It’s 9:56pm in Paris and I am standing at the Trocadero, the plaza opposite the Eiffel tower. We just got here after a long walk from the Arc de Triomphe to photograph the twinkling of the lights on the tower

A great exercise as a photographer is dialing your camera to black and white and learning to see shades of light rather than color. It opens your eye to see things differently and shoot on what I call the margins of light rather than just the proper exposure. On my last pass through Paris I did just that. And in turn came away with different photos than I would usually shoot. Try it next time you go out and shoot.

Life underground in Paris

Beautiful people fill the country sides of both Honduras and El Salvador. Each one having their own story.

It’s midnight and you can’t sleep because your so confused on where you want to go in life. There are a couple of doors opening but which is the right one to walk through? If you’ve ever felt this way your not alone. Many of the greatest figures in history have also stood

On the seventh day he rested from all his work.

I have the privilege of traveling with one of the best photo journalist in the world. Chuck Bigger has been shooting for over 30 years and has been to over 50 countries photographing Children, wars, and crisis’s. But that’s not all he’s done.

Collaboration is my word for 2012. To collaborate simply means working together to achieve a goal. To be honest this past year I felt a bit like I was on an

Part of keeping that creative juice flowing is trying different things. Today I was inspired at the foam photo museum by Stanley Greene who shot a lot of war images on Kodak tri-x B+W film. Some of his images are so captivating while others are extremely hard to look at. The film he used was once one of the most popular films used by photojournalists and

Just a personal project to share a bit of what I’m thankful for.

Music by: Moby, The Cinematic Orchestra, and Mumford &
Sons

Yestweday we spent the day with some very young mothers who are reaising their children in a very dangerous neighborhood. We met a 16 year old mother who had lost 5 family members to violence.

This morning began with a 4:45am wakeup call grabbing gear and heading to begin filming. We were covering an amazing story of a Compassion sponsored College student. She gets up every Sunday morning to sell food in the market. It’s a pretty interesting process

We’re getting some amazing footage here in Bangladesh. One thing we notice is how many different forms of transit they have to get around. From rickshaws to energy bikes and human power to gas powered

After spending the last 2 days hustling from airport to airport and running from terminal to terminal we finally landed in Honk Kong for a couple of hours to walk off some jet lag.

I’m pretty tired this morning as we spent the last 2 mornings getting up at 3:30am to go fishing with a Compassion child who has an amazing story. I haven’t been this tired since late nights in college.

I’ve been shooting with the Panasonic AF100 a lot lately and really missed running around with just the Canon 5d and a video mic capturing what’s ever happens. So on our layover in Singapore I decided to just take the 5d and the Zeiss 50mm 1.4.

We will see how this system actually works in the field but I really think it is going to be a huge help.

I had the pleasure of spending the day photographing my new friend Priscilla Shirer. Seriously her and her husband Jerry are 2 of the coolest people I know.

Three weeks ago I was in the Dominican cover a story of a 20 year old that has been in the Compassion program for 18 years. He is a kid that had little hope of reaching his dreams of becoming a doctor because of the poverty

I believe that the greatest tool we have as filmmakers and photographer is our own 2 feet. This is also a big reason I choose not to use tripods in the field and prefer a steady handheld approach. I think we can often become lazy and get use to setting up the tripod and zooming from that angle. There are so many great angles that if we settle with one we are limiting ourselves in the edit room.

I didn’t want to waste anytime in Colorado without going skiing. Saturday some of my good friends came down from Texas and we hit up Eldora mountain for a half day of Skiing. Seriously an amazing day and it was so great

unday morning at 4:30 am Sarah and I embarked on our journey to Co Springs as I begin work with Compassion International. If you haven’t heard of Compassion they are an amazing Non-Profit organization. I will blog about my position there and how they are an Advocate for children around the world releasing children from Poverty in Jesus Name. As I needed my car in Colorado Sarah and I needed to take a road trip. What a road trip it was and I was able to capture some great shots along the way. The very last shot The Sarah is literally ripping the camera out of my hand telling me to focus and drive. It was a great trip and we are planning on making a 3 day journey out of it in April as we bring her car up. Can’t wait to be able to capture more of the small towns and people there.

