12.1.2015 – My Daughter’s Senior Pictures

I’ve been MIA from this page for a while, I realize. However, I’m going to start posting more here. I figure what better place to start than with some milestone photos! I can’t believe my daughter is in her senior year of high-school already! Where has the time gone??? She’s grown into an amazing young woman and I couldn’t be more proud of what she has done and I know she is going to do incredible things in her life! So, here are the photos to mark the milestone!

06.19.2012 – June Horse Shows

Over the past couple of weekends, our daughter has started her season of horse riding shows. This year it’s a little different since we have our own new little pony Spirit! Taylor’s riding has improved so much since we got him. She’s more confident and determined and it’s already starting to show in her results. Spirit has been a perfect little gentleman for her too! Not much more that we could ask for! Here are some photos from the first couple of shows.

This first set is from the Bloomfield Stables Riding Show:

She had a pretty wicked wipeout just before this one. I wonder how that dirt-sandwich tasted!

This set is from the Mingo Creek Farms Riding Show this past Sunday (Father’s Day):

Super Pony! He really took that jump hard!

She took Champion in her Long-Stirrup division, and an assortment of other ribbons! It was an excellent Father’s Day gift if I do say so myself!

01.22.2012 – Jewish Cemetery: Remembering the Holocaust (a personal photo project)

I wasn’t around in the 1940s to experience the emotions of World War II first hand. In my mind, it seems to be one of the darkest eras in human history. I have no way of knowing what it was truly like, except in the reports and stories that survive from the people who lived it themselves.

Near my home is the Beth Abraham Cemetery. It’s in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. When I first started my photographic journey several years ago, I wandered this cemetery because I was in a fairly dark place in my own mind. For whatever reason, I was able to find peace in this place. A sense of perspective if you will. However, at that time, I didn’t really think beyond my own self-misery and really get a sense of the statement that a place like this makes: the stories, miseries, and tragedies that are held within the memories of the families connected to these people. Since then, I’ve gained some much needed perspective, and yesterday decided to re-visit this place. I wanted to capture some images that would convey a bit of the mood of the place, and the thing that’s most striking to me about it: the way that the markers just seem to be almost piled on top of each other. The cemetery is incredibly crowded. Which in and of itself, seems to be a metaphor for the way that the Jews were rounded up during the war.

As far as the technicals go for the photos themselves, I used my Nikon d300 and most of these I used my lensbaby 2.0. A couple of the photos, I used my 10.5 mm fisheye lens. In the post processing, I’ve been working for a long time trying to refine my skills at creating images that give a feel of the era (I still have a long way to go on this: one day I will probably just break down and buy a 1940s era film camera).