Making my First Impression!

As I pen this blog entry, I am submitting my first photos to Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine. Devin and I had one day last week that we could shoot. It rained the whole week. To make a long story short, we had a couple hour break in the weather and we made the best of it. All of the shots have stormy looking clouds in the background. Not your norm for swimsuit magazines I imagine, but that's what we had to work with. Devin was an excellent model, and my wife Melinda really helped with all the equipment and worked hard at trying to keep it dry. This shot was not submitted to the magazine, it's one of those fun shots. If you want to see the whole shoot, check out Swimsuit Illustrated this summer, I hope you see my work in there a lot!

I Know Now That I am Truly a Wimp.

My wife and I went to the Rocketman Triathlon this morning so I could get some practice in on action shots. I was amazed at the amount of athletes there. All shapes and sizes, from all over the world. We were walking along the seawall and I saw a young woman missing her leg. She had a Wounded Warrior wetsuit on. I wanted to photograph her badly, but I didn't. I don't know why, it would have been the shot of the morning. Maybe I didn't want to bother her. Maybe I was afraid. I was completely in awe of this young woman. I imagine she lost her leg in combat.....for me,and my family, and for you and yours. Her leg was gone, all the way up to her hip. She gave that up for us. So here she is, getting ready to jump into the Indian River and swim, get out of the water, jump on a bicycle ride, and then run. I make excuses to get out of walking to the end of the road everyday. So anyhow I was a chicken and didn't photograph her, or even thank her for her service. I feel so bad about that.

An hour or so later, I saw this guy come up out of the water. No arms, swimming in a race with no arms. I quickly scurried over to where I could catch him on the bike part of the race and snapped this. I came away from the event with two new heros, and now I know I am truly a wimp.