Emily and Alex

These guys are so easy to photograph and fun to be around.  We met them at the botanical gardens for their engagement session and enjoyed every minute there.   Can't wait to photograph their wedding.

Art Walk

One of the coolest things to do in B'ham is go to Art Walk.  Each year the city hosts an art exhibit in an old part of town.  Artists set up their wares in several old stores and on the sidewalk and the public has a chance to just walk and browse and buy.  I love it!  We went today and, naturally, I took my camera.  There was so much to see so these are just  few images made with my little point-and-shoot camera and edited in Lightroom. 

Playing with Panos in the Park

Sometimes you just need to look at things differently to see them in a whole new way.  I love hike and just be in the woods and I'm fortunate to have very close to me Oak Mountain State Park with about 30 miles of trails.  This is wonderful except that about all 30 miles of the trails looks pretty much the same.  It's a southern forest with lots of green trees and creeks and moss -- not many vistas or cool overlooks.  But, it's in my backyard, only about a ten minute drive,  and I can get away for half a day and spend some quality time with Sophie, my dog.

So today, I decided to try some panoramic images to see if things would look different.  I like these.  A couple are of the road I walked today. I stuck the easy trail, and the last one is the old CCC camp that is about three miles back in the woods.  The cabins were built in about 1937.  Several are still standing but many have just collapsed and are slowing being reclaimed by nature.

Black Jacket Symphony

A good friend, Allen Barlow, plays with a group called the Black Jacket Symphony. Among other things these guys recreate classic albums by great old groups. A few days ago they performed the Rolling Stones album, "Let it Bleed" at the local Birmingham venue, Work Play.

Wow, these guys are good and I had a blast.

I'm sharing my blog with my young assistant.

These photos were made by my six-year old granddaughter on one of our photo outings. Although I did the editing, I did it according to her specifications.
(See the earlier post:  Me and My Shadow)

Now for her commentary:

I took these photos by myself with no help. My name is Hallie and I love peace signs and stuff.  I also like taking pictures I love to help grandpa edit them. I also like color/black and white whichever, I don't care.

My favorite color is magenta I have a cousin named Sadie my other cousin’s name is Madelyn. Grandpa let’s me use one of his cameras to take pictures. I love to take photos with Sadie but I’ve never done it before that’s why I’m waiting for that day to come. My favorite animal is a horse well I have more favorite animals then that. There’s this painting thing on the computer I love but I wish I could do.  I like this close up thing on the camera that when you’re far away from something and you want to get a picture of it you can zoom in. Oh my grandpa’s a photographer. I live in North Carolina

The end.   

Restoring Old Photos

I love old photographs and I love restoring them when I can.  And digital imaging has made the process of restoring damaged photos much easier than it was in the old days. It's still a time-consuming process and requires a fair amount of skill, though.  Recently one of my wedding professional colleagues, MaryLou at Bama Balloons, brought in a 100 year old family photo that had been broken into three pieces.  Her mother had recently re-discovered it and wanted to have it restored and copies made for the family.

When I work on any photo, I zoom in very close and really get to know the people in the picture.  Especially with old photos I find myself studying the faces and wondering who they were and what their lives were like.  As you can see by these faces this is a very good looking and interesting family.  I'm sure they are all passed on now which adds even more mystery to the image.

Below is the finished image I printed for the family.

Although the family only wanted a monochrome reproduction, I want to see what they would look like in color.  I didn't spend much time in hand tinting this, meaning I didn't stay within the lines very well.  Even though, the color seems to add a bit of life to the people.

 

Hand Tinting - my way:

I am a big fan of layer masks in Photoshop.  ( I don't believe this option is available in Elements).  I add a solid color layer mask for each color in the photo (skin, hair, shoes, etc.)  With each layer, I use the "color" blend mode.  Then I reverse the mask using control-I.  Then, using a white paint brush applied to the black mask, I can apply the color just where I want it.  

This method of using layer masks allows me to fine tune each color even after they have all been applied.  I can even change a color completely just by clicking on the mask and re-assigning a new color.  For example, I could click on the layer for the green blouse and change it to blue, or yellow, or whatever.  I could even vary the intensity of the color if needed.  Layer masks also allow me to go to each layer a refine the edges if a color spills over where it's not wanted.

Me and My Shadow

If you know me, you know there are a few things that I absolutely love.  Naturally, one is photography.  The other, and more important,  is my family.  I have a wonderful wife, two great children and four of the best grandchildren one could ever hope for.  And each is different.

Today, I'm going to talk a bit about Hallie who is almost seven years old.  When she visits we like to spend at least one morning on a photo excursion, just the two of us. (click to see our other excursion)  We get in my old Ford F150, with no air conditioner, and head to the park.  She likes the truck because it has no passenger airbag and she gets to ride in the front seat with the window down.  She uses my Canon G11 and I use my Cannon 5D Mark II and we just walk around and take photos.  She's pretty good at it too. (click to see some of her work from and earlier outing).

