves a 20 point hole and then just couldn't quite make the comeback and lost by four. UGGGHHHH still maddening!!!

The Magic's star player is Dwight Howard, a physical freak who has muscle that previously were reserved only for action figures. Back in 2005 I got the chance to interview and photograph Dwight for Listen Magazine. At that time I think he had just turned 19 and I was 20. He turned out to be just a genuinely nice guy, one of the few professional athletes I've ever met where I left thinking they would be fun to be friends with regardless of their fame. 

For the piece I went to a game in Orlando and interviewed Howard and shot game photos. The next day I went to a practice and did the portraits. For the portraits I had my mom assist me. As you can see from her picture she was out of her mind excited to do it. Although, when I introduced her to Dwight he called her Mom and that won her over. She doesn't know a thing about him otherwise I don't think, but if we're watching him on TV she always points out, "He called me Mom!" 

I did the portraits in about 5 minutes with my mom holding up white foam core as the backdrop. Natural light and a basketball from my school's old P.E. closet. I ended up really liking the bottom one and at the time think it was one of the best pictures that had been taken of him for publication. Since then he has blown up nationally as a sports star and tons of great pictures have been taken. But, I can always say I knew him when...well when he was only the size of a truck...now he's more like a semi. 

Project Coffee; Firehouse Coffee Co.

I don't know if this is specific to a certain type of person or not, but I've noticed that more and more I miss words in signage. Or even better I add in imaginary words. I made the choice for this Project Coffee location and told Sean it was Coffee Co. Not sure how I missed the giant FIREHOUSE part above Coffee Co., or the smalled seemingly unneeded extra Firehouse above the giant FIREHOUSE, above Coffee Co.. (Do you end that with a double period? Tricky)

Somehow I assume this place at onetime had some relationship with a firehouse. Either that or the owners found a bunch of firehouse memorabilia at rock bottom prices somewhere. The Firehouse Coffee Co. is located in Canton square, a cool little place that somehow I didn't stumble upon until this past month. The FCC...ooooohhh how great are those initials, maybe they should have just gone with that, anyway the FCC has actually a pretty good website for a coffee shop. Got to say most of them suck expresso beans. They even have a blog, complete with three entries since January of 2009. 

The inside of the place is actually pretty cool, complete with a lamp with feathers, Blues Brother's statues, a barista who Sean decided was Daria and of course fire fighter paraphernalia. 

Sean and I both had some sort of peanut butter frappe. It was quite excellent. Oh and this marked the beginning of a new trend, biking to Project Coffee. Somehow I had gotten out of the habit of biking anywhere, but I have resurrected this. Things in Baltimore are surprisingly close by bike. And all my emissions are green...although hopefully not literally that would be a little too comic bookish.  

 

Random On The Way To The Beach Photos

I found these photos I took almost exactly a year ago and decided I liked them and should actually process them and share them with my cyber family.