For what seems to have been a very long time (in actuality, about 2 years), I have felt like I’ve been waiting for my plans to fall into place. And by plans, I mean ideas. And at the end of this last year, 2011, I found myself still waiting.

The whole year, I wanted to press on with my wedding photography business. I wanted to get the ball rolling on building up a video production company with a fellow photographer friend. I wanted to hold teaching classes with other photographers and pick up my camera and start shooting more often.

And for all my wants and attempts at making those things happen, it seemed that some things just wouldn’t move along, or got scratched off completely. And the more I tried to get the ball rolling, the more hills that seemed to raise up in front of me. Which is often the case in life. But who am I to complain, really? It’s all due to, as the hipsters would say, “First world problems.” Anything I could possibly think of to bore someone’s ear off with me trying to explain why I’m not where I want to be in my life would just… well, it would bore the hell out of me too. Sometimes it was me waiting for things to be perfect, sometimes it was friends backing out of the plans, or sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be either way.

I think the biggest thing that prevented me from shooting more photos, taking more video, doing more with my websites or anything related to progress in my passion… was the fact that despite how easy-going and laid-back I am, when it comes to what I love, I tend to turn into quite the OCD anal-retentive freak. I want my work to be awesome. I want it to be undeniably good.

Perhaps because I’m colorblind, maybe I feel I have something to prove. But at the end of the day, there’s not much I can do about being colorblind. What I can do is make something as perfect as I can. And then what? It’ll be out there, it’ll be seen, and I can go off and start working on the next exciting thing.

But I’ve noticed that I tend to get so caught up in worrying if something is perfect, that I end up putting it on hold, for days, weeks, months! I still have wedding photos in my digital library from the beginning of last year that I’ve never posted! The clients have all received them, but I never posted them because, well, what if they weren’t good enough? Then what?

It turns out, I’d probably get a better reaction online in my social networks than what I’ve received so far – which was nothing. I hadn’t posted anything! And like Michael Jordan said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

I have all these images on my computer, and in my many, many external hard drives. And so many have never seen the light of day, either from not being printed or not being posted online. All because I wanted them to be perfect before getting them out there. And as it turns out, so many of them have never been completed.

I used to shoot for the sake of shooting, just to feel the camera in my hands and know that I was saving a moment in time for myself, or for my clients, or for my friends. But for some reason*, I started having doubts about myself.

*And when I say ‘for some reason’, believe me when I say that all photographers go through that period – it’s only natural to be concerned if your best creative work is as good as you think it is, with no clear definition of whether or not it actually is to others until you get confirmation via the smile on peoples’ faces when they see your work.

But with that ‘period of doubt’, on top of taking a hiatus from photography, I feel like I lost sight of that little light at the end of the tunnel – the goal, the dream, whatever ‘it’ is or was. If you jump off that train, can you ever catch up to it? *sigh* I digress… but back to what I was saying, I started having the feeling that so much of my work was ‘in progress’ that I was being drowned by my past…

Either way, I am quite tired of waiting to be ‘caught up’. Perhaps I’ll get to the point of posting this last year’s work on this blog, perhaps not. But I know that this year, I am going to stop investing so much time into being ‘perfect’, and put more into being ‘productive’.

Because, at the end of the day, sometimes done is better than perfect.

Check out Pyrrah And The Stone, performing a cover of PJ Harvey’s “This Is Love”:

They’ve won a music video that will be produced, shot and edited by Hidden Track Films. I look forward to meeting with these two and working up a great concept for one of their original tracks!

As far as runner-up, that honor goes to Myke McAnderson, performing “Russian Roulette” by Rihanna. The runner-up prize is a free photoshoot – which I’m also extremely excited to work on with Myke. I’m already working up concepts for this shoot…

Thank you again to everyone who participated and submitted an entry into the contest! I was stoked to receive your submissions, and I definitely look forward to having another contest in the future.

Fancy People and Friends

The other night, I was itching to go out and snap a few photos, despite the weather being pretty unpredictable here in San Antonio – it was 60 in the morning, 80 in the day, and drizzling at night! Luckily, I still ended up getting to meet with a few awesome people, namely Tim Wylie (bottom right), Banzai Steve (bottom left) and Jennifer Guenther (top right).

I am looking forward to working on another film project in the coming weeks, and Tim is going to be a key player in it. I’m stoked that I got a chance to work with him on something a bit less demanding than what’s in store for us before then, so we could gauge how well we work together. Needless to say, I’m excited for what’s coming down the line!

