I had the pleasure of meeting Martin Payton when he visited Pensacola State College's Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts to discuss his Broken Time: Sculpture collection which is currently on display.  His artistic process was very insightful and interesting, especially on learning that he does not physically manipulate any of the metal pieces, but instead finds them as is and then envisions their potential as pieces of art.  I think we were all surprised when he started touching pieces that were meant to be touched in order to create motion in the pieces. 

WTF?  Right?  This is my first official linoleum print from my Printmaking I class at Pensacola State College.  It's my hand with unicorn finger puppets shooting the bird.  And instead of writing "What The Fuck", I decided to give it a unicorn spin and say "What The Neigh".  Ultimately it was an o mage to a couple of guys I used to work with, Zac and Chris.

I see the new Pensacola Bay Bridge construction at least four days a week, two to four times a day and I love it.  It is amazing to see the construction so close as it is happening, especially since most of it is happening on the water with barges, cranes on barges, tug boats, the land based construction vehicles, and of course the actual workers.

Since there's really not any good vantage points to stop and snap a few pictures, other than risking your life and walking down the current bridge with all of the crazy traffic (which would also probably attract the attention of the police...), I decided to implement a technique I used in my Photo I class at Pensacola State College (thanks Jim and Chris). 

The idea was to set the cameras aperture and manual focus and then hold the camera at window level while driving and snap away, but I quickly realized how unsafe that would be.  So I figured out a way to set up my tripod on the passenger side and connected my remote release, then I crossed my fingers and snapped away as I drove down the east bound lane closest to the construction.  I am very pleased with the results of two days of shooting this way and will probably continue this project until construction is complete. 

Of course I converted the images to black and white as that is my preferred color pallet for fine art photographs.  The images appear to be panoramic as I had to crop out the railing from the current bridge and construction barricades.

Pensacola State College's Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts is currently hosting the Broken Time: Sculpture collection by Martin Payton.  The gallery has set up drawing stations in the hopes of encouraging visitors to interact with the sculptures by drawing the lines and curves they see in the sculptures.  There are also Listening, sculpting and feeling stations set up for an interactive and hands on experience.  The collection is on loan from the Louisiana State University Museum of Art.

I took the opportunity to draw the "Chucho", Payton's interpretation of the "Chi Wara", an antelope figure that represents the spirit that taught humans agriculture.

Just a shout-out to my 2-D Design class at Pensacola State College Visual Art Department.  Here is our completed final project of a Chuck Close inspired George Washington Carver portrait.

One down, one to go. 

Just received my Associate in  Arts degree from Pensacola State College with Magna Cum Laude and Phi Theta Kappa honors attached. 

I am now working towards a Bachelor of Applied Science in Business and Management with a concentration in Graphics Design Management.

The Gulf Breeze Zoo is currently hosting its annual Wild Shots Photo Contest until 31 Aug 2018.

Both my daughter Nicole and I have entered photos into the "Adult" and "Cell Phone" categories.  Only 5 photos were allowed per category.

Decided to visit the U.S.S. Alabama (BB-60), the "Mighty A" and the U.S.S. Drum (SS-228), in Mobile, Alabama.  Normally I would have preferred to use my Nikkor 14mm-24mm lens on my Nikon D800E at this type of location, but decided to use my Nikkor 50mm instead.  The use of the 50mm forced me to get closer and more detailed shots versus the typical tourist shots of the ships exterior and interior.  I wanted to capture details that would normally be overlooked and give them a 1940's-1950's era feel to them, as well as highlighting the beauty of the ships industrial elements.  I accomplished this through the use of a smaller depth of field, most shots were around f2.8, as well as no flash gave me the shallow depth of field and effect I was looking for, especially after post-processing the photos into black and white.  I am fairly pleased with the results and want to make another trip to capture more using this process.

The Luna Fine Art Gallery has selected 14 of my New Orleans images to be displayed in the Mercantile Hotel.  I can not wait to visit the hotel once all of the artwork has been installed!  The Luna Gallery will also be publishing a coffee table book featuring the artwork selected from all the participating photographers.  More information to follow concerning the book.  Click on link below to see the images selected along with dimensions they will be printed.