Digital Kloc Photo Blog

The past year was insane at work. The first five months were filled with work on G-Force, 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. After G-Force, I took a two week vacation and then jumped right into working on Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. I have been working 12 hour days, six days a week on Alice since September. All this work left me little time to shoot. I shot about half the amount that I did last year, and shot more spur of the moment type things rather than planning shoots.

Here are my top 10 photos of the year, in chronological order:

A friend asked me to shoot his Porsche 996 Turbo.

Read more…

Hayley joins The Swellers on Stage

Last week I was fortunate enough to shoot The Swellers and Paper Route when they opened for Paramore at the Hollywood Palladium in LA. All three bands put on great shows. It was the last show of the US tour and the last show with The Swellers, so I stuck around and shot some farewell photos of all the bands together. Paramore is by far the largest band that I have shot and their fan base is much bigger than I imagined. For example, six of the photos I shot after the show are on Paramore’s website. In 24 hours, the photos have a combined 31,614 views. In contrast, my Flickr account which has 1,300 images including scantily clad women, has 27,400 views in a little under two years. Looks like I need a hit record.

Since this was a big show, I decided to rent the Nikon 14-24 f2.8 wide angle lens instead of my usual 12-24 f4. I had rented it before, but wasn’t terribly happy with it. This show confirmed my discontent with the lens. While the lens is tack sharp, the elements are just too big and bulky for a live show. Focusing is fine for landscape or portraits, but when it is dark and you need instant focus, this lens is too slow.  Another photographer traded his 24-70 f2.8 with me for a song and  most of what I posted from the photo pit was shot with that lens.

Jonathan - The Swellers

After the three song limit shooting from the photo pit, I switched to my Nikon 80-200 2.8 AF-S to shoot from the crowd.

Nick - The Swellers

Hayley from Paramore and Nick from The Swellers

Paper Route

Paper Route

Paper Route

Some post-show farewell photos. These were shot with the Nikon 14-24 and a SB-800 on camera.

Farewell photo from the Paramore tour 2009.

Hayley Williams from Paramore and Anto Boros from The Swellers

Next show – Less Than Jake with Fishbone and The Swellers.

Jake Garn has an interesting post about how the rule of thirds is really the lazy persons way of composing with the golden ratio.

http://jakegarn.com/the-rule-of-thirds/

Interesting stuff.

Repost of Jim Goldstein’s “Best Photos From 2008″ blog post – with permission. I am #77.

Once again 2008 proved to be an incredibly productive year for the many photographers who read the JMG-Galleries blog. The results of this “Best Photos From 2008″ blog project puts a twist to the normal “Best of Photo” list by aggregating links to the work of 93 photographers from around the globe who are passionate and dedicated to their craft.

The results from “Best Photos From 2007″ by JMG-Galleries Blog Reader’s were impressive, but this year not only did the number of participants exceed expectation the quality and vision of those who submitted were exceptional. This year participants ran the gamut of experience from enthusiasts to professionals.

Enjoy and good luck picking out your favorite from these great submissions

1. “My Top 10 Favorite Photos of 2008” – Jim M. Goldstein
2. My Favorite Shots of the Year – View from the Little Red Tent by Edie Howe
3. 2008 Favorites – Photine by Laurie Ballesteros
4. My Nephew – Amit Goyal
   My nephew woke me up in the morning and was in a very chirpy mode when this was clicked
5. Another world (+Vorher/Nachher) – Visuelle Gedanken by Martin Wolf
   
6. Boy, Hanoi – The Sun Shines & The Igloo Melts by Jon Gresham
7. Best Photos from 2008 – Abraham Neben
8. Apocalyptic Capitalism – Sultana Sandwich by James Hill
9. Top 10 Photos of 2008, My first year in Wisconsin – Sierra Visions by Steven Bourelle
10. My Best Photos: 2008 – Shutter Photo by D Travis North
    This past year was a huge growth year for my digital photography skills which I feel is exhibited quite nicely in my photo favorites of 2008. Read more…

I recently took at trip to Atlanta, GA for my soon-to-be step-sister’s wedding. I had a bad feeling going to the airport and sure enough, my flight was delayed 3.5 hours due to the airplane missing three screws from an access panel. I’ll spare you the story, but the delay made me miss the last flight out of Denver to Atlanta. Frontier was able to put me on an AirTran flight to Atlanta at 7am the next day.

Here is Atlanta from the hotel room:

My brother, Dave, in the hotel room:

The wedding was an Orthodox Jewish wedding, filled with ritual and tradition. Before the ceremony, the groom and all the men go into a room and drink, dance, and say a few prayers. There were three photographers that were hired to shoot the wedding. I wanted to shoot, but didn’t want to carry a bunch of gear around, so I shot the whole thing with a 50mm 1.8 on my D300.

Then the wedding ceremony, filled with more tradition, but not so much drinking.

After the wedding was the reception, with more drinking and a ton of crazy dancing. We danced for almost an hour before people calmed down for dinner.

Alex played a song for his sister and his new brother-in-law.

The flight home was uneventful. I wanted to take some shots of airplanes taking off and landing before I took off. I saw a great spot at the end of the MARTA station at the airport. I had my 80-200 2.8 out and got nine shots off before a police officer with a dog stopped me. I know I wasn’t doing anything illegal, but I didn’t want any trouble and didn’t want to miss another flight. Here’s one of the nine frames I shot:

Here are some shots of Lindsay. She is starting her modeling career doing fitness and swimwear.

See the full set here: http://flickr.com/photos/digitalkloc/sets/72157607421987812/

Some shots of Veronica from last Sunday.

See the full set here: http://flickr.com/photos/digitalkloc/sets/72157607005809185/

Shot this stuff last weekend for a paid gig. All natural light at some locations within walking distance from my apartment.

See the full set here: http://flickr.com/photos/digitalkloc/sets/72157606863031586/

The Hollywood Summer Tour is a group of professional dancers who come to LA to start breaking in to the Hollywood dance scene. I was allowed to shoot them while the filmed a music video for Nicki Foxx. Here are some of the pictures:

Lots more here: http://flickr.com/photos/digitalkloc/sets/72157606521778794/

This is part of my ongoing series of Male Pattern Baldness shots. I really liked the idea of shooting a couple with mohawks. Christine and Clinton were great to shoot, and they are getting married!

See the full set here: http://flickr.com/photos/digitalkloc/sets/72157605867899774/