Back in Business!

Caleb & I doing the shake face at Becker's amazing Vegas party. He had a Foto Cabina booth at the party for a 2nd straight year (the creation of Dane Sanders). Its an all digital booth equipped with a screen that informs the subject that their photo is about to be taken. I'm normally not a fan of digital photobooths but this is really well done.

I plan on doing a total Vegas recap later this week. Sorry to any of you who tried to come to the site yesterday and it was down. Our hosting company was having issues but they seem to have been resolved.

Cheers!

Bj

Cypress Albums

I was honored to work at the Cypress booth all day. Cypress is the company that does all of our albums, and they are truly remarkable. I believe in their products so much. They continually make us look so good. Check out their work at www.cypressalbums.com

We leave tomorrow; we are so worn out!

Cheers.

Bj

Me Ra Koh!

Me Ra Koh is a world renown wedding shooter. I was so inspired by how much she focuses on systems that allow her to spend more time with those she loves most, her family. I will share more later about all that she is doing plus I may review her DVDs for photographers.
Check out her work at merakohblog.com

More to come.

We are here in Vegas!

We just arrived last night and this is the view out of our room at the
Bellagio.
I am posting for the first time ever from my iPhone because there is no Internet in this cursed city of sin. The shot above was with my iPhone as well and may be my best option for quick posts while here.
Quick recap on last night:
- ate dinner with a bunch of cool new photographers I have never met including a guy named Mike Larson. Brian Greenberg of Richard Photo Lab treated the A Bryan Photo crew! Greatest lab ever!
- we all played poker but didn't win. Josh was 1 away from being at the final table. He made a run on a guy and lost. Oh well. At least we got to meet some cool people.
- left the poker tourney and grabbed a cab for In & Out Burger. Oh how I've missed thee!

More to come. Stay tuned.

WPPI!

I am so excited to be going to Vegas again this year for another WPPI. We will be arriving on Sunday and leaving Thursday. My favorite thing about being there is the opportunity to meet more photographers in the industry. Over 10,000 photographers are there and its a great chance to hear how others are successful and to make new friends. Last year the most notable relationships that were sparked were with photographers Jose Villa and Yvette Roman & with vendors Cypress Albums and Richard Photo Lab. Jose and Yvette were such a shot in the arm for me, assuring me that I wasn't crazy for still shooting film and so encouraging about the work I was doing. In Cypress and Richard I gained two of the most trusted and honest vendors I have ever worked with. It feels good to have other companies care about our work almost more than we do.
I'm honored that both Cypress and Richard have ask me to speak at their booth this year. If you are going to WPPI and you need convincing of who is the greatest album company on the planet and who is the most impeccable lab around please come chat with me:

Cypress- I will be at their booth most of day Wednesday answering questions about their products .
Richard Photo Lab- I will be at their booth for a couple hours after 4 on Monday. If you are potentially going to start shooting film or if you are need encouragement to keep shooting it, PLEASE come chat with me.

Also, I will be playing in a photographer's poker tournament on Sunday night at Caesar's Palace at 9:30. Even if you are like me and you suck at poker, please come and play because its going to be a great time to meet other photographers and potentially make some good cash. Its an $80 buy in and Josh, Jeremiah, Caleb and I will all be playing (I promise you aren't as bad as Caleb, so please come and play).
Leave me a comment on this blog if you want to play and I will get you in.

Can't wait to meet more amazing people this year!

Beall + Thomas Photography

Caleb and I went to East Tennessee yesterday for a meeting at Blackberry Farms, where Caleb is shooting Caitlin and Jordan's wedding in May. While there we met up with Heather Anne Thomas (of Beall + Thomas Photography) and her husband Dan. We had a great chat over thai food and they were even gracious enough to flip the bill!
If you happen to be in Maryville, TN you have to look Heather Anne up and check out her amazing work/studio loft.
It was so great meeting you two and I hope we get to hang out again soon!

Angela Karen

Angela Karen is a Birmingham photographer who has been involved in the Heart Gallery for a couple years and was just on the news for all her great work for them.

Check it out!

Happy Monday (Feb 18)

Mood: Light Hearted, Weird
Location: Urban Standard
Music: Dylan (Blonde on Blonde)

Happy Monday!
Either you are stuck at the office, or you are at home enjoying the benefits of an organization that actually acknowledges President's Day as an actual holiday.

I had a great weekend that included two engagement shoots, Rachel & Keith and Grady & Claire. Both couples were such a blast to work with. The interesting thing is that I am not shooting either of their weddings! Caleb is shooting Grady & Claire's through A Bryan Photo but I just wish I could be part of both of them. I will have some great film shots to post of both sessions in a few weeks. Thanks to both couples for letting me be part in a small way!

The photo above is one of Jeremiah and I with the famous wedding photographer Becker at WPPI last year. We got to sit down with him over lunch while there and he is uncontrollably kind. He is completely selfless and is constantly helping photographers better themselves at their craft. His mantra is " A rising tide raises all ships" and he truly lives it. He has started a video blog where he has posted a tip for photographers everyday for the last 40 days and will continue to do this up until WPPI. If you are a wedding photographer, its worth your time to check out. Its also available as a podcast which is how I view it ( search for "the [b] school" in iTunes). And if you have a chance to make it to one of his workshops, it would definitely be worth the dough. Becker, you truly inspire! You have helped A Bryan Photo in more ways than you know.

