Guest Photographer
at SAMC

The McKesson company is a vendor for a wide array of hospital supplies, ranging from wheelchairs to software solutions and beyond. In fact, they're the single largest health care corporation in the world. Because of SAMC's positive working relationship with them, McKesson had asked if they could feature our hospital, doctors and staff in a national ad campaign. Most of you will never see these ads because they'll appear in radiology trade publications but it's certainly a good thing for the Medical Center to be featured prominently in this campaign. McKesson is a major player in the health care industry, in fact they're a Fortune 18 company and their reach spreads far and wide.


The McKesson team included four people...two representatives from the marketing group (Laurie and Judy), a commercial photographer named Daemon Baizan and his assistant Kip. It's nice for me to have guest photographers come into the house periodically because it exposes me to a different, fresh approach to photography. Daemon has a great eye and LOADS of creativity. For example, he rigged up his studio flash unit to a wheelchair (powered by a battery pack) and had Kip pull him along in the wheelchair as SAMC Emergency Department medical director Dr. James C. Jones walked purposefully down the hallway. Daemon got some great images using this setup.


It was also interesting to see how Daemon approached lighting. I won't bore you with all the details other than to say he used some techniques that I'll try to incorporate into my arsenal from now on. Rest assured, he has LOTS of arrows in his quiver and he's an excellent professional photographer.

Coach Bobby Pierce

(No relation)

My job as media relations coordinator at SAMC led to a busy, but fun day on Tuesday, July 29. Each year in late August, the hospital sponsors a Community Health Fair for Men, providing free health screenings for local men. The screenings include PSA screenings for prostate cancer, cholesterol and thyroid, glucose, and blood pressure screening. Height/Weight/Body Fat analysis is also available, as is stroke assessment and vision testing, all free of charge. For more information, go here.

Each year a local celebrity serves as spokesman for the Community Health Fair for Men and this year's spokesman is Bobby Pierce, head baseball coach at Troy University. Coach Pierce is a native of Marianna, Florida and is probably one of the top rising stars in NCAA baseball coaching ranks. In 19 years of coaching, he's never had a losing season and his teams have won championships at almost every stop.

For the health fair, SAMC does a local media tour and news conference with the spokesman every year and Tuesday was the day for that. First we took Coach Pierce to WTVY-TV's studios to tape a couple of segments with local broadcasting icon Ann Varnum. After that, we went back to the hospital for the news conference at 10 a.m. Then it was off to WDHN-TV's studios for a 30-minute live interview on Charlie Platt's Tri-States Today program. Charlie interviewed Pierce, Dr. Robert Schuyler (a urologist with Urological Associates of Dothan) and myself about prostate cancer, men's health in general, and details about the Community Health Fair for Men.
After lunch, we had one other taping, back at WTVY's studios, with news anchor Reginald Jones. Reginald has a 30-minute public affairs show called "Weekend Edition." This taping included Coach Pierce and SAMC director of Community Relations Mark Stewart. When the "Weekend Edition" taping was over, I had to hurry back to the Medical Center to meet a group of people from McKesson who would spend the next day interviewing and photographing some of the hospital's doctors and staff for an ad campaign for their company.

KILLER VIDEO!

Wes and Susan Morgan of M3 Productions, Dothan's ONLY true high-def video production company, call me occasionally to help out with their work. I first met Wes and Susan when they moved to Dothan in 1988 to work with First Choice Video Productions and Cable Advertising. Wes took me under his wing at that time and helped me to learn the basics of "real" videography and television production. I'll never forget that and to this day I appreciate him taking the time to show me the ropes. My career since then has largely been based on the principles I learned under him. I consider Wes and Susan dear friends and they absolutely have THE BEST video production company in the area. By a long shot.

Wes and Susan had been working on a video project for local clothing manufacturer Southeastern Performance Apparel and asked me to work as Director of Photography for a photo shoot they had booked with the company. My job for the day was to help get the set and lighting in place and to get the models posed while Susan actually made the photos. (SUSAN!!! Sorry for showing your backside, but I wanted to include this photo of you in action!)


We had five models--Nikki, Natasha, Rachel, Raven and Kelli--who would demonstrate eight different bridesmaid's dresses from Southeastern Apparel. Our job was to photograph the group, wearing the dresses so that brides could get a good idea of how the dresses would look on several girls together.


We had a great day of photography, the models seemed to enjoy the work (they even sang and danced for us!) and the folks from Southeastern Apparel were very pleased with the on-camera previews that Susan showed them throughout the session.


