Ask yourself these questions:

Have you personally been affected by cancer, directly or indirectly? Do you want to find a way to help fight cancer? Do you want to be part of something that allows us to do more help than anyone one of us could individually?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions then you know how I feel and why I am involved with the American Cancer Society‘s annual event called Relay for Life.  There are numerous events nationwide going on all the time and vary in scale.  This year was my third event and my second at this location, Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA.

I have been lucky enough to be part of such a  great team and this year we raised over $23,300! With just 22 team members.  Our fundraising efforts was top 3 for our event (of 127 teams) and 8 of our members were top 27 fundraisers out the over 2,100 participants.  Truly honored to be part of such a great team.

It was a successful year of fundraising, but none of this could have been possible to all the supporters and donors out there.  One in particular, Darryl Keeler, President of Tech Systems, Inc. was kind enough to offer corporate matching that totaled over $11,400 and helped us in all our totals.  All donations were instantly matched from Darryl and for members who raised over $500, another doubling match kicked in. Truly a generous and great way to kickstart our fundraising efforts.

It’s hot here in the South and thankfully Atlanta Vending was kind enough in supplying us drinks and snacks to keep us hydrated and energized through the hot afternoon, early morning hours and through sunrise.

If you ever wanted to find a way to give back and fight cancer, Relay for Life is one of those ways.  You can start a team, join a team, attend a Relay event, take advantage of services that are offered from the American Cancer Society.  These services that are funded directly from our dollars raised.

If you ever have any questions, you know how to reach me.

Celebrate.

Remember.

Fight back.

Below is a slideshow of some images from the event.

Enjoy~

A lot of my friends from college are now spread all around the country, even the world.  I’m quite lucky to be surrounded by driven, successful and of course, fun friends and knowing I always have a couch to crash on whenever I get to travel in their part of the world is always a nice bonus.

The two lovely ladies below are two of my friends who’ve I’ve known over a decade now and I’m always glad to get to grab a meal, visit a new/old spot and have some good ole’ conversations.

So, as luck would have it, all of us were able to take a break from our busy lives and be at the same place at the same time for a few hours.

Both of them have always always been patient with me always being around with a camera, waiting until I capture our dinner or to take a scenic shot while out and about and of course hiding from my camera lens.  Constantly.

I got this cloning/”multiple me” idea from Michael Zhang over at PetaPixel.  So, I figured, we’ve got a few of us, we have somewhat a low traffic area, though, I will say, we did have a few people look at us as we tried to get the jumping shot, but you know, it’s all in the name of the shot. 

Photographers: I’d recommend a tripod, as Michael recommends.  I didn’t take one with me, but luckily a hefty branch was available and the wind didn’t blow too hard.  There was of course, slight movements of the trees, but overall, the camera position was pretty stable.

Until the next time!

PS – Yes, it’s rare you’ll see a photo of me, but you know, once in a blue moon…

My allergies have gotten worse as I have gotten older and this spring, the pollen count has just been off the charts.  Simple things like getting the paper and mail will induce a sneezing attack, no matter the brevity of my time outdoors.  And it’s always a bad sign seeing yellow specks settling on the back of my LCD.  (I guess it’s always better than on the lens or inside the camera body, right?).

But you are probably saying “Just suck it up, Nat!”.  Ok, I will and I did.

When my friend, Benedetta, asked me if I’d like to join her on an outdoor shoot, I initially thought, “Hmm…if I can manage to compose/focus/shoot between sneezes…sure!”

Introducing Hania.  She was looking to update her modeling portfolio and was much fun to work with.  I felt proud that I was still in touch with pop culture and yes, I actually have some of her favorite songs in my collection.  Woo hoo!  But I was also able to reminisce a little of my past and remember what I was like when I was her age.  (Definitely not having my picture taken; I prefer being behind the lens…)

We also made a code name for the boy that she likes, so that her mom wouldn’t know which boy she was referring to while we were all talking, but to also bring out that great smile and expression. 

She was reading this catalog and we decided to try to recreate the cover shot a bit, shooting into the sun and all.  I think this one is my favorite for the day.

