Photos: Run For Your Lives Zombie 5k Boston.
I shot my second Run For Your Lives Zombie 5k Race last weekend. Now that I’m in Boston, I was able to shoot the New England installment of the race, which was at Amesbury Sports Park in Amesbury, Massachusetts.
I didn’t think it was possible, but the scene at this race was even more absurd and absolutely ridiculous than it was at the Baltimore race. You can see some of my shots from that race here.
I’m amazed at how much people love to take on the zombie persona, and at how well some of them do it. I don’t think I’d ever volunteer to get covered in fake blood and sit in the woods screaming at people for the entire day, but clearly there’s some appeal there that I’m missing out on.
Nevertheless, I was highly entertained all day, and hundreds of zombies and 10,000 racers make for some good photography. Take a look at this photo gallery on the Run For Your Lives Facebook page to see my whole take from the day. It’s got over 1,000 “likes” and hundreds of comments from zombies and runners alike.
Here were some that I enjoyed. As always, click to enlarge for the full effect. I’m still thinking about it, but the first photo here might have quickly become one of my all-time favorites.
*Some of my photographs from the race were published in the Capital Business section of The Washington Post on Monday, May 14, 2012. Click the link here to view the article and photographs!”
Artwork Photo Shoot: Maryland Institute College of Art
I’ve been confined to the house and bedridden for the past five days, after I came down with a horrible sickness that came out of nowhere. It was miserable. Heavy cough, headache, chills, hot flashes, muscle soreness, and fatigue rendered me absolutely useless save watching “Pulp Fiction” and hours of CNN. I didn’t go to the doctor’s office, but based on my extensive medical knowledge (not), I’m diagnosing it as the flu. It was easily the sickest I’ve ever been in my life.
Luckily that’s over, and now that I’m back to feeling close to 100 percent, I’m catching up on all my work from the past week.
Last weekend, I was called in to do an artwork photo shoot for some of the Seniors at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. I consider myself more of a journalist than an artist, but shooting artwork is certainly a good skill to develop, so I was grateful for the opportunity.
Documenting the portfolios of nearly twenty students made for a long, tiresome day, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The image you see above is a photograph of one in a series of works that were certainly the most challenging to shoot out of all the work from the day day, but in my opinion also among the most visually stimulating.
It’s made with gold leaf, which I learned is quite difficult to do justice to in a photograph. We were able to get it right, though, after a bit of tinkering. The piece is by Jennifer Tam. To view more of her work, please visit jenjotam.com.
Ma, Weiss perform recital on violin and piano.
The start of 2012 has been very busy for me, so it’s been awhile since I’ve been on the blog. I haven’t been shooting as much as I’d like of late, as I’ve been preoccupied settling all the details for my upcoming move to Boston (more to come soon).
That’s why it felt great to shoot this concert with Violinist Yeou-Cheng Ma and Pianist Lisa Weiss (read: mom) two nights ago. This isn’t a prize winner here, but I felt the need to post and get the blog back up and running.
During lockout, NBA players kick off Under Armour tour in Baltimore.
I shot the kick off event for Under Armour‘s “Are You From Here?” tour yesterday at the St. Frances Academy school in downtown Baltimore. The tour is designed to promote NBA players’ engagement with the community while the lockout prevents them from playing.
On the tour are Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks, Derrick Williams, the #2 overall NBA Draft pick of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Kemba Walker, the #9 overall 2011 NBA Draft pick of the Charlotte Bobcats, and Grievis Vasquez, former University of Maryland star and current Memphis Grizzlies point guard.
I’ve shot basketball before, but I’ve never seen guys move like these NBA players can. Their movements are ridiculously quick, even in a pick-up exhibition game like this one. Their athleticism is freaky.
This was a fun event which I enjoyed shooting, despite the horrible lighting in the school’s gym. It made shooting action really tough, so I focused more on the candid moments like this one.
Photos: Run For Your Lives Zombie 5K Baltimore
I was hired as the photographer for the first ever “Run For Your Lives Zombie 5K” race, which was held in Darlington, Maryland last Saturday. This was just the first of a series of several to occur throughout the country this year and next, so I was absolutely surprised to see that this drew attention from national media outlets, as well as over 10,000 runners and volunteers dressed like zombies. Here is the link to the website I shot for, which gives a better explanation of what the race is all about.
As a Goucher graduate, I’ve taken pictures of zombies plenty of times, but even after shooting this event, I still don’t understand the obsession people have with the concept of zombies chasing humans. It just doesn’t get me going whatsoever, but it does make for very entertaining, compelling pictures.
I shot a ton of pictures. I guess that will happen when you’re running around in the woods and trodding through mud up to your ankles while taking pictures of the same thing over and over again for 14 hours straight…
Regardless, I’m really happy with my pictures from the day, which will make good additions to the portfolio. This is a sample of some of my favorites.
If you’d like, click each image to see them full screen. They look better that way.
Earthquake trembles warehouse at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
Here’s my account of the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that was just felt up and down the East Coast:
I was sitting at my desk in the Warehouse at Oriole Park at Camden Yards scanning photographs from the 1960’s of former Orioles’ player Dick Brown, when we felt some shaking coming from upstairs. We work in a warehouse, so this type of noise is commonplace. The noise quickly got louder and louder, though, until the entire building was shaking violently. It was at that point when I heard the receptionist scream “Everybody out!” and we knew that was the cue to go.
Everyone evacuated quickly and calmly, and we were out of the building within seconds. As we waited outside, nearly everyone was on their smartphones, tweeting, texting, and calling as word quickly spread that there were reports of the tremors as far north as Toronto.
It was incredible to see how rapidly the Twitter world exploded! Within seconds there were reports coming in from all over the world. Behold, the power of social media.
Feel free to share your experiences here if you’d like.
Baseball, Baltimore, and a beautiful August day.
Today I had to walk around the ballpark to shoot photographs of some of the various party venues for publication on the Orioles’ ticketing website.
It was pretty mundane work until I got to the press box. I stepped outside to find an absolutely incredible Monday afternoon. Perfect temperature. Perfect breeze. Perfect sky.
So, as I made my rounds, I stopped to take some shots of the stadium and the cityscape from different areas. These are a few from what turned out to be a nice series of images. For some reason, through all these years of coming to games here, I never stopped and actually observed the views the stadium offers. Some of them are incredible, especially on a day like today.
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Baltimore Night Out Against Crime.
I’ve had a lot on my mind over the past few days. It’s been one of those weeks where I’ve found myself lying awake at night replaying scenarios over and over again in my mind and thinking about far too many things.
What I love about journalism, or in my case, photojournalism, is that it takes you away from yourself and allows for a look into the lives of others, even if it does so only momentarily.
That’s what I felt yesterday evening as I shot a community picnic for Baltimore’s International Rescue Committee office. I found myself amidst over 40 asylees and refugees – now Baltimore residents – from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Bhutan, the Republic of the Congo, Iraq and other countries as they interacted, danced, and ate with others from Baltimore.
I had lots of fun shooting, and, as it has done so many times before, it took my mind away from my own world for a bit. This little guy took a liking to me and my camera, and this photograph makes me happy.
Mark McGwire.
Authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams famously identify Major League Baseball as a “Game of Shadows.”
Here’s Mark McGwire, former baseball hero turned center of a steroids frenzy. He’s back in baseball as the Cardinals’ batting coach.
To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t help but feel for him. I know absolutely nothing about his state of mind, so perhaps that’s an unfair statement coming from a 21 year old photographer seeing him for the first time. But from what I observed, he seems to consciously remain “in the shadows,” as invisible as possible throughout games. He certainly kept out of the way of cameras. His face looked older, his hair grayer.
Watching him converse with his hitters as they belted home run after home run at Camden Yards all series just made me think. When you see someone in person, particularly someone involved in controversy, it’s not as easy to be so relentlessly unforgiving as we tend to be, say, when we watch a report on ESPN or listen to an interview. The human quality goes unaccounted for in our media world.
I don’t know a thing about any of these players, what they do or don’t do, or what kind of people they are. But simply seeing that they are, in fact, living, breathing human beings rather than objects on our TV screen is pretty powerful in and of itself.