Swim meet and enjoying the 'burbs

It's that time of year again when the dads where their big stray hats and the moms paint random things on their kids. I didn't realize it in the past, but there are so many stories and weird things at swimming events. It could almost be on the verge of being obsessed. But definately cool sounds and tons of stuff to shoot. But, when the sports dept wants action shots, I feel really limited. Like, get tight using a 300 mm or something. I'm not sure how else to approach it unless I got in the water with underwater housing.



Not sure which one out of the two below I like:

Don't know what to say

Wow! Just when you think you've seen it all. Blahahahaha. As long as this guy knows 'Freedom ain't free.'

Good timers

Decided to shoot something instead of just sitting around, so I went over to a speedway near my house and hung out. Only took like 20 pictures and then left with ringing ears and a killer headache. They're out every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, so maybe I'll go back and drink some beers on the back of someone's truck and hang. Saturday I'm shooting a swim match for a local paper, could be cool.

Home at last

So wow, I'm home. It's weird. Kind of like I never left, but just woke up from an amazing dream. But then again, there are a few things that struck me and stood out from the daily life I so oddly found myself back in. Mainly being how cheap the food is over here, how much food there is, how everything is based around corn, and how nothing is that fresh. I miss the bakeries every block and the fruit stands on the corner. But this is Suburbia I guess. It was an amazing time I'll never forget and it won't be too long until I head back. When I finally went to sleep after getting home, I had been awake for about 41 hours. Everything just sort of blends together and becomes really funny. Tomorrow I am gonna try and head into DC to shoot the march/demonstration that is taking place.

New website look?

Ok, so I am redesigning and updating my website and everything on it. I'm doing it in flash. The rough idea is up now on JTULLY.COM Please check it out if you have a chance and let me know what you think. I will be updating the general template over the next few days and won't have it totaly done probably for 2 weeks.

Thanks

Old pic

Came across this picture from a few months back. We rented a house for 10 days on the West Coast in an area called Thy and it had a swimming pool. This was just one of the crazy nights.

If you haven't seen it...

With so many new things coming out everyday and so many different ways to get information, things sort of just blend together and become blurry for me. But today I discovered something I've known about, but just haven't spent any time with. Magnum in Montion is a pretty cool site to hang at if you're bored or looking to be inspired. It's like your own personal session with the photographers and the stories they've done. Anyways, I saw the story on Guantanamo and have to say it was amazing.

Gross addiction

No it's not a joint. I roll my own cigarrettes. How can something so gross be so addictive?

It's quiet six feet under

I went out and photographed knowing I would convert to black and white and wanting to shoot a different way. Just shoot something completely different. This is personal work and besides adjusting shadows and exposure in Adobe's Raw converter, nothing else was done to the images.

HAHA! We Win!

I was browsing google and found this in the MPW Rangefinder from this year's workshop. We all look ridiculous, I love it!

Hilarious Timing!

So I went out shooting today and just goofing around when I got back and was going to download the images. I came to find out that I have no space on my laptop harddrive, 1 GB left on my 150 GB external drive, and three 1 GB memory cards from the past couple of days to dump. I have two 4 GB DVDs that I was going to burn, but when I put them into the CD drive, it somehow broke and just spits them out. What luck, haha. TIme to start erasing music...goodbye "Muppets Christmas Carol." So long "West Side Story." Adios Raffi.

Wolves

Here are a few more images from the football game in Budapest. Some people have commented about trying to find something that shows that it is in a foreign country and I've gone through a few takes to see if I found anything. Here are just a few, but I don't think I have the photograph I need that really says, "Budapest" or "Foreign." Looking back, that should have been the first thing to look for. Maybe a flag or some sort of symbol. I tried to do it with the shot through the glass with the Hungarian words, and also with the shots of people's names on the uniforms, but again, I don't think they really get the point across as much as I'd hope.





And just a few pics of some spectators.

Thoughts

I'm in the mood to write. It's about 1:15 AM Wednesday and had a lot on my mind today.

I've decided to redo my website and make it a little more lively. There are so many sites out there from photojournalists and other photographers that look amazing and really present the work. I really like Ben Lowy's site and how a new window pops up to present the photographs. It's clean and reminds me of an online magazine. But then there are sites that are simple, yet done amazingly well like Melissa Lyttle's.

But looking through these, as I often do and maybe do too much, I began to feel frustrated and upset as I looked back at my work. It just seemed so...worthless. I came across work by Matt Eich and Andrew Henderson that I've seen many times before and that didn't help either. A lot of questions started racing through my head like,
"Are we born with some sort of talent?"
"Is this something we can work towards?"
"Why have I not improved far beyond the level I'm at now, having been around photojournalism for nearly 6 years?"
"If I can't photograph something as well as someone else, does that mean I care less about it?"
"Why does everything I do feel like it's only done with 80% of my effort?"
"What the hell can I do about it?"

So on the verge of deleting this blog, I talked to a friend. I've had a lot of these motivational talks. Either I'm listening or I'm giving advice to someone else. I care about being recognized for something I do. I think everyone does. I like that attention and that's where I find motivation to keep pushing myself because I know someone likes what I do.

Heading back to the US in about 2 weeks also got me thinking about my future. I know I start school in the fall and can hopefully finish up in one semester. I'll be shooting Boone Life, a weekly photo column that celebrates the daily life of residents of Boone County. This will be a lot of fun and allow me to focus on more of the topics I feel close to and care about. That being daily life. The underrepresented. But besides that, I don't know what the future will bring.

Upon graduation, I think I'd like to work at a newspaper for a few more years and really see if that's the path I should take. If not, then I want to start a studio/agency and freelance. But that's the problem. Is this all going to be possible? I wish school would have taught about business and life more than how to take a picture. I mean, I've learned it through experience, but some fundamental knowledge about business plans and contracts would have been a huge boost. I am trying to sell a story here in Denmark before I leave, but didn't have any idea how, except that I contacted a photographer at the paper who is going to help me out. So maybe that's the way. Just by trial and error and relying on people in the 24/7 society to respond to emails.

Right now is a confusing time for me and it's probably normal. But I am scared what happens. I just want to be able to continue doing what I love and make some friends along the way. But as the days pass, this seems more and more of another dream than a reality as photographers seem to progress at an incredible rate around me and I keep a monotonous crawl. How many other people feel this same way? Is it common? I guess time will tell.

Oh what a time

With my time in Denmark winding down, today I looked back on all the fun I had and good people I met. Here's a list of a few things I'm going to miss once I return home to Virginia.
1. Bars never closing until 7 AM
2. Roommate riding into my room naked on my skateboard before leaving for work at 7 AM
3. Pool parties with boxes of red wine
4. Swedish girls
5. Danish girls
6. Norwegian girls
7. Not paying for the public transportation and only getting caught once
8. The camera shop that charges $60 to develop 1 roll of Tri-X black and white in negative form.
9. Being slapped by a bouncer at a club after standing up for a friend who took his picture
10. 2 hours of darkness in the summer
11. Friends
12. Shawarmas and Kebabs for only 25 Kroner (about $4.50)