La Jolla really is a beautiful place. The pelicans were flying one or two at a time, I was taking photos, got bored, and let my camera drop to my side. Then all of a sudden they bum-rushed the place. My camera jumped back up to my eye in a natural motion, my hand finding the focus ring, snapping it into place as I made the shot. I don't want to go off on a rant about how manual focus is better, but it just is. It makes you feel like a real photographer when you can compose an image the way you want and not just focus for the center of the frame like the camera wants.

Off I-8

Tucson

Desert

Mission San Xavier 

The Parent's Old Trailer

So I ran out of space on my laptop while I was on the road so I had to hold off on uploading images. Conclusions based on these images: 1. I'm starting to get obsessed with roads and side roads. 2. Tuscon is a beautiful place with great weather in the springtime. Not sure if I could handle the summer. 3. I now understand why my parents moved to where they did. Their house, and the environment that surround it is the exact complete opposite of where they used to live.

Palm Springs. Where old people go to die.

Arizona. Where old people go to wave flags

Another road pic. 

Wal-Mart Truck

Worlds Largest Nuclear Power Plant

Snake

Welcome to AZ

Trailer Park Gas Station

Sunset

Road Trips Kick Ass.

Word Magazine staff photos from winter 2010, Michael Gruetzmacher getting hit with some water. It's raining right now in IV and this is what it feels like

Sometimes it takes more then one picture to tell the story. It's always interesting to see how people react to the camera.

Life's a beach, dig it. Also it's saint patrick's day, so swag that green out.

Today I finished up the color grading on the student short I've been working on called '12 Minutes Until The End Of The World.' Afterwards I went surfing. Then I went back to take photos of surfing. The last thing I have to do on campus is go to the premiere of of my student film on friday, then my career as a student is over.  

The taxi ranks downtown. The real city center.

So this is about a year late, but now I'm getting around to really sorting through all the photos I shot in Cape Town. This week will be a series of uploads from that trip. These were all taken from the window of a mini-bus/combi taxi that became my main source of transportation aside from my feet/skateboard when I was there. I love the energy of shooting from a moving vehicle. You have to be fast with your eye and camera, but to everybody on the street, your totally invisible.

Isla Vista

Same team as the last pic, just in the A.M. Morning light is such a pleasure to shoot in. I didn't have to do a single thing with the colors or the "look" in post, which never happens. I used the Zeiss 50mm I have, which I think produces a much different look then Canon L glass. The only light was a little bit of fill from a bounce card onto her legs. We started out with some more glam/catalogue poses but the coffee mug and the gaze told a more interesting story.

Isla Vista

This is from a series that I did for WORD magazine, a fun little publication put out by the university. The model is Chloe Roessell and she was styled by Lizzy Szabo.

Chuck D

I shot this on the one year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. Chuck D, of Public Enemy fame, was speaking at UCSB (where his wife is a professor) to promote the cause and tell people that just because the event isn't in the headlines, doesn't mean the problem has been fixed. It seems like every year we have another disaster and at some point we will all grow numb or be overwhelmed.

I hope everything in Japan will be OK. But lets not forget about Haiti, Chile, Thailand, or New Orleans.

Silver Strand

The only thing to say about this photo is that it proves I don't really know how to use a tilt/shift lens. I was able to rent one (a canon 17mm) for a weekend courtesy of the 12 Minutes To The End Of The World budget, so I took the opportunity to cruise down to the 'nard and take a few snaps before I got wet.

Ventura Pier

Magic Hour really is magic. This was taken about two weeks ago before I shoot Snoop Dogg at the Majestic. Took photographs, I mean, not actually shoot him.

En Pointe

Promo shot for a short called Silent Heart, directed by Ryan Turner (we did Ready... Fight together).  Would you see this movie?

Thomas Marston, Fakie Inward Heel

Skateboarding's got me really stoked out right now, so I thought I'd post this pic, because it's one of the only skate photos I have in my current Lightroom library. Pretty much, losing hard-drives and data makes the impermanence of digital media so very clear. I run triple back-ups now, because two wasn't enough.

NCAA College Cup Final,  Lousiville 0 - Akron 1 Final

This was the first time I'd ever gotten to shoot a daytime soccer game, since every game the Gaucho's played was at night. I got a chance to use a bunch of tricks (like this remote fisheye) that I couldn't at night. A very well respected photographer who saw my work on the internet told me that this was too loose. I guess he's right but it doesn't bother me.

Thanksgiving Night at Hearst, 2010

These next two weeks are gonna be crazy. I've got to finish up with my last classes and finals and completely build my digital profile to promote myself. I'm doing the crazy thing and staying down south for a while, try to get any sort of photo-related job, a day-job and a place to live, and hopefully I'll be able to land on my feet. This is where it all starts though, this is the childhood home that I grew up in and that'll take me back if I totally blow it in the coming months.

Spring

...has sprung.

March 12th, 2010

This is one of the many pictures that I have from my time in Cape Town, where beachgoing is the semi-official past-time. Muizenberg beach, where is was taken, was a quick train ride to a fun little surf spot. Not long so after I had taken this, I was browsing through a photo book in a used book store on Long Street. I saw the exact photo I have here, besides having been taken 20 years previously on black and white film. The light-post had not been put in yet. It was a good photo, but I can't help but think we saw something very different in the same image.