These are some photos I made of her today.  As you can see, it's not all work.  We had to take a break at the playground and swing a bit.  Then it was back to the truck.

Trenekia and Brandon

Sometimes things just come together perfectly.  The wedding is a at a great venue, the weather gives you dramatic skies and the bride and groom are fun and very attractive.  That's what happened at this wedding.  As you can see, Trenekia and Brandon look great, and they were just a joy to be with.  The venue, The Summit Club, is so cool high above downtown Birmingham.  And the stormy sky gave us some very interesting backdrops.  Thanks to their wedding planner, Ouida Jones Johnson for making the day run so smoothly - you're the best.

Trashing Wedding Dresses

To some people this sounds like a form of sacrilege.  "I can't believe anyone would want to do that!"  Or, "I spent so much for this dress, I couldn't imagine doing anything like that."  I usually respond by saying that my wife is trashing her wedding dress very slowly in a box in the attic.

Many of these young women have dreams that their daughter will someday were that same dress in her wedding.  Fat chance.

I know it's not for everyone, but it sure is fun and makes some fun photos.  And the dresses aren't really trashed, just gotten a little dirty.  One of our brides said she took her's to the cleaners and it came back just a good as new.

Recently we had the privilege of having two brides at one time let us make their photos at the beach.  We photographed Stacy's wedding at Hilton Head.  The next morning we met her and Blake along with her matron of honor Katie and her husband Brandon on the beach for a little photo fun.  I think the slide show will attest to the fun part.

Small Boats

I love to make photos.  Especially if the subject is interesting.  So, this morning Joy and went over to Aldridge Gardens to see a local rc boat club sail their small boats.  I was most intrigued with the sail boats.  These are just a few of my favorites from this morning.

We've had a request so click here to see a gallery of all the photos.

Remembering a hero.

With this coming Sunday being July 4, it started me thinking about my father, William Brian Oglesby, Sr.  He was born in 1920 and died in 1972.   My mom called him either Billy or Honey and they genuinely loved each other. We never knew anything other than a stable family life.

We boys, there are four of us, all knew him as daddy.  Just a normal guy who worked on cars for a living, loved to have a good time and loved our mother.  But there were some other chapters of his life before we were born that he rarely talked about.  In many ways I now think of him as a true war hero.  He didn’t win a lot of medals and made no daring battlefield stands, but his ordeal in WWII must have been pretty harrowing.  He was severely wounded in battle and captured in France by the Germans in late 1944.  He lost a few fingers and had pretty severe scarring on other parts of his body.  He also spent some time in POW camps, but was eventually repatriated because he was no longer capable of combat.

He rarely, almost never, talked about his military time.  When he did, it was usually of fond memories of friends.  One rare time he did mention his time in captivity, he made note of the fact that he was held in Stalag 13, and that only because that was the prison camp where Hogan’s Heroes, a popular television series during my youth, were interred.

My family doesn’t seem to know much about our history and we don’t have a lot of tangible artifacts to connect with the past, but I am fortunate enough to possess the telegrams my grandmother received during the days of my father’s war experience.  When I read them I can only imagine a mother’s anguish of hearing the news that her only son is missing in action.  I’m sure she was desperate to know more, but as you can see from the telegram below, there was no more.  Just, that her son is missing in action.

Then, almost a month later she learns that he is a prisoner of war.  Again, no more details.  I’m sure she prayed for him daily.  Since my family never talked about these telegrams or these experiences, I can only guess that they had no more information than what can be found on these three sheets of paper.

A few months later she learns that he is coming home.  What joy that must have been.  But, joy tempered with sorrow.  He’s coming home because he is injured so badly that he can no longer be of use to the war effort.  What happened to him?  How bad is he?  I’m sure these thoughts raced through her mind.  The third telegram gave no details, just that he would be in the hospital and that she would not be allowed to even greet him as he arrived.  In typical military indifference they even referred to him as her husband.  On a side note, my father’s father had died at least 15 years prior to that and she had remarried.

I’ve also included here the Allied Personnel Repatriation Tag that was attached to his stretcher when they brought him off the ship in New York.  It contains almost all the information I know about my father’s six years of military service.  These are treasures for me.  A few brittle scraps of 65 year old paper that give me a connection to my dad, a true war hero.

I don’t know the story of how my mom and dad got together, they are both gone now and I can’t ask.  But I do know they weren’t married during WWII, but my mom should also be mentioned for her service in the Women’s Army Corps.

Yeah, I'm a dog guy

Ok, I admit it, I’m a dog person.  I just love dogs and have had one or more living with me most of my life.  Sometimes I think that dogs are close to being God’s most perfect creation.  Think about it, they don’t worry about much of anything, never seem to hold a grudge, truly want to make you happy and love unconditionally.  What more could you ask for?

