A Reminder: LomiMonk has moved to a new site address

Hi all,

It’s been about 6 months or so since I moved this blog over to a self-hosted site at www.lomimonk.com and I wanted to be sure everyone, especially those of you that have subscribed to this blog via e-mail delivery and through wordpress.com knew about this.

I’ve updated the new site with many more blog posts (I’m trying to keep to at least 2 per week), some galleries of images for sale through my printing partner Fotomoto (I’ve tested them out and they do really nice work. I especially enjoy seeing my images on greeting cards-great stuff!), some recommended reading for photographers and creative people, and I have some fun stuff planned for the future.

I have also updated my “subscribe” options over at the new site but your email subscription was not carried over during the move. Seeing as I don’t want to force anyone to be subscribed against their will, I invite you to come on over to the new home and subscribe through the handy subscription option in the right sidebar.

Also included in the new site are links to photographers and services that I really enjoy or use on a regular basis.

So, I would love to see you over at my new home. It has been a labor of love moving everything over and setting up house. It is an ongoing process and I would love your feedback on how it looks and works. Seeing as you have been with me from the beginning of this blog/website journey and been witnessing my growth and growing pains, your input is especially valuable to me.

Once again, the new address is www.lomimonk.com

Keep creating!

Brian [LomiMonk]

I’m Moving to a New Home!!

I got inspired!!  OK, perhaps not in the traditionally photographic way of pressing the shutter release button and chimping at my LCD screen, but inspired nonetheless.

I’ve moaned at times that I want greater creative control over how my images are presented and I’ve thought too that I would like greater creative control over all aspects of my presentation in web-dom.  With that in mind, and after lots of navel-gazing,  I’ve decided to self-host my blog (!)

Yikes.

Not just my blog but my entire web presence!  Sooooo…..

We’re moving!!  Not far.  Just over to www.lomimonk.com.

The site should look nearly identical with some extra wiz-bang features like recommended readings, the option to buy prints of my photographs, and galleries (coming soon!!  I’m still learning all this stuff!)

So head on over to the new home of LomiMonk Photography, check it out, and let me know what you think.  I would love your feedback!

~Brian

PS-I’ve been frustrated that when I moved my blog over to the new address the permalink for the blog isn’t what I would like.  So, for now, feel free to bookmark the home page.  I hope to have the issue resolved soon.  It has taken me a lot of work to get this new home “livable” but there are always repairs to be made.  Once the blog “Chronicles” link becomes www.lomimonk.com/blog it will be fine to subscribe to the RSS feed.  Oh, and if anyone out there knows WordPress and can help me with this I would just love it!

Inspiration Monday: Alfie Goodrich

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

This is the 15th in my series of inspirational people or things that inspire me to continue pursuing my passion at photography and sometimes I just like a good image, you know?  I’ve written in the past about people whose process inspires me; some whose life’s work inspires me; some whose work ethic and desire to include and teach others inspires me.  I don’t know if this week’s pick falls in any of those categories but for me he just makes good pictures that I like to look at.   This week’s pick is photographer Alfie Goodrich.

Alfie is an English photographer based in Tokyo who runs a photoblog that was a finalist in the Best Asian/Oceanian photoblog competition.  I like Alfie’s minimalistic style where he simply presents his images against a black background.  Especially attractive are the mostly Japanese themes in his photography where Alfie tends to focus on street photography in Tokyo.  Armed with a loaned medium format camera and a lens that has an aperture of f1.2 he gets some sweet, sweet bokeh in his images.  They are just fun and beautiful to look at.

Check out his blog at http://blog.alfiegoodrich.com for a neat journey through Japan as viewed through a westerner’s eyes.  I find it to be a visual treat that keeps me interesting in creating images and sure hope you do too.

I Shoot Cliched Images

I do. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just might be the pathway, the portal, to shooting more interesting, compelling, and non-cliche images.

