August Burns Red…
Made photos of August Burns Red, Silverstein, I, The Breather and Texas in July a few weeks back. Fun show, interesting images.
Watching the Lotus Bloom
I’ve been taking the time to check out and shoot as many different types of bands as possible. Trying to stretch from my punk/hardcore/indie roots. If I know I’m going to have a free weekend, I’ll check the list and see who’s coming to town. A few weeks back I saw electronic jam band Lotus was going to be stopping through Denver, after looking at images from their live show I thought it might be fun.
The vibe at the show was weird. I’m not really into jam bands and had a hard time getting comfortable in the room. Far too many people visibly intoxicated and in their own world, obviously seeing and experiencing something that wasn’t there. I felt for the kid in the last two frames, he got into something bad and was having a terrible trip that was getting worse by the moment. That is one of the worst positions to be in especially in such a public place.
Survivor
In the last three weeks I’ve had the opportunity to share some time with several Holocaust survivors here in the Denver Metro Area.
This last week I spent approximately an hour with Eric Cahn, who at the age of 2 1/2 was interned at Camp Gurs in Southwestern France with his family. Two years later he was rescued from Gurs by a French Christian Family and hidden until the end of the war. His parents were taken to Auschwitz, where his mother was murdered. Following the war, Eric was placed in an orphanage until his father was able to locate him. This is an obvious compact version of Eric’s story, which he will be sharing with students in Castle Rock on the 28th.
Back in January, I covered the opening of an exhibit at the Jewish Community Center in Denver featuring the stories of several Holocaust survivors. One of the distinguished guests at the opening was Rabbi Israel Rosenfeld. As things were wrapping up I asked Rabbi Rosenfeld if I could make a portrait of him, he obliged me but I literally only had two minutes and a very limited spot I could place him in because of his pace maker and the magnets used in the display. I’m not super pleased with the outcome, the background has a few distracting elements, and would love another opportunity to photograph him. The two pieces hanging on the column in front of Rabbi Rosenfeld are a decree from the Governor and his wife’s personal story on the Holocaust.
A few more images from the opening.
Thanks for looking.
-SM
Lounging with the Lupine Choral Society
More images HERE
I had the pleasure of making photos of Adam Arcuragi and the Lupine Choral Society last week at the Hi-Dive for Reverb.
Adam and his band put on an amazing show. High energy from start to finish, I was blown away. It was a pleasant surprise as I had only discovered the band on Monday and had the opportunity to make photos of them on Friday. The venue is one of the darkest I’ve ever shot in, but it’s quaint and has its own personality.
I highly recommend checking these guys out, I may have a minor obsession with listening to them right now. I have a feeling they are going to blow up this year, their new album is pretty damn good and they keep popping up all over the place. I just logged into Spotify and their album was at the top of list of albums Spotify recommended to listen to… so I took the suggestion. Not that it took much prying.
One more image. (The first two images at the top up are of Patent Pending and Woodrose, the opening acts.)
The Sweet Science
It’s no mystery to most that I really enjoy shooting sports… like really, really enjoy shooting sports. I don’t get to do a lot of that in my current position, which is something I knew coming in, so when something sports related comes up I jump on it. A couple of weeks back the opportunity came up to shoot Strictly Boxing for a business profile. I got pretty giddy about the opportunity and spent three hours at the gym making images. When I left the gym I was sweating… it was awesome.
I chatted up the owners and the boxers, left a card and told them to keep in touch. They are supposed to have a few events coming up, hopefully it comes through because I would kill to spend a weekend shooting boxing.
More images can be found HERE. (Click it, you know you want to 
Home and Back… Again
Since moving to Denver, I’ve made several trips home. Three to be exact and I’ve made photos every time and for whatever reason I didn’t post any…
I made a conscious effort to make more photos, correct them and get them ready to post as quickly as possible this time around.
One of my favorite things is to make photos of those around me and that are apart of my everyday life. I love making photos of my nieces and nephew, this time around I had more of an excuse as I got to meet my newest niece, Camryn Leigh, for the first time. She is a little one and came a over a month early. She’s had a rough go so far but she is getting bigger and healthier by the day. She looks exactly like her sister when she was born and already has a lil sass and attitude. Should be giving mom and dad hell in no time. 
I love going home and I miss it a lot but I really like it here and can’t wait for Emilie to move down and start the next chapter of our lives.
Enough mush, a few lot of photos.
Em and I were both going to finish all of our work before I got there… we both failed.
Princess Kaylee adjusting her tiara.
Important that everyone wears the tiara.
Emilie holding ms. Camryn Leigh for the first time.
Kaylee loves making photos. I love it, when she gets a little older I may buy her an slr and teach her how to use it. She is a special kid, she is going to be an artist.
Kaylee is four and she makes pretty good photos, better than some people I know who are “professionals” (I’m not saying this is the greatest photo ever, but this is a pretty damn good frame for a four year old.)
Sometimes you have to defend the fridge at all costs, this was one of those times. Shortly after this she thought she needed to shove the rifle in the fridge and close the door. It didn’t work out too well.
A rousing rendition of the Flintstones theme, third or fourth time through.
Em throwing down a rousing version of Wheels on the Bus. John Tesh is already looking over his shoulder.
Lil’ man Elio throwing down on a rice crispy treat. Nom nom nom nom nom.
Parents got a new dog last summer, don’t think she’s made an appearance on the blog yet.
Kaylee didn’t think anyone would notice that she started her Thanksgiving dinner before everyone else. Haha.
Kaylee decided it was time to have a little, private, after dinner conversation. I get a kick out her, she is a pretty funny kid.
So just a few images. I really do miss home and love it when I get a chance to get back, unfortunately I’m not sure when I will be going home again. :/ Hopefully it won’t be to long.