Nothing like having a hammock handy to make as a great prop for a shot!  Doubles nicely for a nap and to wake up to a dusting of yellow.

View the complete set on my flickr page here.

I finally (as Melissa and Julie may say) made my way down to a S. Atlanta Flickr Group (SAF) shoot last month at Season’s Bistro.

With a mix of seeing some friends and meeting new ones, anytime I can be around other photographers to talk photo, life is good.

One of the most interesting aspects (outside of seeing Joon with his Hulk gloves (see below)) of these meetups, is that while we may be all shooting the same model, under usually the same light setups, sometimes the same sets and even sometimes, the same camera/lens combination, we all capture and create our own unique photographs.  Seeing the possibilities is sometimes one of the most powerful inspirations you can get.

Some of my favorite moments are when I say to myself or others say ‘Oh wow…nice pose…great setup’ after seeing the photographer/model work together to create something totally different and fresh.

Here’s some of my favorites from the evening…enjoy~!

Joon playing enforcer with his Hulk gloves; don’t mess with him!

Gloria | I used my 85/1.8 to shoot from below the stairs, between two sets of legs (the other was camera left) and she happened to see me and gave me this look.  Love it!  I’ve been trying to use my primes (50/85; 1.8s) more often and get a feel for each and move my feet to help with composition or look for new ways of composing with a fixed focal length.

We had a light camera left and I wanted to also capture a little bit of the colors of the setting sun in the background.

Give her props, as she was willing to climb up and hang on to this gate while we shot.   Light set up camera right and focusing was a little tough as it was getting pretty dark, but luckily, a flashlight was there to help us focus!

Joon and Chris checking out a homemade beauty dish.  They give off a light between a bare flash and softbox for a little more edgy/dramatic look.  I’m going to have to look into making my own.  I like edgy.

I wasn’t able to shoot any of Hannah outdoors but got to capture a few of her inside.  Her red outfit made her eyes stand out even more.

I got Hannah in between shots on this one.  This was shot with ambient light at ISO 1600 (I did run some noise reduction on this).

A few behind the scenes shots.

We all love to take photographs, no matter the means of capture.

Gloria and the ‘is this wine or something else’ drink.   I tend to step on a chair, step stool, ladder, anything to make myself taller, because, as some of you know, I’m not that tall!  But I also like a different point of view, be it higher or lower.

P.S. if you are interested in finding local Atlanta photography groups that meet and  shoot, the S. Atlanta Flickr Group page has a list of those groups and also is a great resource to find places to shoot, other groups, interests, etc. towards the bottom of the page.

So, it’s been a while.

Ok, so it’s been almost 2 months since my last post.  I won’t make excuses on what kept me from blogging, but perhaps, it is not an excuse, but mainly quality time with family and friends.

But for now, let’s roll back the clock with a little story:

Recently, a friend of mine had requested a photo of mine that he had saw at my house.  I was initially surprised he liked it, knowing in the back of my head, that it wasn’t anything spectacular and that I took the shot over 8 years ago with my first digital camera, a Kodak DC 4800 and all of it’s 3 MPs.  I loved that I could bump up the saturation on it and it produced some nice images.  I still have the camera and all the lens accessories that I had bought for it.

And yes, I am a pack rat and nostalgic.  Very much of both.

And this was the photograph that was requested by my friend:

This was the view of the World Trade Center from the Empire State building on August 14th, 2001.  What would occur in next few weeks would change the world that we know.  Forever.

Yesterday’s Help-Portrait experience at the Atlanta – DeLowe location had both the expected and the unexpected:

expected:
1. give photographs to families who may not have ever had a photograph of them taken

unexpected:
1. meeting a fellow college alumnus; we even graduated the same year
2. donated chips and brownies (delicious, I might add) from the place where we ordered lunch from (Cafe at the Corner in Hapeville – www.cafeatthecorner.com), because of what we were doing.
3. a mother tearing up as I showed her the images of her children on my camera
4. a staff member at our location breaking out in dance moves
5. the little boy who was all dressed up with a vest, dress shoes and all, and was my last shoot for the day:

boy: I only want ONE picture taken, ok?
me: only one? I think your mom would want more since you are looking handsome today
b: I only want ONE!
m: ok

So I begin to shoot and he walks away, deciding he did not want his photo taken! Luckily, Chris, who is fantastic with kids, was around and by the end of it, the little boy was posing, smiling and even trying to make noises from his hands and armpit (we all did as kids, right?).

Towards the end, he started to do some dance moves and what I will never forget and it’ll always bring a smile to my face is when he did his Michael Jackson dance move impression.  That made us all break out in laughter.

6. the same little boy asking everyone if he could have our cameras.

I thank all the coordinators who put this great event together and also all the families that came out yesterday and gave me more than I could ever expected.

THANK YOU!

Stats for 6 Atlanta locations:
337 portraits taken
683 individual people were photographed
157 Atlanta-Metro volunteers participated

Behind the scenes video and photos:
Jon’s behind the scenes video at our location…great job Jon!

Gallery of behind the scenes photos at my location

The Atlanta Help-Portrait flickr group pool

Want to be involved in the 2010 Help-Portrait? See below:

Atlanta Help-Portrait site:
http://www.help-portrait-atlanta.com/

Main Help-Portrait site:

http://www.help-portrait.com/

May you all have a happy holiday season!

In a little over 13 hrs, I will be joining forces with thousands of other photographers worldwide to give the gift of a photograph.

If you are not part of a group, please don’t let that stop you.  This is not about us as photographers, portfolios and such, but giving what many of us may take for granted: a photograph; of them, their family or their kids.

So I encourage you to find someone who’s in need, connect with them, share stories and give them more than just an image…who knows what you’ll receive in return.

Thanks to everyone who’s joined in and put this wonderful event together.

Before you think I got clever and thought of that title myself…

…I did not.

It’s a song by the band Switchfoot.  I like how the song slowly builds up with the drums.  Then the guitars.  Then add in the piano.

It had been a few days after the latest rain here and it is those days that we tend to embrace the return of the sunshine after those wet and overcast ones.

I have a westerly facing window that gives me small windows (no pun intended) of opportunities to capture the rays on various objects.

A few days ago, that window was giving me that opportunity on my money tree.

Enjoy~

I haven’t been shooting too much lately as I had been traveling to get back some belongings I had stored elsewhere.  After we unloaded all the boxes into the house, I quickly realized that I had too much ‘stuff’.  That began the week-long project of going through mostly everything I own and clearing out what I didn’t need.

Along the way, you find old paperwork (why do I still have high school class notes?), old photos (the memories never go old) and things that you looked everywhere for, but never found, until now (a little too late, though).

One thing I found, or better yet, recently rediscovered was this:

If memory serves me correct (I hope I’m not wrong!), this Holga 120SF was one part of a thank you gift from a friend for shooting & editing her wedding video.  The other half of the gift was a 100% hand-made mini photo album from her wedding…but was filled only with random photographs of me in other people’s shots, as I was trying to get ‘the shot’ or maybe just getting in the way .  Kinda like a ‘Where is Nat?’-type album.

Both items will always put a smile on my face and bring back memories of not only the wedding but the editing fun that came afterwards.

So remember, it doesn’t need to be spring to be cleaning out what you don’t need…who knows what you’ll find or (re)-discover!

Random photo trips are a welcomed change to my routine.  This time, I was invited to head north to Chattanooga, TN to the 2009 Head of the Hooch Regatta to see what photo ops would surface.

I had never been to the event before, only read/heard about it from people I knew and it was good fun all around and gorgeous weather to be out and about.

Also along the way, I was able to check out new parts of the TN Riverpark that had been added since the last time I had been able to explore the area.  It’s amazing how far along that has come.

Downtown Chattanooga not has good views but good eats, including Lupi’s Pizza.  I never complain about the lack of food around.

Some of my favorites shots are here:

Want some more? Here you go!

http://www.nattawutguname.com/client/20091107_hoh

More info about the Head of the Hooch Regatta:

http://www.headofthehooch.org/