Belgium

I may or may not have told you about the recent discovery of some distant cousins of mine which I met through Facebook.com earlier this year. I met them and one of them happens to also be a photographer. I will put up a few of my favorites to show you his work. I also took some pictures with his camera using a fish-eye lense. The first one is of me and my brother at Boston Bowl. The second one, my cousin Sam, from Belgium, took during his stay when he first arrived in the states with his sister. It was taken while my aunt was driving. The third one I do not know much about, I saw it and thought it was very nice how the colors came together at one point, and also the effect it gives when looking at it. It seems as if im being pulled into the image as i look at it. The fourth is the famous Chicago Skyline. I have seen this exact image on the internet before and when i saw his version of it, it made me love the city even more. He took this photo by the lake. The fifth and sixth photos, i took while he was at my house. I was experimenting with the fisheye lense, so i took some pictures. The woman at the computer is my other Belgique cousin, Lise, across from her is my momma, my father is sitting on the couch, and Sam is sitting on the far right. In the other picture, Sam is on the left, my brother is by the fence, and my younger cousin is on the right. Last and certainly not least, is my favorite picture that he took. The night before they left for Chicago, we went for a drive to Micky Ds and it happened to be raining and he took this picture. I think the picture is amazing because of the colors that are in it, the focus that is in the car, the eerie feeling that i get when i look at it, and also because of the effect the fisheye gives. I look to practice shooting at night so that i can get images this clear and detailed.

Chicago

Im in Chicago right now, the city of dreams, and there is a lot here waiting to be captured on film and im going to find it within in the next day or so. The one place I have been meaning to go to all my life, here in Chicago, is Millenium Park. Its a huge park with fountains, a lot of recreation space and good people. Other than that, I plan on walking downtown and seeing what I can capture. So wish me luck and I will talk to you later

Shepard Fairey

Last week, my mother, brother, and two cousins went to the ICA to visit the Shepard Fairey exhibit. My mother enjoyed the show a lot and so did I. My favorite pieces were the ones of the different musical artists, like Tupac, Biggie, Chuck D, Bob Marley, and also the one of Malcolm X. I liked the Malcolm X piece because it portrayed him as I think of him in a way. I feel that Malcolm X was either admired or disliked during the time of the Black Panthers and the picture showed him in the light, as a good person, and in the dark, as a person who people disliked. I also enjoyed the piece that was based on a dollar bill. I thought it was interesting how he twisted some words to fit his own interpretation of the dollar. An example of this is the saying "E pluribus unum", he changed to "E pluribus venom. I thought it was interesting how he changed the American symbol of a eagle to a vulture. Ill speak on this more a little later.

Marcus' Track Meet

Yesterday, I attended my cousins track meet in Needham. During the tournament, I took many b&w and digital photos of the kids racing. I got many low-shots of the kids feet while running, the emotions in their faces as they ran, and the last-second push to be first. I took shots from the side as they were directly in front of me and I also took some diagonally in front of the starting line. I attempted to catch the first move as the shot goes off and I hope I was successful with my b&w pictures. I will try to upload some of the digital ones online so that you can see them.

New York

Last week I went to New York for a weekend to visit family. While there, I decided to take some action photos with my cousin at a nearby basketball court. I took a lot of low shots looking up at him while he was shooting. I also took some shots of him doing lay-ups from the front, side, and back. I tried shooting myself with a tripod but it did not work so I ended up using him to take a couple of myself going up for a dunk.

AIB

I went to a conference in May for at the Art Institute of Boston. At the conference, I attended a class about photography. During the first part of the day, we learned about the legal part of being a photographer, which didn't interest me as much, but I took notes. We also saw Zach Vitale's binary eggs which he took pictures of eggs that were cracked and some that were whole and put them together and together they created an interesting image. During the second part of the day, we were introduced to all different kinds of cameras like wide-format, and square format, along with others.

Up coming events

I plan on going to the Franklin Park Zoo to see the Gorillas soon, I will be going to New York for 3 or 4 days, and I will be going to Chicago in August. I have a movement project I will be shooting, and I plan on attending one of my cousin's track meets to shoot him there. So be on the look out for updates on how the end up.