1) I’ve been given the great opportunity to “guest blog” over at www.ScottKelby.com… the post went up today so swing by and check it out!
2) We had a tremendously successful Help-Portrait event a couple weekends ago… so many people came out and it was such a blessing to be a part of… Watch out for the video of the event… it’ll be online very soon.
3) Enjoy time with your families over Thanksgiving and look for more posts early next week!
- Austin
I feel like there are quite a few things on my plate at the moment but am trying to move away from the answer “busy” when asked how I’m doing. It seems to be a sort of trend going on in America right now. Everyone is busy…slammed…shoulder deep in tasks and things to get done. What is busy? Why is it so common to to hear the answer “busy”?
Seriously, ask 10 people and 7-8 of them will respond BUSY! So if we’re busy all the time, is there ever a time we are not busy? If everyone is busy, is anyone busy? Isn’t busy an adjective used to convey there is more going on than normal? But if we’re ALWAYS busy, then busy is NORMAL, and thus no longer busy…
That was a bit confusing but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I think in America we really need to slow down and focus on things that are eternal… our friends, our families…
On a completely different note, I’ve been honored to have been given the opportunity to “guest blog” on Scott Kelby’s blog (www.scottkelby.com) this month. I’ve been tossing around a few different ideas but would love to hear from you what kind of thing you like to hear from me the most. Whether it be information about equipment, travel, working with people abroad, post-processing workflow… or maybe something else completely that I’m not covering. I’d love to hear what YOU would like to hear from me.
Thanks!
-Austin
Alright… I’ve been guilty of leaving my blog completely stale and lacking any new content for LONG ENOUGH!
This is a quick update to let you know a few things…
Firstly, I’m working on a new site/blog layout that will incorporate more of what I do, not just travel. I will have a Current Projects page where you can see all the different things I have my hands in, it will also have an Ask Austin section where I’ll be fielding any of your questions whether it be about photo/video/travel/Macs… whatever!
Here’s a quick update on some of my recent projects:
1) wwww.freethemm.com
FreeThemm is a project my cousin Brandon and I have been working on in effort to share the story of two girls who have been put in prison for their faith in Iran. I could talk about this forever but you can find out how you can help and more about them at www.freethemm.com.
2) www.youplusmedia.com
You + Media is a local media company in Dallas that is launching a new media-driven website targeted specifically to the Dallas market. Imagine it is a (local) fusion of Facebook and YouTube. They want highly-stylized, informative videos of places and people around Dallas. I’ve been working on a number of different projects with them… whether is be restaurant profiles or Victor Tango’s or a short piece telling the story of people that work from 12AM to 6AM around the metroplex.
3) GULP
Gulp is a concept I’ve had since highschool and now I’m finally feeling it’s the right time to start it up. For now, all I’m going to say is that (I feel) like it’s a very innovative and very promising retail startup. Brandon and I are working on building a team to make it happen. We’ve got two architects fleshing out ideas of what Gulp could look like. Way more to come on this in the near future.
4) GiveFoto
GiveFoto is a project that I’ve had the great opportunity to be involved in. We’ve got a bunch of fotogs together in the Dallas area and on November 14th we are going to be setting up 8-10 photo stations (each with white seamless backdrops/lights/etc) at a church in south Dallas. We’re encouraging anyone and everyone to come in and get photos of themselves, their kids, their pets…whatever they want. I’m excited to see how this impacts everyone involved… we are expecting to have over 700 people there! More to come on this soon…
Those are some of the more long term projects I’ve been working on. I just returned from NYC last week and had an incredible time hanging’ with some insanely talented people… Jeremy Cowart, Vincent Laforet, Joey Lawrence to name a few. I met a ton of great people and pulled some great inspiration for new projects from my time there. I also found out that an image that I entered in NatGeo Traveler/PDN World In Focus contest was selected in the top 22 out of 220,000 entries! I was pretty excited!
I’m committing to update this thing WEEKLY! I know that’s really ambitious but I think I can do it. I will let you in on more and send you some of the videos when I can.
- Austin
Here’s a few more images from the concert at Chaping… hope you enjoy! Stay updated with what I am doing and where I am through my twitter!
A shot of me setting up the camera for the time lapse of the concert.
It rained and rained and rained the night of the concert. Yet people still came out… Umbrellas or not, everyone was soaking! It made for some neat images.
On the fault line of the Earthquake at Beichuan.
We spent a little less than 24 hours in Chaping (where the concert was ) and during that time I had a few extra minutes to roam the streets… Here’s some shots of the amazingly joyful and happy people I bumped into…
These people were nothing but smiles yet they almost all lost their homes, jobs and and even lives of their close friends and family. Their resiliency was remarkable. After I got back from walking around a bit, it was time to shoot the concert and it started to rain!
Sorry there’s not more text in this post… I spent the last hour fussing with my blog trying to make it behave properly… ended up having to take some images down but as usual its getting late and I am tired!
Sorry about the video in the previous post… it just now finished converting. Anyway, shortly after we arrived in Chaping I climbed up a construction site and I put a fisheye lens on my secondary camera and mounted it on top of a piece of rebar (overlooking where Steve was going to play his concert.) Then I set up a timer to make the camera shoot every couple of minutes…
Here’s the fives hours of concert prep and concert condensed into about 16 seconds… I catch something new every time I watch it! Look for the tarp going up on the stage (because it started raining)
Tons of people came out, despite the rain, and many were brought to tears. By the end of the night, people were asking for Bible’s and wanting to know more about God. It was really powerful and amazing to see.
There’s a whole bunch of images in the works but I have to run right now so keep an eye out, but check out this portrait from this portrait… I was trying to get myself up high to shoot the concert and this super nice guy was kind enough to let me get on his balcony.
Thanks for reading!