Susan also showed the models a few of the shots so they could see how good they looked on camera.

SAMC Annual Report

We're working on the finishing touches for Southeast Alabama Medical Center's 2007 Annual Report. Most of you know that I work at SAMC during the day and that Morning Light Photography is a side business for me. At the Medical Center, I serve primarily as media relations coordinator (dealing with the news media on a daily basis) and I'm also the hospital's photographer. Life at work stays pretty interesting for me to say the least!

The concept for this year's annual report is different from past years and though I don't want to give that secret away, I will say that I have had the chance to try some unique things in the way of photographic style. We're using a more gritty, action-oriented approach to the photography and it's been lots of fun. My assignment for the day included a photo of SAMC Foundation executive director Valerie Barnes. Here she is, leading a group of local businesspeople on a tour of the hospital.


I also went to the hospital's basement to photograph some of the "unseen" aspects of SAMC. I met up with some of the guys from Plant Services who keep the building running in tiptop condition and made several images of them at work. I think this one is my favorite of the group.


After I left Plant Services, I walked around the corner to the laundry. You wouldn't believe the amount of laundry that gets washed, dried, pressed and folded every day at SAMC. It's mind boggling to see it in action. As usual, I made lots of images in the laundry and this is my favorite. However, I'll be surprised if it shows up in the annual report because there's another photo that will probably "fit" the theme of the report a little better.

A Printing Press

and a Pink Room

Tuesday, July 22 meant another afternoon of photos for Wiregrass Christian Family magazine. I met Katy from WCF at Hardwick & Sons Printing for a profile photo of owner Jack Hardwick (Do YOU know Jack?) and also a photo of Jack with his talented staff.


I climbed a ladder to get a group photo of Jack and his staff around one of their printing presses and guess what...it's EXTREMELY hot near the ceiling of their press room. I know this because I spent lots of time with my head about six inches below that ceiling.


And while I'm talking about Hardwick & Sons Printing, let me recommend them to you if you're ever in need of having anything printed. They do top notch work. In fact, they do the printing for Wiregrass Christian Family magazine, among other things.

From Hardwick & Sons, we went to the home of Yolanda and daughter Mabry (who has the pinkest room I've ever seen). They had collaborated to create a unique bulletin board for Mabry's room and you guessed it, my job was to get some nice photos of the board for the magazine. Again, I don't want to spoil the story for the magazine but I will share a photo of the two of them.

Wiregrass Christian Family,

K-LIFE and Other Stuff

On Monday afternoon, July 21, I had an assignment for Wiregrass Christian Family Magazine. Hi Katy and Laurel! You're getting blogged!

The assignment was multifold but we would do all of the photos at Katie's (the editor of Wiregrass Christian Family magazine) house, where they were having a HUGE gathering of teenagers from the Dothan area, called K-LIFE. For more on K-LIFE hit the link. It's a dynamic gathering for youth, geared toward developing the spiritual side of their lives. I would highly recommend it for any teenager that's interested.

Before we started with the K-LIFE photos, I had a couple other photo tasks to complete for the magazine. First, I met Andie and her two oldest boys Luke and Benjamin. They would be looking at an ABC Creative Memories album that their grandmother, Pat Wood made for them. The album uses different pictures and stickers to correspond with each letter of the alphabet. They use these pictures and stickers to learn the alphabet and by extension, how to read. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Next, I met Connor, a college aged guy. He would be our model for a photo that Katie needed--he would be opening a care package from home, as if he were off in college land somewhere. I remember when I was in college, it was always a blessing to get stuff from home, especially food and money!

After Connor and I finished, another model named Jane was waiting for me to get some shots of her cool boots for an ad for Eagle Eye Outfitters. If you like outdoorsy clothing and accessories and you haven't been to Eagle Eye, well, all I'm going to say is, you should go there as soon as you finish reading your post. Susan and the staff at Eagle Eye are great, and they have tons of great stuff in there. Plus, their warehouse on Brannon Stand Road across from Mt. Gilead Baptist Church is open on Saturdays.
Back to Jane......Let me just say that Jane was a natural. I gave her hardly any instructions on what to do and we got some GREAT shots. Stephen joined a few minutes later to model some sandals, so we photographed Jane and Stephen together, and then took a few images of Stephen (or Stephen's feet) by themselves.



When that was done, it was time for K-LIFE. This is just unbelievable. Katy and her husband David open their house, their lake, their jet skis, their horses, their trampoline and their kitchen (among other thing), to dozens of youth every Monday night during the summer. I won't add much about K-LIFE (no spoilers here again) other than to say I wish something like this was around when I was in high school.

