Reuter let me cover this for them. So far, MSNBC has picked it up. The rodeo continues through the weekend, but I can’t cover it anymore. I already have plans to assist my friend Donald Miralli with his Washington Nationals shoot for a week. ON LEFT: “Seth Glause of Cheyenne, Wyoming rides Will the Pill during the 128th Silver Spurs Rodeo held at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida February 17, 2012. This is the biggest rodeo east of the Mississippi River, and is so important to the community that all public schools in the county close for the day. REUTERS/Octavian Cantilli (UNITED STATES)”
ON RIGHT: “Jeremy R. Melancon of Huntsville, Texas exits the rider’s area after participating in the saddle bronc event of the 128th Silver Spurs Rodeo held at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida February 17, 2012. This is the biggest rodeo east of the Mississippi River, and is so important to the community that all public schools in the county close for the day. REUTERS/Octavian Cantilli (UNITED STATES)” Continue reading »

This story was a true pleasure to tell. It was refreshing to see a family with a long tradition in beauty contests, that didn’t let it run their lives. Sure a lot of time is spent preparing, planning and primping for the pageant, but the whole thing felt more like a life experience that teaches these girls responsibility, community service and what I call lady-like manerisims. The Shirah family welcomed me, a stranger with a big camera, into their home and lives, with no prejudices. The least I could have done was check any preconcieved stereotypes I may have had at the door. I hope these images shake up any stereotypes that you may have about this culture, and show how beautiful and wholesome beauty pageants can be if not taken to the extreme. I was able to tell this story because Wendy Jeannin, of the Silver Spurs Arena, put me in contact with the Shirah family, and Joe Skipper and Bob Strong, from Reuters, took a chance on my ability to tell this story. Some of the media sources that picked up this story include The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, Good Morning America, Yahoo OMG, mailonline.com, and the local Orlando Sentinel.
“Rachel Shirah, 11, has her lips painted by her mother Beth on the morning of the 52nd Miss and Little Miss Silver Spurs Pageant at her family’s ranch in St. Cloud, Florida on February 14, 2012. The winners will hold a prominent spot in the128th Silver Spurs Rodeo, which takes place this weekend in Kissimmee, Florida. REUTERS/Octavian Cantilli (UNITED STATES)” Continue reading »

“Michelle Obama and a group of Disney stars lead a dance at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney in Orlando on Saturday, February 11, 2012. Obama was there to promote physical fitness to hundreds of local children and their families.” Continue reading »

DISCLAIMER: I’m about to geek out, so if you’re not interested in the technical details of how I shot this event then just go ahead and scroll down to the pictures. You’ve been warned. lol Silver Spurs Arena is one of the few rodeo hosting venues that offer a catwalk. Shooting from atop this position isn’t perfect, because the platform that circles the entire arena is recessed about 20 ft into the stands. Once all the hard work of hauling my lighting gear up was done, my job became a lot of fun. It’s funny that all the hard work of setting up strobes was only good for producing one image. Everything else I walked away happy with was shot with natural light. The problem was I only had two bi-tude 1,200 watt power packs, and arena is larger than four basketball courts. I basically lit one particular area well, and let everything else go to hell. With strobe I got f/4 at ISO 400 and a recycling speed of about 1.5 seconds, and since I was using Pocket Wizard’s TT5 system, I was syncing at 1/1000 with no black bar and little light loss. Besides the overhead position, I was also excited about shooting from the dirt level across from where the bulls come out. However, shooting natural light from there yields busy backgrounds. I was hoping to position the strobes so that the exposure fell off four stops sharply outside the ring. This couldn’t be executed, because the catwalk, where the strobes had to be fasened was too far into the stands and the catwalks on the sides were too far away to side light where the bulls come out. After getting one image with lights that I was happy with, I shot the rest of the action using no strobe at 10 frames per second f/2.8, 1/1000, and ISO 5000. After a little noise ninja filtering, the images looked good. The biggest tradeoff was white balance consistency. With strobe I could get a pretty consistent white balance from one shot to the next, but once I switched to shooting natural light, my WB varied greatly and there was nothing I could do about it despite setting a custom white balance in camera and using an Expo Disk. Here, the problem was the fact that each frame my camera took captured a different point of the ambient light’s frequency cycle hence recording a different light hue and temperature.
“Clayton Wooten of Arcadia, Fla. rides Buck Fever during the Silver Spurs Monster Bull event held at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee on February 11, 2012. Bull riders from across the country compete for a chance to win $2,000. REUTERS/Octavian Cantilli (UNITED STATES)” Continue reading »

The photo below was picked up by Time magazine, The Washington Post, MSNBC and a slew of other national and international newspapers. This was my third assignment for Thomson Reuters.
Continue reading »

A little over a week ago, I covered the launch party for Canvas Interiors. It was a night filled with good food, good music, laughter and a lot of amazing people. One recurring theme I noticed in the images – people touching all of the textures in the store. Tone and texture are a big part of this new brand. Check out this new furniture store HERE.
Continue reading »

“The Senator”, a 3,500-year-old Cypress tree, lies burnt and broken at Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida January 16, 2012. The tree, considered to be one of the oldest Cypress trees, caught fire early in the morning and continued to burn from the inside out through the day. Investigators with the Florida Division of Forestry ruled out arson as the cause of the blaze that started inside the hollow base of the tree. They said the fire burned hottest at the top, leading them to suspect a lightning strike as a possible cause.”

I wrote a story about my SE Asia travels this past summer for Robert Hanashiro’s newsletter, and it’s on the front page of Sportsshooter this morning. Bert is a USA Today staffer and co-founder of one of my favorite photo websites. I met him in 2008 when I had the privilege of attending two of his wonderful Sports Shooter Academy Workshops. Link to my STORY

“Melianie Calderon, 7, shakes hands with the three kings during the seventh annual Three Kings Day event in Osceola hosted by the Hispanic Business Council of the Kissimmee/Osceola County Chamber of Commerce on Saturday, Jan. 7 at Gateway High School. Over 4,000 children and their families attended this year’€™s event.” Continue reading »

This year was my most memorable year behind the camera as of yet. I met so many great people, saw amazing places and rejuvenated my passion for visual storytelling. Here are some of my favorite images I made this year, and since no one is a good editor of their own work, there are 101 of them. Here’s to a healthy, fun, and successful 2012 packed full of adventures!