I remember being a senior in college and visiting the career placement office in the hopes of finding my destiny-a professional job. While there I and other classmates were told that job offers came in for students at a ratio of 1 job offer per 20 applications submitted.  What is interesting about ratios is that the ratio simply holds over time; upon acceptance of a job, the student will have submitted 20 applications for each offer.  That meant we might have to submit 40 applications before receiving 2 offers, or 60 applications before receiving 3.  The placement officer encouraged us to not take rejection letters personally and instead to collect them thereby marking our steps toward our job.

I took the advice to heart and collected my rejection letters.  If the ratio held true, as he promised, I would eventually receive a job-I just needed to submit enough applications.  So I collected each rejection as a badge of honor and used them to wallpaper my room, each one getting me one step closer to my goal.

The same can be said of cliched photographs.  I once heard somewhere that we all have 10,000 cliched images in us that we need to get out before we really begin to find our voice with the camera.  We all shoot our feet at some point; we all take self portraits in the mirror; we all take pictures of our coffee cups; and the flowers we bought and put in a vase; and the empty road in the middle of nowhere; and the moon; and the sunset.  It’s not that they’re bad images, per se.  They’re not.  You like them.  You took them.  Heck, we all took them at some point.  So enjoy them.  The only problem is that nearly everyone takes those images, so they’ve become cliche.  And to break out of cliche images as a photographer is challenging, takes hard work and discipline, and endurance!  We have to get those shots out of our system.  Our soul, so to speak, has to get used to speaking through our photographic medium and perhaps those cliched images are the vocabulary lessons.  Eventually the soul will catch on and amazing stuff will come out.

So don’t despair if you continue to shoot cliches, so-called snapshots.  We all do!  It just means we are one step closer to breaking through to using that camera in really creative ways and speaking in a really unique and personal voice.  Instead, join me in wallpapering your room with them (well, you wallpaper your room and I’ll wallpaper mine…), showing them off like badges of honor; one step closer.  And unlike my college dorm room, it will be pretty cool to look at.

Mas Dia de los Muertos: Muertos y Marigolds

I received a good response to my previous post on Monday about the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos/ Muertos y Marigolds) Parade that took place on Sunday 11/7/2010 in the South Valley of Albuquerque and so I thought I might share some more images from that fun evening.  I hope you enjoy them.

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

Inspiration Monday: out shooting with friends! El Dia De Los Muertos (Muertos y Marigolds)

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

This is the 14th in my series of posts about people or things that inspire me to pursue my art.  So far I have posted mostly about individual people who’ve influenced me and motivated me to pursue this crazy passion of photography.  Today I had the marvelous fortune to join with old and new friends for a little photo-safary in the South Valley of Albuquerque for the annual Dia de los Muertos “Muertos y Marigolds” Parade.  Apparently in olden days marygolds, due to their strong and pleasing scent, were used to cover the smell of the dead being laid out for viewings and so they have been incorporated into the day of the dead celebrations.

This evening a gaggle of friends and acquaintances put on our best paparazzi attire and descended on the dead parade.  Having shot this event once before I had an idea of what to expect: rapidly moving subjects, changing and dappled light, and photo-ops both in front and behind me most of the time.  So I went armed with two cameras, my flash set to fill, and an idea of what I wanted to create.  On first perusal of my results I’m not sure I achieved what I wanted, but I did get more shots that I liked this time.  I hope you like them.  It was great fun shooting and completely inspiring to see all the great work coming out of the evening.  Thanks guys!!

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

(c) 2010 Brian E. Miller Photography

This last image is more along the lines of what I was intending to create-ghoulish images that bring to mind old scary movies and the darker side of this festival.  I had fun trying to get the right feel with this participant but she made me work for it.  I’m thinking of posting the series I’ve made of her in a day or two, so stay tuned!

Inspiration Monday: Revisiting the Balloon Fiesta

A few weeks ago my Inspiration Monday post was about the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and in my rush to post I neglected to process more than one image.  Today, I thought I would post some of the images from the day I visited the field with my family.  I am not terribly happy with what I managed to accomplish photographically this year but upon review there a few that I like.  The upside, however, is that I am motivated by what I remember of the day and by the images many of my friends managed to create from this year’s Fiesta.  I hope you enjoy these few images: