It's going to be a really big shew...

It's been a month of Big Giant Scary Endeavors. Kind of like The Lone Ranger, but hopefully without as many plot holes. The biggest BGSE is the photo show. Or, as it's been clamoring in my head for the past month, "THE OMIGOD HOLY CRAP PHOTO SHOW!!"

If you've swung by my Facebook page, you know that I'm putting on a photo exhibit for the month of September at the San Antonio Public Library's Central Branch.

It initially was going to be in August, which induced a minor amount of freaking out when I looked at the calendar and saw it was already June. Then, it was pushed back to September (pause freaking out)...so it could be part of Fotoseptiembre.(freaking out recommences with extra sauce.)

Fotoseptiembre is an international photography festival held annually in San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country. (The international part is from exhibitions in Switzerland, Thailand and India, among other places.) So, kind of a big deal in the South Texas photography world.

My exhibit (titled "Point the Compass") is the library's entry into the contest. Add to that several other firsts - my first gallery show, my first opening reception, a few other odds and ends - and it's been a little crazy round these parts.

However, thanks to the awesome photo trip earlier this year with Ian Whitehead, (which I still haven't fully detailed here yet, but will), I'm really looking forward to this. I've got my files off to the printer, and things are *knock wood* coming together nicely.

There isn't much better than making your pro debut

Sometimes freelance assignments are a drag. People are bored, they don’t want to talk, you’re being a pain in their backside…it happens.

Sometimes, however, they are gold. This was one of those golden times.

In March, I was contacted by Beckett Sports Card Monthly and asked if I could follow the winner of the Topps Make Your Pro Debut contest around, documenting his day in words and pictures. (The resulting story ran in the July, 2013 issue of Beckett Sports Card Monthly.) An early shorter piece is here.

The winner’s prize was a day with the Corpus Christi Hooks – signing a contract, getting a uniform, working out with the team, and meeting team owner Nolan Ryan. I couldn’t say yes fast enough – I love baseball, and this sounded like a great assignment.

I met Tim, his son Peyton, and his wife Dani around 11 in the morning, and followed them through a tour of the park. Their enthusiasm was contagious, and the grin on his and his son’s face when he saw his jersey with his name on it was priceless.

After Tim got into his uniform, he started throwing with the team. This is when this assignment started really getting fun – I was asked by a Topps representative to photograph Tim for his baseball card.

Not a promotional gift thing – a real baseball card. The 2013 Topps Pro Debut Set will feature a card of Tim and Peyton with my photo.

Head. Explodes.

After Peyton threw out the first pitch and presented the lineup card, he and Tim stayed in the dugout for the first three innings. Then, they moved up to sit in the owner’s box with Nolan Ryan.

The Nolan Ryan. The same guy my father and I had talked about for years – he was Dad’s favorite baseball player, and he always wanted a copy of Ryan’s rookie card (which he finally broke down and bought when I was in my late teens).

Now here I was in a room with the legend, listening to him tell stories about his favorite parks (Kansas City, Anaheim) and his least favorite (Cleveland, Candlestick), the hitters he liked to face (big power hitters like Reggie Jackson and Jim Rice) and least liked (slap hitters such as Tony Gwynn).

Head. Explodes. Again.

After Ryan left, Tim and Peyton headed back to the dugout, where they stayed for all of a 19-inning marathon. I had to head back home – I had to work at the day job early in the morning – but I left with a full notebook, a full memory card, and a smile on my face.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Photo Contest Finalist!

 

Wow.

It has been a madhouse of a month, in just about the best way possible. I’ve got tons of photo-related stuff that I’m going to be blogging about in the next few weeks, but I wanted to get this one out there.

I’ve been shooting steadily for the last several years, but before I bought my first digital camera, my shooting was very sporadic. Once I got a tool that could handle shooting a lot without spending thousands on developing film, I started shooting a lot more.

The next question was – what do I want to shoot? With a full-time job, it can be hard to find time and willing subjects. Setting up a formal shoot can be exhausting.

A couple of  week after getting my new camera, I took it with me on a hike in the Hill Country State Natural Area. Monarch butterflies were migrating through the area, and I started shooting. Not fussing over shutter speeds, white balance or apertures – just shooting.

Many could have benefited from some technical know-how, but I also got this photo, which is still one of my personal favorites.

After posting them on Flickr, I shyly showed a few to some of my coworkers. Their kind words helped me get out and shoot again.

So – fast-forward a few years, and a lot of experimenting and shooting in the Texas state parks, and I’ve gotten a little better and a lot more experienced.

There’s still a long way to go, but I was confident enough that when the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asked for entries for a 2013 photo contest, I didn’t hesitate to submit a few.

Last week, I found out that the top image of the two bison – shot at San Angelo State Park - was selected as one of 20 finalists out of more than 1,650 entries.

You can get up close and personal with the bison in San Angelo - they'll come up to a thin wire fence (under the watchful guide of a park ranger) and you can get close looks at them. Highly recommend it if you are interested in wildlife photos.

I’m thrilled by this honor, especially after seeing the other images in the competition. I can’t wait to enter again next year!

Taking Steps

It’s official: Josh Trudell Imagery, LLC. Forming a corporation is one of those things that felt as if it was absolutely enormous and a huge commitment and OMIGODHOLYCRAPSCAAAAAARRRRRYYYYY – then I went through the filing and found it was about a 20-minute online process. I got the confirmation e-mail a couple of days later.

Not such a big deal.

But, for someone who has worked for the man his entire life, it is a big deal, or at least it feels like one.

It feels like I have something of my own – something to protect and work for - and that’s a good feeling.

I’m admittedly only dipping my toe in, compared to some – I’m not opening an office or buying lots of new equipment (at least, not yet). The work process is still ongoing – freelance travel and outdoors stories, photography, graphic design.

So far, this year has been a lot about formalizing ideas I’ve had in my head – forming the business and meeting with an accountant (another first). I’m hoping the rest of the year will have creative inspiration built on this foundation.

In other news:

- I’m happy Argo won Best Picture at the Oscars. I know, even at his lowest point Ben Affleck was getting paid $20 million a picture to make Bounce and Gigli, but the blowtorching he took for his personal life was ridiculous.

He earned his way back to the top of the Hollywood heap with hard work and smart decisions – I respect that.

- Red Sox 2013  -Cautiously optimistic they aren’t as bad as last year. Reserving further judgment.

- Counting down to a big photography trip in early May to the canyons of Arizona – that’s been a dream of mine for a long time. I can’t wait.

- I turned 39 this year. It seems as if that should be important,  but it doesn’t feel like it yet.

My Favorites from 2012

Choosing your favorite pictures is like choosing which Avenger you'd rather be. One or two get to be in the movies - the rest are stuck with sly nods in the TV shows and maybe a cameo in Iron Man #1 in Marvel Now.

Without further ado - some of my favorite pictures from 2012.

Rebooted, and it feels so good...

Already? Yes, already.

I built this site in the spring of 2012. Here in December (actually, it launched in November, but tempus, it fugits), I’ve rebuilt it.

Why, you might ask? (God knows I was asking at some points.)

Because I fell prey to some designer-hubris – I’ve got a million ideas and I want to implement them all, without stopping (or at least slowing) to figure out what worked and what was too much. Who has two thumbs and needs a good editor? This guy.

So, after the glow of creation wore off (it’s kind of a gamma-ray green that often results in HULK SMASH), I was able to see it for what it was – a somewhat disjointed mishmash. Some things worked, and some things didn’t – at least in their context.

Between life and, y’know, life – it took me some time to get back to it. But that also gave me time to figure out what I really wanted it to be able to do:

Show my photos, sell my photos, blog, and show graphic design work and published written pieces.

After some research, I went with a Photocrati Wordpress theme. I learned HTML and CSS for the first site, but if I’m going to be able to spend more time updating, I need to spend less time coding.

I had been working with SmugMug to sell prints. Nice people, but it’s not the easiest site to use in the world. I consider myself pretty tech-savvy – I swim in the Adobe Creative Suite all day long – but getting what I wanted done without hiring someone was not easy. Frustration led to wanting to spend less time on it. Counterproductive, to say the least.

I stripped off a lot of the geegaws and widgets - yes, the photo rollover trick is fun, but I don't need it on EVERYTHING - and got back to basics. Words. Photos. Speak for themselves.

Now it’s very much plug and play, which is great. It's easier to shop, it's easier to use and it's easier to add to. I’ve got a local lab lined up to make prints, and I’m off and running again.

Buckle up, buttercup.

Energy and apathy

Massive celebrations! I've got my first photo show!

How, you ask? (Humor me and ask, would you?)

One of the local libraries has a summer reading program centered on London (the hook is London is hosting the Summer Olympics this year). The Amazing Superwife happens to work at this library, and knew I had a collection of London photos from our trip there a couple of years ago.

(Yes, that's inside information. No, I'm not ashamed.)

I called my show "Toasting London" and put it up last weekend at the Brook Hollow Public Library here in San Antonio. It's a fairly small show - 17 pieces, in total - but it ended up fitting the space well. I did a lot of re-correction and re-cropping of images, and found some new shots in there that I hadn't seen before, which was very rewarding.

How did I celebrate this milestone? (If I was some corporate cliche machine, I'd roll out some nonsense about millstones becoming milestones with enough effort. But I'm not, so nyeah.)

Massive brain-suck! I spent the rest of the weekend playing Skyrim.

Aside from a carnitas burrito from Los Robertos, my celebration was getting sucked into Skyrim. It was an inexpensive celebration, but perhaps lacking in the celebrate. But there was a reason for that.

Sidebar: Skyrim is a prime example of why I rent games before buying.

If it sucks, I can take it back with minimal loss. If it's so damn addicting I can barely leave the couch, I can take it back and remove the temptation from the house. (But it might have snuck onto my Amazon wish list.)

But what this was, really, was recharging and dealing with the post-project hangover. I find that after a big project is completed, I don't want to do anything for at least a couple of days. With several projects winding up at once - stories I've been working on, photo shoots, this photo show - unplugging from work and plugging into something else - was necessary.

So, the celebration continues unabated (the photo show hangs through the end of the summer) and I'm feeling better for having zoned out for a bit.

Movies update: Prometheus was the best thing I've seen this summer since Avengers. All kinds of creepy alien goodness. Men in Black III was agreeable, but didn't really make an impression. Snow White and the Huntsman was decidedly average, on an extreme curve - the visuals were great, but Kristen Stewart was not.

Work update: I've had a new story published by the San Antonio Express-News about our time in Ogunquit after my sister's wedding. There are several other projects on the burner, too.

What, you ask? All in good time...all in good time. As long as I can stay out of Skyrim.

Marketing, blech

I recently had one of our cars cough and stutter its way to the great auction yard in the sky.

That is never a fun experience, and it was even less so this time because it meant I had to go to one of my least favorite places – a car dealership. (Completely a First World problem, by the way.)

I’ve met a few car salesmen, and the best ones for me are always the low-key ones. I have a great distaste for the high-pressure sales pitch – it brings out the country boy contrarian in me that doesn’t like being told what to do by some smooth talker one bit.

As a freelance photographer/writer/designer trying to build my own business, I have to occasionally try to convince a potential client that I’m the right man for the job.

The irony does not go unnoticed here.

So I’ve been looking for some ways to market myself without being obnoxious. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. The Multimedia Empire: It is under construction and getting closer every day to being unveiled, so that’s a start in the right direction. I built two new pages this weekend and I’m learning more (thanks to the good folks at Northwest Vista College's digital media program).
2. Using the Web: The latest craze online seems to be Pinterest, which has some good potential for photographers, according to this article. Once the photo portion of the Empire (on a bad day, I call it the Death Star) is up and running, I’ll be on there.
3. Being proactive: Friday night, neither the Amazing Superwife nor I could face the kitchen, so I went for pizza. Looking at the website of the local pizza place – well, let’s just say I’m glad their pepperoni is much better than their web design. So I’m considering building a prototype site and see if they are interested in it. It may be shot down, but as a fledgling web designer, it would at the very least be good practice. And if I can leave a few business cards there and they speak well of me, so much the better.
4. Keep a good reputation: The jobs I’ve gotten to date, both full-time and freelance, have been because of a good reputation and a good work ethic. Word gets around, sometimes faster than you think.

What do you do to market yourself? And do you find you feel like you need a shower afterward?