Walt and Dixie

and
Trey and Tonya

I think Walt and Dixie just became the family that traveled farthest to have me make their portraits. Of course, they didn't travel all this way JUST to have me create their family heirloom but still, they traveled all the way from the middle of Colorado. They were visiting their friends Trey and Tonya, who were spending a week at their family's condo at Pinnacle Port, on the beach near Panama City, FL. My relationship with Trey and his family goes back nearly thirty years, when Trey was around four or five years old and I was a teenager. Wow.

I've done portraits for Trey and Tonya several times over the last few years. In fact, they're one of my most loyal customers and it's always a pleasure to work with them. Their kids, Coleman and Cassidy, have literally grown up in front of my camera. They're lots of fun and SO easy to work with. (Trey and Tonya, you should be proud of those kids. I think they're GREAT!) Trey is one of the funniest guys you'll ever meet, and Tonya is a true sweetheart. They make a good couple.

This was the first time I had met Walt and Dixie. As I mentioned they had come all the way from "the middle of the mountains in Colorado," as Walt so eloquently stated. He told me the name of their hometown and when I looked it up on a map, sure enough, it was in the middle of the mountains in Colorado. Maybe I can get an invite sometime...I love the Rocky Mountains. Walt's wife Dixie is a longtime friend of Tonya. In fact, Dixie used to live in the Dothan area many years ago and that's where they met.

When Tonya told Dixie that I would be coming down to the beach to create some family portraits for them, Dixie wanted to schedule a session for her family too. So, I made it to Pinnacle Port around 6 p.m. and we got straight to work with Walt and Dixie and their three beautiful children. We went up among the sand dunes and sea oats, we moved to the water's edge, we went back to the dunes and then finished up on the wide, flat section of the beach. Walt even pitched in to help by holding my reflector while I was getting some images of the kids. Thanks, Walt! I only wish you could have helped with those irritating sand flies (or whatever they're called)!

We took some cool photos of Walt and Dixie's youngest child, Trent. Trent got a little fussy one time and Walt was gently tossing him into the air and gently catching him and it seemed to do just the trick for Trent because he had the biggest smile on his face. I asked Walt if he thought Trent would like a couple more tosses--I wanted to get some photos that would make it look like Trent was flying high. Check it out!

We also got a few really nice images of Walt and Dixie together. So many times, parents want to get portraits of their kids but they forget to get images of themselves at the different stages in their lives as well. I was glad to get these photographs and hope they'll cherish them as much as the family portraits.

We finished up with Walt and Dixie and it was time to get to work with Trey and Tonya and their kids. Tonya teaches middle school and she knows how to organize things. She had a couple of poses that she especially wanted and we got right to work on that. She had seen an image we created for Trey's stepsister at this same location and was curious about how and where we had done the photograph, so I showed her where it was. Of course, she wanted to use that location too.


After that, went went down to the water's edge for a few more family photos. We finished the session a few minutes after the sun disappeared below the horizon. Just before we stopped for the day (and just before the sun completely set) I grabbed this photo.

One last note about today's session: It was great to have my dad along with me for the session. He found out earlier in the week that I was going to the beach and asked if he could come along. I said, "Sure, it would be great to have you." He bought a Canon EOS 30D last year and wanted to try it out at the beach. So while I was working on the portraits, he was working shots of the sea oats, the clouds and whatever else grabbed his attention. We had lots of good conversation during the drive time to and from the beach and I'm glad we share a common interest in photography.

After finishing the photography session, Tonya suggested that we (Dad & I) try the new Five Guys Burgers, located in a new shopping development nearby. So we headed over toward Five Guys and when we got there, the crowds were unbelieveable. I mean, there were people EVERYWHERE and it was a Thursday night. Since we had an hour and a half of driving ahead of us, we decided to try Five Guys on another, less crowded day. Instead, we stopped at Burger King and hit the road pretty quickly. But I'm really looking forward to checking out that Five Guys Burgers joint, I hear they have some awesome hamburgers.......

Lauren's senior session, part 2

The time came to finish Lauren's Senior Photo Session. Last week, we couldn't do the outdoor part of the session due to inclement weather. So we decided to try again on Friday, meeting at the Dothan Area Botanical Gardens and then proceeding to Landmark Park after that. We got to the Botanical Gardens just when the light was starting to get good and stayed there, fighting the gnats and heat, for about 45 minutes.

When we got to Landmark Park, we had a couple of things in mind. First, we wanted to get some nice compositions of her against the wall of the red schoolhouse. See above for that.

