These boots were made for walking!

Another in the static follow up series. This is the same pair of boots photographed about 10 years apart. The shot on the left shows a freshly polished pair of "almost" new boots...and the same boots shot more recently. I don't wear them as much these days, but I often photographed things when I first bought them. Pulling images out of depths of the archives allows me to revisit not only the images, but also the items themselves. A common refrain: "I wonder if I still have those?"
No... I'm not a hoarder, in fact I'm making a concerted effort to get rid of stuff that I don't use anymore. Perhaps if I weren't a photographer I would be. Photographing my "stuff"...keeps me from hoarding it in the first place. :)

125th Anniversary of NC State

It's NC State University's 125th anniversary this week and realized I also remember the 100th anniversary quite well. I am starting to feel as old as my daughter thinks I am. I'm not that old of course...just 51, but I've had an association with the University in some capacity since 1978. Both good and bad, but mostly good. I'm still proud to have finished my engineering degree and even prouder that I was EIT certified upon graduation having passed the Engineer in Training exam. I happened to be in the right place at the right time in 1983 and over the years have had the opportunity to meet and photograph some of NC State's greatest alumni. I've always loved the Belltower, but haven't photographed it much really since the 80's. On a spring day last year, I went out again on my bike and decided to revisit the landmark. This is the result. Maybe I should run over to UNC and get a picture of the Well. Might sell better. :)

25th Anniversary of NC State's last ACC Tournament Win!

This past week NC State University celebrated it's 125th anniversary. Today, Thursday March 8th the ACC Men's Basketball tournament starts with NC State taking on Boston College for a chance to make the NCAA tournament field. Each NC State win will bring this years team closer to a tournament bid. I realized that the last time NC State won the tournament was when the university was celebrating it's 100th anniversary...25 years ago!! My files are more organized than they have been and I was able to pull the images fairly quickly from that tournament which took place at the Capital Center in Landover, MD.

There were some famous names attached to that tournament and it is hard for me to comprehend how it was that long ago. NC State went up against Duke in the first game as the 6th seed and prevailed against the Blue Devils 71-64 in overtime against such players as Danny Ferry, currently VP or basketball operations of the San Antonio Spurs, and Quin Snyder who is currently an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Mike Giomi, a reserve played often behind Charles Shacklford.
In the regular season, State had won both games against semi-final opponent Wake Forest and Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues.


State prevailed again against the Deacons 77-73 with Charles Shackleford leading the Pack with 17 points and Bennie Bolton sccoring 16 points. State then advanced to the title game against UNC who was undefeated against ACC teams that season.



In the last seconds of the UNC game Vinnie Del Negro had a chance to win the game, but was fouled on the play. He sank both free throws to provide the winning margin 68-67.














NC State made the NCAA tournament that year and their first round opponent were the Florida Gators coached by former NC State coach Norm Sloan and assisted by former playmaker Monte Towe. Florida had another assistant coach that year that was a former Wolfpack guard. Can you name him? He's now an assistant coach with the NY Knicks. Unfortunately, led by future star Vernon Maxwell, Florida overcame a 9 point second half deficit and scored 17 unanswered points to end NC State's title hopes.

PHOTOSHOP User & AlienSkin Software

Last year we completed a project for David's Dumpling & Noodle Bar, a great Asian restaurant near NC State University in Raleigh. It involved the enlargement of a series of images that I created for the interior. Because the canvases were as big as 11 feet wide in places, we needed to use a software called BlowUp by AlienSkin which allowed us to size up our images dramatically. We tried BlowUp after looking for an alternative to the PS built in sizing features. The results from BlowUp were stunning.
This month AlienSkin featured the project in their ad for the software used on the rear cover of Photoshop User February issue. It was certainly a nice tribute to David's project. And if you haven't been to David's yet, what are you waiting for?

And yes...to answer your question, the above image is an illustration completely manufactured in Photoshop CS5.

Wiley School - Before and After

I'm not sure I would make a good journalist. I do consider myself an illustrator. I illustrate with camera, lens, film (or digital), software, etc to create an image that is an interpretation of what I see. The image on the left is how a photojournalist might photograph this scene. There has been some controversy over photojournalists manipulating their images digitally and as a consequence ethics have been put into question. Writers on the other hand are allowed to illustrate a scene in words, yet aren't questioned as to their perspective or point of view, their bias, or what they leave in or leave out in describing a scene, event, or story.
Yes I do believe that photojournalists must have an ethical line that they can't cross, but that line is gray. When photographing an event, the photojournalist must document the scene as they interpret it without manipulation, but the gray area is what is considered manipulation. In the above example, the photograph on the right is certainly manipulated and is "my" illustration of this scene as I interpret it. However, the photograph on the left is also manipulated in how I chose to photograph it. I left out much of the building not showing the people that may have been just off camera. The lens I chose compresses the view. The moment I chose kept cars out of the foreground, however, there were many cars zipping by while I was taking the image. Were the colors that way? What I saw and felt was more of the image on the right. The camera couldn't quite capture what I saw with my eyes. The highlights on the railings caught my attention... the dappled lighting through the trees... the feeling of late afternoon. The camera didn't capture any of that, but it was there. As an illustrator I was able to recapture those feelings of what I saw. Isn't that what a photojournalist should do as well? So the question here is which photograph really captured the scene the way I saw it? The one on the right of course. As a photojournalist the ethical line would have been crossed by turning on the light...which is what I did...and why I'm not a photojournalist at least with this picture.