On a side note, I love creating portraits of people more than any other subject material. I’ve done work with vendors products, where I have shot food, cars, tech products… I’ve even shot events and architecture for real estate. But above all those things, I absolutely prefer taking portraits of people. I love to add my own ‘salt to taste’ on what is already an infinitely interesting subject – another human being.

When someone is willing to step in front of my camera for a few moments, I can feel the moment they go from ‘oh gosh, I’m going to look terrible in this picture’ to the instant they relax and get into it, dropping their guard and become willing to show a bit of what and who they really are.

That is what I love most about creating portraits.

On set of 'The Extraction'

So, what’s the criteria for entering the giveaway?

You have to step outside the box on this one – I want you to create and submit a video of you or your band performing a cover of a song (this can be a video of just you, or the whole band). But more specifically, I want you to put your own twist to it. So feel free to knock out a heavy metal version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or an a capella version of Party Anthem. I don’t care what it is, just make it entertaining and put some effort into it.

Is there a catch? Not really – just that the video and song have to be a new mix – no mixes created before this contest was posted can be submitted. To ensure this, you’ll need to either add the date of creation somewhere into the body of the video (not in the credits) or mention that your cover was created for the Music Video Trade Contest.

Then, post the video to YouTube or on Vimeo and leave a comment with the link to the video on this post. I will be reviewing the videos and posting the winning submission on my blog 4 weeks from today, on December 19th 2011 (It’s a Monday).

Then the real fun will begin (i.e., getting your band’s own music video shot and provided to you free of charge).

So grab a video camera (or webcam or Android/iPhone), get your guitar, keyboard or whatever you make noise with and get to work. Your band and fans are counting on you.

In July, my friend Kimberly Scott had a promo shoot for Matt Adler, for his new album ‘Rearranged‘. Since his album is now out, we can finally post this footage.

I went out and shot some BTS footage for the shoot. Kimberly is an amazing photographer, whether she’s shooting a wedding in a different country, or a local musician downtown. She has an innate ability in which she can figure out how to best pull her subjects out of their shells and put them at ease in front of the camera in order to photograph the more intimate sides of them. (Whereas for my photoshoots, well… I usually just Photoshop smiles onto my subjects.)

As you can tell from some of the photos in the video, her approach has a very good result in capturing beautiful images that really can tell a story with just a single image.

I had a blast hanging out with these two amazing local artists, and can’t wait to hear Matt Adler’s new album. Check it out – Rearranged.

This is a short film I co-produced, co-directed and shot, along with the help of my best friend and fellow photographer, Kimberly Scott, for the 2011 San Antonio 48 Hour Film Project. Take less than 5 minutes out of your day to check it out, and let me know what you think!

Kimberly and myself have been active participants in the photography world for a few years, and we had often discussed pursuing the video medium together to further our creative options and experience.

Together, we created a Production/Direction endeavor by the name of Hidden Track Films, built up a crew, and submitted our team as an entry into the 2011 48 Hour Film Project for San Antonio, Texas.

Here is the actual ‘Casting Call’ video we created and started sharing online to grab the attention of other creatives that might be interested in helping us with the project:

Here is a quick synopsis of what the 48 Hour Film Project is, straight from their site:

“The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours.

On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week.”

For this year’s project, our randomly selected genre and required elements were as follows:

Genre: Sci-Fi
Character: Ross/Rose Gillen
Occupation: Upholster or Furniture Maker
Line of Dialog: “I wouldn’t count on it”
Object: Wrapped Present

We had an amazingly fun, humbling, exciting and tiring weekend over those 48 hours. Once we submitted our film in on time, we were completely relieved we actually pulled it off – but never did we think our film would make it past the first screening to the ‘Best Of’s’ to be shown again the following week. And wouldn’t you know? We ended up taking home a few awards…

WINNER:
Best Film
Audience Choice – Screening Group B
Best Directing
Best Editing
Best Sound Design
Best Costumes 

Winning the ‘Best Film’ award means that our film was voted the Best Film in San Antonio, and is now set to be submitted and shown at Filmapalooza – the finale festival for the 2011 48 Hour Film Project! In Taos, New Mexico, our film will represent San Antonio as it competes against the other 99 ‘Best Of’ films from around the world that were created for the 48 Hour Film Project! Wish us luck!