Next, we went inside the old church to get a few windowlight photographs. We shot some traditional stuff and then I got the idea for the image below. It looked good in color, but I thought this one just begged for a black and white treatment.

I'm really proud of both of the portraits posted on this entry. We had all of the elements to create some spectacular images: great light, a great location and most important of all, a GREAT subject. Way to go, Lauren, you look FANTASTIC! It was both an honor and a lot of fun to do your senior portraits this year. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Lauren's Senior Session, part 1

Well, we kicked off what will be a VERY limited high school senior portrait season with the lovely Lauren. (REMINDER: if you're thinking about having us do your senior portraits, call NOW to set up a time. We don't have many sessions available and once they're gone, they're gone.) Our original plans were to have an indoor/outdoor session on a Friday afternoon but alas, the weather didn't allow us to even attempt the outdoor part of the session. It was raining HARD and there was lots of lightning in the area.


I think Lauren and her mom were a little curious as to how I would accomplish the feat of creating studio portraits inside their home and they were very interested in watching as I set my equipment up. We moved a table and a foot stool and before long, a real live photography studio occupied their living room. It included a backdrop, four studio lights and a couple of props. Lauren also had a bunch of stuff that she wanted to include in some of the photos and we made good use of those items too.

After we got the session started it became readily apparent to me that this would be a very good experience for both Lauren and myself. We had lots of fun, joked around and generally had a great time. Every few minutes we'd stop and I'd show the tiny previews on the back of my digital camera to Lauren and her mom, Cherisa. I was really happy with the images we were making and each time I showed them something new, they seemed to be more and more excited. That's a good thing. The preview book for Lauren's session is going to be incredible.


After we finished up with the indoor photos, we decided to finish the outdoor part of the session a week later at the Dothan Area Botanical Gardens and Landmark Park. I'll have a few photos from that session in "Lauren's Senior Session, part 2."

Meredith and Mitchell

I've known these kids' mom (Deanna) since, well, forever. We grew up in the same church and it's hard to remember a time when I didn't know Deanna and her family. I must say I was really happy when she called and wanted me to do a portrait session with her two children. I remember when they were born. Life goes by quickly, indeed.

We met at Maria's Vineyard, one of my favorite places for location portraiture and got to work straightaway. The weather was beautiful, though hot and we worked our photo opportunities in the times between the bright sunlight and puffy clouds.

We also took advantage of some sweet light on the back patio and underneath the arbor. It didn't hurt that Meredith and Mitchell were so cooperative and photogenic!

Drew and Gavin at Maria's Vineyard

We met Mike and Sarah a couple of years ago when Mike was working for a local paving company. My wife Carmen met Sarah and her kids during story hour at the library. We hadn't known them for more than about six months when Mike accepted a job with his old company back in Bowling Green, KY.

We photographed their kids, Drew and Gavin, just before they moved to Bowling Green in July of 2007. Carmen and Sarah had hit it off very well and were already fast friends themselves so they've kept in touch during the past year. Because of that, when Sarah came back to the area to visit her mother (who lives in Bainbridge, GA), she wanted to carve out some time for us to have another portrait session with Drew and Gavin.

I'll have to say that it makes you feel good as a photographer when someone who lives hundreds of miles away wants you to be their photographer. Sarah brought the boys WAY out of their way for me to photograph them at Maria's Vineyard, one of our favorite places to have outdoor portrait sessions.

Of course, my two kids were more than excited to see their old friends and we even grabbed a couple of images of all four together. It was a good day. Hot, but good, and I'm so glad the kids had some time to renew their friendships.



And did I mention, Sarah is expecting twin girls? They'll be here in November, I think. Congratulations, Mike and Sarah!

Jeremy's First Portrait Session

Well, it's been a busy month for us. I'm starting here and working mostly forward to bring you a few thoughts and a couple of comments from my recent photo sessions.

In this post, we'll meet my nephew Jeremy. We made these photos when he was around 9 weeks old. We set up the studio in my living room and did the session in about 20 minutes. This profile image is one of my favorites from the session.


To me, he kinda looks like his big brother Justin, especially when he has a certain type of expression on his face.

I've gotten in the habit of photographing a newborn's (or in this case a two month old) face really up close and personal. If they're awake, they usually just lie there and stare at you and occasionally make a silly face or even cry. I like to capture all those expressions because that time of a child's life is so pure and innocent. It's almost like you can tell what the child is thinking. Here's one of those closeups of Jeremy: