I was honored to be asked to participate in the We Are Wisconsin photo project this weekend; please click the link, read about it, and—if you’re so inclined—”like” it and follow the project on Facebook.

It was really great to connect with so many people and hear their stories… there were so many people from such different walks of life, with different reasons for being there. It was tough to winnow this down to just a few shots to post here, but you can see them all on the project page.

We’re less than a week from Fresco Opera Theatre’s latest production, Ding Dong the Diva’s Dead!

I’m also very excited to announce that after Saturday’s performance, you will have the chance to get your picture taken with the Viking Girl and Vampire!  For a free will donation to Fresco Opera Theatre, I will shoot you with these celebrated characters and post the files for you to download and print or e-mail – makes a great Facebook profile picture, too!

So come on down, hear some world-class music in a fun show, and support this great local arts organization!

I admit it, week five and I’m already resorting to a bit of a cheat…

First, it’s really not week five anymore – I missed that.  Second, while I did do a ton of shooting last week, I decided when I started this that I wasn’t going to piggyback on shoots I was doing anyway; P26 shots should be specifically for P26.

Well, since I’m playing catch-up here, I’m bending both rules and posting a new treatment of an old image.

I do a reasonable amount of post-processing, but—other than the obvious exception of all the black and white conversions—I tend to stick to generally representational color: the colors look more or less like they did to the naked eye.

I’ve been branching out and experimenting with different looks lately.  The Fresco Opera promos got a touch of a cross processed look (“cross processing” is when you develop color transparency film in color negative chemicals or vice-versa), and I liked how that turned out.

I’ve been using some of my older shots as color-tweaking fodder.  This one seemed like a natural fit for something fairly extreme.

Yeah, the treatment is a little trite for the subject matter, but I’d never done this before and wondered if I could make it work.  Trite or not, I liked the result, so here it is:

It’s July 1st – half of 2010 is behind us, and half is ahead.

Seems like the perfect time to launch a “Project 26”; I don’t have time to really make an honest go at a Project 365, and I didn’t manage to even get a Project 52 together back in January.  So here at the halfway point, I’m launching a Project 26!  We’ll see how I do…

Back in January, I was thinking I’d call this “POW!” for Portrait Of (the) Week.  I’ll still post quite a few portraits in the P26, but I’ll also be pushing myself out of my comfort zone a bit.

I plan to get back to more natural light shooting, as well as other subject matter than people. I recently had the chance to hang with a large group of photographers and shoot and share our work; it was very exciting for me to see so many different visions, and it inspired me to go back to revisit some of my older subjects as well as to try some new things.

Some will work, some will fall flat; it’ll all be fun (at least for me!).

I’ve also been meaning to make a Facebook page for a long time, and I’ve finally done it.  Come check it out, and if you like it, “Like” it!

Broken Shadows, Chad Eby‘s latest CD is available now from Cellar Live Records.  (see the original post here.)

Check it out, peoples!

Duets, a new CD by Anders Svanoe and Jon Irabagon, has been released.

In addition to photography, I also do graphic design.  And like my photography, I like working with musicians best, so I tend to take on CD artwork jobs.  It was a pleasure to do the artwork for Duets.

For more info on Duets, see Anders’ website: anders.svanoe.com.

Chad Eby teaches jazz at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, but more importantly, he’s a killin’ saxophonist.  He’s got a new CD coming out, so we did a shoot for it.

I’ll make another blog post when the disc actually comes out…

I met Bob Bowers on my first ACT Ride.  He was at every pit stop with a bullhorn, whipping up the crew and other riders to “make some NOISE!” as riders came in and left.  This was the first time I had ever spent four days on a bike, riding 300+ miles to raise funds and awareness for AIDS, and… well, I was draggin some serious butt.  Bob’s enthusiasm totally bouyed me and helped carry me through the ride.

Bob isn’t just inspirational during the four days of the ACT Ride – he does it full time.  He’s an AIDS activist, educator, and long-time survivor.  He’s also a badass pirate.

Check out his sites: onetoughpirate.com and hivictorious.org

I do actually work with non-musicians sometimes (*gasp!*). Those of you that know me personally know that I’ve participated in the Wisconsin ACT Ride the last few years as a rider. I chose not to ride this year in order to not ditch my wife for four days and three nights with a four year old and a newborn. (I love my wife, and would like to stay married to her…)

So this year, I did a portrait project of the participants—riders and crew—instead. I’ll have more on this project later, along with some how-to posts, but for now, here is a small preview:

Who knew keeping a blog up to date would be the easiest thing to let slide?  I’ve got a ton of stuff for you, going all the way back to spring: shots from the Prairie Music Academy Jazz Gala (featuring the Academy Quartet, students, and the Jackie Allen Quartet); shots from the Wisconsin AIDS Ride (ACT6); a how-to on shooting with a portable studio (using the ACT 6 photos—I set up a 9′ roll of white seamless every day on the ride); shots from a portrait session with Hanah Jon Taylor; and some surprises.

I suppose I could bring up the birth of my second daughter this summer to explain why I haven’t updated my blog, and maybe even mention that it was an unplanned home birth—I delivered her in our bathroom—but that’s just a cheap excuse.

Unless you’re willing to accept it…