Here are a couple quotes from my current book, The Effective Executive by the late Peter F. Drucker:

"High intelligence is common enough among executives. Imagination is far from rare. The level of knowledge tends to be high. But there seemes to be little correlation between a man's effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination or his knowledge. Brilliant men are often strikingly ineffectual; they fail to realize that the brilliant insight is not by itself achievement."

"[Executives often] rush around in the frenzy and busyness which very brilliant people confuse so often with "creativity", while the [effective executive] puts one foot in front of the other and gets there first, like the tortoise in the old fable."

What to expect this week:
Emily Deloach audio ( I promise!)
Neighborhood kids in the snow
Some more Africa film

Happy Monday!

Bj

Electric Lion

My friend Cary Norton has started a blog called Electric Lion. He started it on January 1st of this year and his plan is to shoot and post an image everyday this year. For anyone who is photographer, you know that this is an amazing challenge. Keep up with is work all year at Electric Lion!

Here are a few of my favorites so far:

The Greatest Photographer You've Never Heard Of

This is Bob Miller. We met a few years ago when he was a freshman at Samford. He approached me about a magazine that he was starting with some friends that focused on extraordinary people and their stories. I thought it was a cool idea, but figured it was a typical pipe dream of an idealic college student that would never truly amount to anything. But Bob doesn't blow smoke. He does what he says he will do. Fast forward two years and Bob has his college mag, Engage, off the ground and people are really enjoying it. He decides that he wants to not only write the stories but shoot them as well. The one problem though is that Bob knows nothing about photography. Instead of taking the typical route of those that wish to learn the trade (buy a digital camera, buy photoshop, and play around with levels until your images look like cartoons) he took a rode less traveled. He took an entire month off and read books. He read about the history, the philosophies, and the legends of the trade. He saturated his mind with images and words of those that have gone before us and paved the way. Then he found some old cameras of his grandfather and started to shoot. Now fast forward one year more to the present day. Bob is a senior at Samford and decided to do a photography independent study during the month of January. His project was to document persecuted Christians in the Sudan. To get to the Sudan though, Bob had to travel by way of Nairobi Kenya, which at the time was experiencing the worst political turmoil the country had seen in years. Instead of avoiding the danger, Bob made a decision that any good photojournalist would make and dove in head first. He chose to put his life on the line in order to tell the story of these oppressed and cheated Kenyan nationals.

Here is what he captured:









His work is both striking and personal. I am completely amazed that he is still in college. I cannot wait to see where God takes him in life. Who knows, he may be the next James Nachtwey.

Bob has put together a pretty amazing website to tell the stories behind the images. Please check it out HERE. I hope you take the time to look at and read the stories.

Also if you like what you see, Bob is offering a chance for people to buy a print in order to fund his trip since it all came out of his pocket. Click HERE to buy a print and support the cause.

If you dig Bob's work, sign up to receive info on his site or just leave him a comment on this post and I will make sure he gets it.

You rock, Bob. Thanks for inspiring us.

Inspirations

One way of staying inspired is through the magazine work of the world's greatest photographers. I study light, color, composite and gesture from images taken by the masters of my craft. This work guides me as I refine my skills and hopefully, continue to improve the way I shoot. Most of my inspiration comes from editorial portraiture. I appreciate photojournalism but I don't attempt to be a photojournalist. I enjoy being involved and engaged with the subject too much to do journalism. I love to talk to, direct and instruct my subjects. To feed my mind and heart, I devour Vanity Fair, GQ, Vogue, Men's Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Town and Country on a monthly basis. I cut out my favorite images and put them in a binder for inspiration. I have several binders. Some binders are devoted to single photographers while others hold images that just challenge and push me to be better. I have gotten behind on filling them up and the magazines have been piling up uncontrollably. I spent today going through them, tearing out tons of amazing work.

A list of my personal favorites that you would find in my binders:

Norman Jean Roy (I'm a bit biased because I actually got to spend a week with him a few years ago and he even let Cary and I watch him photograph Jacinda Barrett for Vanity Fair.)
John Dolan (John has influenced my work more than any other shooter. And he was nice enough to let me hang out with him in NYC a few years back.)
Mario Testino
Peggy Sirota
Irving Penn
Bruce Weber
Terry Richardson (I love the snap shot look he has mastered. I can see Cary's images looking like his in a number of years.)
Rodney Smith
Christa Renee

Who/What inspires you?

Paulina is from Sweden and takes cool pictures.

Paulina and I met at Denis Reggie's Conclave this spring and really hit it off. Her photos have such an amazing vibrance and life. Its no wonder that she is the most sought after wedding shooter in Sweden. I would move to Sweden if I could take pictures like this every weekend:



Paulina wants to shoot an American wedding, so if you are getting married in a unique spot and want a different look and feel to your wedding day, drop her a line!

Here are some shots of us at Denis' house "foofing":



If you are a photographer and you don't know what foofing is, ask Jeremiah or go to Reggie's Conclave. Its well worth the dough.