For most of my life, there as been a dog living with me.  The first one was Tiny.  I don’t remember much about him but I do remember him and how much I loved him.

My dog now is Sophie, a great companion and hiking buddy.  I’m not sure what her breeding is since she was an apparent orphan found wandering in a parking garage downtown.  When people ask what kind of a dog she is, I usually just say, “a black one.”  That’s about all I know.  Perhaps some terrier, but who knows and who cares?  That’s how it’s been with all but one of my dogs, they were strays that just wandered up or puppies from mixed-breed litters that people were desperate to give away. 

The lady that found her refers to her as a rags-to-riches story.  We are not rich by human standards, but in dog currency she is wealthy.  She has people who love her, a warm bed and treat every night at bedtime and she gets to take a long walk in the park and “hunt” squirrels several days a week.  Not only that, but she has her own back yard with critters in the woods to bark at just on the other side of the fence.

Sometimes I wonder about her early life.  She doesn’t seem to have been abused, but she doesn’t seem to have received much affection either. While she loves to be in my presence, either lying nearby in the studio, going anywhere in the car or, best of all, going for a walk in the woods, she is not one to be petted or lie next to me on the sofa.  Maybe that’s part of our kindred spirit.  We’re not touchy-feely.

One thing, as a photographer, I wish was different.  I wish she were brown.  Black dogs are just harder to photograph.  Brown dogs show up so much better in pictures.  But, she is mine and I wouldn’t trade her for all the brown dogs in town.

The day my life changed.

It was 1968, I was a new kid at school and was on my first band trip.  I was in the eleventh grade.  We were headed to Washington, D.C. to march in the Cherry Blossom Festival.  My family had recently moved to the area and I had only been in the band a month or so, but I had noticed the band secretary from my back-row seat in the trumpet section as she carried out her duties in the front of the room.  Besides being secretary, she played saxophone and sat a few rows in front of me.

A few hours into our train ride I went looking for the few guys I had gotten to know - we had planned to play cards on the long trip. When I got to where they were the only seat available was next to her.  What should I do?  Then she said, "sit down, I don't bite."

Funny how I still remember those first words she spoke to me after over forty  years.  But, then that was the day my life changed.  I never went out with anyone else, we went to the junior and senior proms together.  In fact we've never been apart since that day.

We graduated high school together, and were married one year to the day from graduation.  And that only because her mother insisted we wait a year to see if we were still together.  You know how those teenage romances are.  June 12, 2010 was our fortieth wedding anniversary. I guess it's going to work out after all.

We currently have two grown and married children that we are immensely proud of and three wonderful grandchildren and one due to arrive in July.  Like I said, that was the day that my life changed and it couldn't have been a better ride so far.

The photo posted above was made on that train ride the day I was invited to sit by her.  It's easy to see from that smile why I jumped at the chance.

Below is a short slide show highlighting our time together.

Mixing fun with business

Stacy and Blake's wedding at Hilton Head, SC, was fun all by itself, but it also gave us the chance to spend a little time in Savannah.  After meeting them on the beach for a "morning-after" session on Saturday, we drove down to Savannah and spent the night before coming back home on Saturday.  Although we spent only a little time there, I was able to make few photos that were keepers.

What an amazing recital.

Amy Murphy is an amazing woman.  I've photographed many many events and worked with lots of directors and have seen several recitals, but Amy's event was one of the best organized and stress-free I've ever photographed.  Her students are also amazing.  Such talented and fun people to be with.

These photos are from the Amy Murphy Studio recital at the Virginia Samford Theatre a few days ago. John and Angela from Main Street Productions were on hand to capture the whole event on video.  Can't wait to see their final cut.  I only have room to show a few here on the blog, but you can see many more on our site. Click here to see them.

Dee Dee and Randy got married!

The wedding was beautiful!  You guys picked a beautiful location at Chateau Toots, and were so blessed that the predicted rain held back.

Train up a child...

I know it's a bit of a stretch, but Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."   I hope this applies to training photographers as well as spiritual matters.

Hallie, one of my granddaughters, and I went out this morning for a short photo excursion.  She's only six, but already shows some signs of becoming an artist and photographer.  Naturally, I am encouraging this every step of the way.

 These are a few of my photos from this morning.  You can see Hallie's in another posting.

Hallie's photo excursion with Grandpa

My granddaughters are now six years old.  Old enough to begin making photo excursions with grandpa.  Hallie and I went out this morning, I with my Canon 5D Mark II and she with my Canon G11.  When we got home we immediately sat down to edit our photos.  From her photos these are Hallie's choices for the blog, edited to her specifications.  I wanted to make a few in black and white, but she has strong opinions about her art and only wanted color.