So it is no question that I love photographs, but even more than that I love telling stories through images. One of my favorite ways to do that is through my own stories with the Iphone. I love the ease of capturing the moment and the fact that I always have my phone with me. I love my DSLR’s and the pictures they capture are amazing. But they are heaving and often heavy and I don’t want to carry

I was polishing up my portfolio to show here in Colorado Springs and I determined this is my favorite shot of 2010.

Daystar Television hired me in to shoot and edit this piece on Gainesville state. A great story of communities coming together to cheer on boys that do not have a lot of hope.

I had the opportunity to photograph Josh Read founder of FTL Media.

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to hang out with great Artist and learn a little bit about them. Michael Castro was no different and such a blessing to work with.

I had the privilege to shot a music video and interview with Nichole Nordeman along with David Watson of Fourthwatch productions.

TEXAS

Just a little test of the new fader filter from lightcraft. I used the 58mm with my Zeiss 50mm 1.4 to see just how crazy I could go. I don’t shoot at 1.4 very often due to the softness, but I was impressed that I could at 2:30 pm. I did notice a loss of quality on the darker end of the filter. Little tricking this little guy, but if you get it just right it makes the world of difference. The garden shots were captured from 2:30-3:30pm and the lake around 4:00pm.

Meet Michael. He is a really nice guy and I had the privilege of meeting him. He was a pretty hungry guy so I grabbed some food and listened to his stories. Michael has lived here for 2 years and made a nice place under the bridge.

Every night they have to crawl through the holes into the room and get some sleep for the night.

Life gets tough sometimes, but do you have a place to call home that has central a/c and a comfy bed to climb into at night? Probably so and isn’t it nice to be able to make the temperature whatever you like. In the winter it’s cold outside so you turn the heater to just the right temperature and in the summer

I’m pretty excited about the new Panasonic AG-AF100 coming out. It’s going to give us back some of the things we have missed using DSLR’s: ND filter wheel, XLR inputs, zebras, headphone jack, the list goes on and on. It still has a smaller 4/3 sensor which is the same size as the 7d, t2i and 60d. But it may perform better in the following area’s: low light, moire, aliasing and rolling shutter.

This is Reunion bridge in Dallas. One of the great places to watch the sunrise or sunset over the Dallas Skyline. Back when the Mavericks played at Reunion arena this bridge was filled with foot traffic of people crossing over the bridge to watch the game. Now it is fairly quiet with only a few cars passing over the highway into downtown.

I get this question a lot from people just starting out.  So here it is.  I just grabbed whatever camera I could find and started filming things that were happening.  From family trips to highlight video’s for my church and behind the scenes video’s of backpacking trips.  There wasn’t really a method in the early days just to try to find an interesting story that people would want to follow.  I decided to dig up one of the first films I made.  About 5 years ago I grabbed my wife’s 3 mp still camera that had a video function and headed into the woods for 3 days.  No Zeiss lenses, no dolly, and no lighting.  Just a small camera and a story. Over the years I have upgraded my gear and learned new techniques but the structure remains the same.  Find a story that is engaging and bring it to life.  So here it is one of the first film JAFilm ever produced.  It’s crazy to look back and see where you started.  Enjoy

Cutest baby ever

This past weekend I decided to rent a Zacuto Target shooter. I love my red rock rig but many times it is to big and brings to much attention. I even had an officer in NYC call it an apparatus. So in the attempt to be a little more undercover I wanted to try out a zacuto rig. I know a lot of people that use mono pods but I like for the camera to almost be apart of me and feel the pole gets in the way of that

I have decided to start taking pictures in a 2:1 ratio which is also the same ration that most films are shot in. I’m learning to tell a story with every frame. Be on the Lookout for my Cinematic prints to be for sale very soon Thanks for taking this amazing journey with me and hopefully we all see the world a little different. ©JAFilm 2010

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to hang out with great artist and hear their stories. Chris Hawkes song Finally Free comes from a major turning point in his life. Chris was in a tough place in life and wasn’t sure how to get out of it