Adventure/Photography

Just go here http://www.calebsimpson.com/studioblog.html

Posted by Caleb at 09:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just posted a few photos from last weekends wedding up on the Studio Blog. It will be my last wedding post for a while. I leave for Colorado in a few weeks for a grand adventure. I hope to come back with loads of amazing images. I will be backpacking in The Holy Cross Wilderness, rock climbing at Shelf Road near Canon City and at Red Rocks Canyon Open Space in Colorado Springs. I am only going with one other guy so climbing photos will be a few and far between, but I should come back with loads of beautiful backcountry photos.

Posted by Caleb at 03:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This past weekend I shot a wedding at The Atriums in Dallas. It was basically a wedding and reception held in the lobby of a business building off of 635. It seems like a crazy place to have a wedding, but the light coming in through the glass windows shooting through the trees made for some amazing images. Here are some of my favorite photos from the day. I shot vertical way more than I usually do.

Posted by Caleb at 02:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The other night I was finally able to get out and do some more light painting. While everybody else was off photographing fireworks I was standing ankle deep in grass getting attacked by the most vicious mosquitoes known to man. The torrents of rain we have been having in north Texas have created a great breading ground for this torturous creatures. Normally these guys never attack me, but these vile creatures sucked more blood out of me than I have ever had drawn at the doctor. Anyway, on to the photos.

The following images were both shot at ISO 160 with a 30 second exposure at f/11. I used a 2 million candle watt spotlight for the painting. This was my first time doing this with an outdoor scene. My past attempts as you can see here on the blog have been smaller objects shot in my own bedroom. I wasn't extremely pleased with the results, but this was my first time doing this and it is a learning process so I won't get to discouraged.

One thing you need to be sure of is that you use a 2 million candle watt spotlight. Anything less will be insufficient, anything more powerful will be to hot. I purchased a Vector from Target for about $30. It also has a small LED light on it as well.

I had hoped to go shoot at a cemetery in town as well, but ran out of time. I had totally forgot it was a Wednesday night so I had to return home and get some rest so I could start work the next day without being extremely tired. My hope is to get out there within the next month or so. I also hope to paint some other scenes with human subjects present in them. Check out the recent online light painting workshop by Dave Black an example of a scene with a human subject present.

I have also started working on the layout for this website. I am hoping to come up with a nice simple design that will allow me to update more easily and frequently. In the past I had added way to much stuff to my site and made it impossible to keep up with. I hope to have the site complete by the end of the month.

You can view my professional site as well at http://www.calebsimpson.com.

Posted by Caleb at 03:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Well, my night was interesting. Some idiot decided to fire bomb the old Tomato building. For those readers not familiar with the Tomato it was the most popular pizza joint in town (Denton, TX), part of any area known as Fry St. the buildings are historic 1920's buildings that were recently bought up by a Houston based developer. They were slated to be demolished this week, but rain had delayed that. Anyway somebody thought it would be nice to burn down what was left of the building. I don't know what there thoughts were, perhaps it was something to the extent of, "your not going to take our buildings, we are". Either way it was stupid. I hope they catch who did it. Anyway, here are some photos from the blaze.

Notice the lettering that now appears on the top left of the building. The paint over the bricks burned away and exposed some of the original brick and signage of this historic building. The signage appears to be from when the building was Hamilton-Perryman Drugstor in 1947.

I had worked for months with an organization known as Safe Fry St. in attempts to save the historic buildings. We knew that nothing could be done as far as the tenants go, but where not in favor of homogenization. We meet with the developer on a few occasions in attempts to persuade them that preserving the historic buildings would have been of more value to them than tearing them down. Apparently 10,000+ petition signatures was not enough to convince them the community cared about the area.

The Tomato building went off in a blaze of glory. I don't support the acts of the arsonist in any way though. I hope they catch him. The statement was extreme, but it was a statement.

Posted by Caleb at 02:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Lately I have been inspired by a number of fellow rock climbers blogs and websites.It's cool to see a handful of these people have a life similar to mine, we work a full or part time job, love climbing and pursue an art. It's a difficult task doing so many things. But it inspires me to work harder at the things I love when I see others doing the same thing. Here are the blogs and websites of those that have inspired me. Some of these are full time artists though.

Emilee Lee
Anne Skidmore
Tim Kemple
Ben Moon

There are still many other artist that inspire me, these are just a few of the recent ones. I'm somewhat bummed right now that my climbing trips keep getting canceled for various reasons. I wish I was closer to more climbers so I could get out and shoot more. Until then I will continue to work my butt off shooting weddings. At least that will help pay for future trips.

I do plan on getting out to Colorado this summer to climb at Shelf Road, backpack in the Rocky Mountain National forest and hopefully hit up Boulder Canyon as well. If you live in this area and would like to join me that would be awesome. I need subjects to photograph. Currently there will only be one other person in my party, which will make it difficult to get any climber shots. We will be there the first or second week of August.

On another note I plan on merging this blog with my Studio Blog at CalebSimpson.com. The will both be run under the URL PushStop.com. I decided it was to much to keep up with multiple blogs and social networks. There will be an all new design coming to the site as well. Currently I am using a template. I hate it, but it works for now.

Posted by Caleb at 02:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I have actually had these images ready to post for about a week now, but I am just now getting around to making the actual post. Two weekends ago I shot a wonderful wedding at Lantana Lodge on Lake Ray Roberts. Despite the rain everybody had a great time. I hope you enjoy the images.

p.s. I plan on consolidating this blog along with pushstop.com in the near future. I will be running the blog under the name PushStop.com. The photoblog of Caleb Simpson, or something like that. Running two blogs along with numerous social networking sites is just to much for me to keep up with.

Posted by Caleb at 02:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)