Thursday, December 3, 2009

A Cold Day In Boulder...

...and in the outdoor media industry.



It was 11 degrees this morning, and the Flatirons were covered in snow and looking good. It my typical sloth like fashion, I gathered some camera gear, then went to Starbucks and sat there for a while sipping on my pumpkin spice latte and warming up, then headed to a spot with a good view to try and take a panoramic of it all. I've heard that other more successful photographers go take the picture first, then go warm up at Starbucks afterwards. I don't really know much about that, but it sounds like it's worth a try since by the time I got to my spot, the mountains were buried in clouds and the light was completely flat. I took the shots anyways. It looked much better about an hour earlier, but this isn't so bad either. I think there's a lesson here. Probably something about drinking your coffee faster.

When I got home, I uploaded the 12 images I took, and stitched them together in Photoshop to make the panorama. While I was at it, I dug through my hard drive to try and find some other images that felt like a cold day, and figured I would make a blog post out of it all. While I was working, I got an email from Genny entitled 'This is the industry in the toilet'. Within the email were two links to Rob Haggart's blog A Photo Editor, and Steve Casimiro's blog The Adventure Life, both talking about how the magazine National Geographic Adventure has officially closed down it's operation today. The economy and the changing media world got the better of this great magazine, and it goes to show that moving forward with the current industry situation, no one is untouchable.

Adventure was a great magazine. I loved reading it, and as an adventure photographer who is getting started, I was really excited with the prospect of working with them in the future. The staff there did a great job, and I've heard nothing but good about them from others I know that have done work with them. It is not only a huge bummer to see more evidence of the troubled state that the outdoor industry and media is in, but it's also a bummer to know I'll never have the pleasure of working with Adventure. I hope to someday cross paths with the NGA staff in whatever the future becomes for them and wish them the best as they move forwards. I also hope that even though the magazine is gone the word 'adventure' will continue to define their lives.



Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Joshua Tree Volume Deuce

















So as promised, here is a second installment of images from my recent trip to J-tree. During the Redefining Balance Retreat, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by lots of talented and beautiful yogis. These are some of my favorite images from the actual retreat. The final installment of images, which will be from the dedicated photoshoot with Team Yogaslackers is being kept in a ziploc bag to stay fresh for the launch of my soon coming new website.