Looking Back: 2011
Every time I do a year end recap, I always post it 15 days after the new year has started. Let everyone else come in, show off their stuff and then I sneak in the back door and stink the joint up… it’s just the way I roll.
I hate the term, “Best of.” I feel that is a very loaded phrase and is some how implying every image you will see is the absolute best image. I saw a certain newspapers, 100 GREATEST images of the year! (I don’t think it had an exclamation point at the end but when you say GREATEST, I think it needs an exclamation point). I made it 25 images in before I stopped as there were only about five images in those 25 that were bangin’ images. That is why I’m not calling this a best of. These are images that I liked and tell the story of the year for me. I didn’t shoot as much as I wanted nor did I blog as much as I wanted and that will change this year. More on that in a bit.
Over the last 5 years, every year has been a big year of change. A big year of growth and of evolution. This last year was no exception. It started on an insanely cold night watching small, flashing LED lights lower from a nine story building surrounded by amazing friends in South Dakota and ended on the 16th Street Mall with Emilie in my new home of Denver watching pyrotechnics explode in the sky with several thousand random people.
I spent a large amount of time covering hockey, crisscrossing the country with Jake. Spending way too much time in the car but it was a lot of fun and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I minimized the number of hockey images in this slideshow, as I did an entire video recapping the season and didn’t feel the need to do it again. You can view that here. (after looking at that I don’t know where some of those images are… e gads!)
I have to give a huge thank you to Jake for taking me on and allowing me to make images for IDS. For allowing me to travel to make images and allowing me the freedom to come up with my own assignments and shoot whatever I wanted. I got to cover some really cool things over the summer, including Cowboy Polo, which was just awesome.
I also have to thank AAron, for being an amazing friend and putting in a good word for me at the Post that landed me my current job. Shooting every day again is a dream. I didn’t realize how much I would miss it until I quit the Journal and was only shooting part time, working two other jobs to make ends meet. I’m so thankful and grateful to be working in a place that is pushing me to my limits and forcing me to grow. It’s awesome to be surrounded by so many incredibly talented photographers, to have an absolute bad ass for a director of photography and some real kick ass editors. It’s awesome to work at a place that can provide everything I need, immediately. Coming from a place where it was a fight to get what you needed or only had one option for supplies, it’s wild. I’m so, so thankful and humbled to be working here. I have a long ways to go before I am where I want to be but being here is the first step.
Which brings me back to blogging and goals for the year. I blogged 29 times last year. That is pitiful and unacceptable in my book. I put making photos on the back burner after I left the Journal and I’m not doing that anymore. I’m finally getting excited about making images again and I’m going to hit it hard this year. My goal is to blog, at MINIMUM, once a week in the next year. I’m also aiming to shoot, at LEAST, once a week outside of work. It can be something that turns into an image I turn in for work but it has to be something above and beyond an assignment. This is going to be the year of the photo. The year of grinding and putting in the work to continue the path of getting to were I want to be. It’s going to be tough but it should be fun. I haven’t been this excited about making photos in a long time. I’m even dreaming about making images… it’s kind of awesome.
I put together a little audio slide show of sorts of images from the last year. You can view that HERE. (The track playing under the images is by This Will Destroy You. Incase you dig it, because I do.)
Here are a small selection of images that I enjoyed from the past year… just a couple in no particular order.
Meanwhile, on Tattooine… er, Barnes and Noble.
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting up with the CosPlayers of the 501st Legion’s Mile High Squadron at the Barnes and Noble in Lone Tree prior to a book signing event with author Kevin J. Anderson. The actual story was on the work this troop does for charity. Every three months, the troop dons their Star Wars costumes and tours a childrens hospital, visiting sick children. Unfortunately they are not going back to a hospital until March and this was the only event they had going on. It was a lot of fun and the guys and gals in the troop were incredibly nice people. (An invitation was extended to dress up with them and “troop” at a future event… I may do it just to say I did. It could be fun.) I’m planning on catching up with them in March and following them at the hospital. Maybe making a video out of it.
More Images Can Be Found HERE
Ice Castles
Took the time to drive up to Silverthorne and check out the Ice Castle installation.
It was pretty incredible. I didn’t make many photos but I made a few. I really want to make it back down there soon and spend a little more time making photos and exploring the light. The castles are constantly changing as they continue to work on the project.
It’s hands down one of the coolest things I’ve seen and I plan on going back a few more times, or as I can afford it to make more images. If anyone wants to go, let me know.
Thanks for looking.
-SM
Breathe Carolina
More images can be found HERE.
As mentioned in the last post, I shot two shows last week. The second was a hometown holiday show with electro-rock (pop?) duo Breathe Carolina on Friday night at the Summit Music Hall. Ironically none of the photos above are of Breathe Carolina. The reason… and there are two of them. 1) This show was a joke. Being it was a hometown show for the headlining band they allowed about 25 people into the pit. Which made making photos very, very difficult as I was surrounded by cell phone and point and shoot cameras whose operators had no qualms about sticking their “cameras” in front of mine. Very frustrating. I moved to a different position but it wasn’t the same. 2) I lost an entire card of images. I don’t know what happened but when I got home and put the cards in the reader, one card was completely empty. I lost a ton of images. Most of the images above are from the band Kill Paradise. Luckily, i discovered my card problems during a time when the images are not as important as they are at my day job. (Yes the images for Reverb are important but this is mainly for fun. If something like this happens its not catastrophic).
Anyways this will be the last post about bands for a few weeks. I will be posting a few assignment related images in the next few days and a year end wrap up no later than January 1st.
Hope everyone is well and had a great holiday.
Love and Light,
Seth
