Photography Accessory or Fashion Trend: Sweatbands?!

I need to credit this ideas where it belongs. I was watching my contacts on flickr and saw that Mariano Friginal had an interesting style tip from a recent wedding shoot. He was wearing Sweatbands. You know, the type that tennis and other athletes use. At first, I thought it was for pure style, but a quick Flickrmail revealed the secret.



It turns out that Mariano has a similar problem that I have during shoots. Sweat. I get pretty warm when I'm shooting. I blame it on my brain from overworking… But I'm sure it might have "something" to do with the fact that I'm rather insulated, if you catch my meaning. (Ok, I'm overweight, there… I said it and now I feel better about that.)

So, I just picked up a pair for a shoot tonight. I'll be curious to see how they work. I could have used them for last night's outdoor shoot. It seemed like it was pretty warm while "working."



Aside from the forehead wipe technique, what could be better for wiping that LCD clean for cleaner viewing. I'd probably use a sweatband on the forehead too if I didn’t think I'd look like an 80's comeback.

So, what do you say, Shall we start a trend? Remember to credit Mariano Friginal with starting the trend. (We should open a Wikipedia entry for him and see how much of a cultural trend we can influence.)

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, I know this model (JamieT) looks remarkebly like the Verizon guy. Even more so when it's repeating the line. (haha).




Jamie was great to work with. He was very animated during the shoot and his personality fit perfect for the concepts we worked on. These are just a few samples from the shoot. More to be in my iStockphoto portfolio soon.

Photographer Fired for Altering Colors

I just read in the PDNewswire email from PDN magazine that photographer, Patrick Schneider, was fired for adjusting a photo in the Charlotte Observer. The photo in question was a silhouette of a fireman with a bright orange sky.

I've read a number of stories where photojournalists have done editting in post-production and have changed the subject of an image, but I think the Charlotte Observer may have gone to far on this judgement call. (In my opinion).

I'd like to hear David Hobby's opinion from Strobist.com since he is a photographer with the Baltimore Sun and I'm a stock photographer. So, it's a different market then my images, most likely different rules.

Where does the line get drawn on this?
Can you not use an external flash off the camera because that alters reality of the image by changing the lighting of the scene?! Can you not use a filter that changes the effect of an image? That isn't the way things were at that actual moment.

To be fair, this isn't Patrick's first offense. It seems that the Charlotte Observer did suspend the photographer for this in the past, but I think that boosting colors to make them match the feeling of the time of exposure is not basis for dismisal.

What do you think on this one? Am I out of line on this?

Additional Reading on the topic:
Zone Zero | PDN |

New Favorite Image - Extreme Dieting!

License this image at istockphoto.com

I've been playing with this idea in my moleskin for a while now. I love the concept of it and it's one that hits home these days it seems. I have a lot of work to produce in my moleskin that I feel like I need a week off work to just go through all the ideas.

I have a couple shoots setup for the coming weeks and I look forward to sharing those with all of you as well.

Old Hobbies Die Hard

I spent the majority of my life on two wheels. I started out on bicycles and then began riding motorcycles at a young age. Shortly there after, I got into flat track racing. I did that for a number of years and even made it to the expert pro level. Although I was never a major threat, I enjoyed my years racing and have applied a lot of those skills to life in general.



After I stopped racing, I rode for a number of years before giving it up completely and became obsessed with bicycling (still, two wheels though.) Like the old adage, what's old is new again, I'm riding again.

Where did the renewed interest come from? Hard to say, possibly many things. Fuel prices are one and the economical advantages of a motorcycle. The show American Choppers is probably another. Probably most recently was on my trip to Photoshop World Miami. I met Lesa King-Snider from the GraphicReporter.com. She and her husband had just gotten into motorcycling and have a podcast called Your Bike Life. I recounted to her my many stories of riding and racing and I'm sure I bored her ear off. All these things probably piled up on one another and I thought... "I'd like to get a bike again."



Father's Day, I struggled for a gift for my Dad. I decided last minute that we should just get up bright and early (a hardship for me) and go for a nice long ride and we'd stop somewhere and buy him breakfast. It doesn't seem like much, but he later told me it was probably the nicest Father's Day gift he had ever gotten (or at least meant the most to him in recent memory.) Afterward, he decided that I needed a bike and found a vintage Honda Gold Wing on eBay and picked it up for me. I've been doing much more riding now. We even did a trip to Ohio to watch a Flat Track Race. It was overall 1200 miles and half of it was in the rain. Some of that was VERY heavy rain.



It's kind of funny, in the last 3 weeks I've probably ridden 4 different motorcycles; Gold Wings, new and old, Honda VTX 1800 and Harley Davidson Dyna Low-Rider. I find I really like the cruiser style these days. Probably goes back to American Chopper. But I'm not the "speed quest" king that I was when I was younger. I'm more about style and function now. What really shocked me was the Harley... I'd long since put down Harleys saying they were based on old technology. While that may be somewhat true. The attention to detail is very nice. I even liked the ride, power and feel of the bike, but after the first corner and dragging the pipes, I realized this was not a bike for me (besides, I would never be able to submit a photo to istock with that bike in a picture.)

So, for now, I'll be racking up the miles on the new Vintage Gold Wing. Taking it on shoots. Putting it in photoshoots. And getting back to old habits.