Free at Last

I've been thinking about dropping my myspace and facebook accounts for a few months now. Finally last night I actually did it. I really don't see the point in it anymore. Not sure if there ever was a point to it. I guess I just had an Alexander Supertramp moment. The people that leave comments and messages are people that I see all the time. They can now tell me in person or call me on the phone. It feels liberating.

What's next? We'll see.

Halloween 2007

I finally uploaded the Halloween party pics. Once we started using the gun as a prop for funny photos we couldn't stop. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Rambo Trailer

Rambo's back to F someone's day up. I'd like to thank my parents for introducing me to Rambo as a young child. That seems crazy to me as I look back on it. Oh well, I'm living proof that watching violent movies and playing violent video games doesn't turn you into a killer.

The Boss

When I'm 58 I better be as cool as The Boss. Hell I want to be that cool now. I'm going to keep trying.

Rambo IV Poster

Here's the official John Rambo (Rambo IV) poster. I dig it and can't wait to see the movie. Insert your laughter here. I don't care.

Realizing Why I Take Photos

I've been burned out on many things lately. Blogging being one of them. That's a given. Photography is another which is not good since that's how I bring home the bacon. I don't even eat bacon. Why can't I bring home the Twinkies? Anyway I had to take photos of my brother and his fiance on Sunday over on the North Shore so I decided to bring along the Rolleiflex MiniDigi camera for my own enjoyment. I shot two frames, one was an accident, the other wasn't. I like both of them. I hope you like them too. I think I'll be shooting more with it in the future.

So I guess I'm a Writer Now

Check out Sunday's O-R for an article written by me. You better hold onto it cause it'll be my first and last. A Sunday D1 story fell through and I was asked to write a first person account of our 100 mile bike ride in Philly. Writers actually told me that it was good. It's heavily edited due to my poor knowledge of proper punctuation but the words are pretty much what I had written.

Pure Genius

Oktoberfest

I could have taken a cutesy photo of a kid eating a funnel cake at the Canonsburg Oktoberfest Saturday, but that just aint my style. So I decided to take this picture of an older gentleman playing an accordion as a younger teen walks by instead. I'm pretty sure that most of the Canonsburg area will think it's a crap photo, but hey, to each his own. This is actually one the best photos I've taken in a while (I think). It's rare for me to like a photo I take so I thought I'd share.

Let the Politicing Begin

On Wednesday Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani dropped by Sarris Candies in Canonsburg for a campaign stop. This is the first hopeful to make a stop in Washington County. These photo ops of candidates are always pretty crazy. They're trying their hardest to be the "normal guy" and us photojournalists and other media people are trying our hardest to get the best photo or sound bite. The pushing and shoving was kept to a minimum at this particular event which was good because inside of Sarris Candies is pretty tight. I'm always looking for the candidate to let down their guard and hopefully I'm in the right spot to capture that moment. Problem is they normally don't let their guard down. This isn't the photo that ran in the paper but it was my favorite. Something about his expression that makes this an interesting photo to me. Also you can see that hoard of press that was following him around while he was walking inside the store.

Been a While

I haven't really been motivated to post anything on here in a few weeks. Nothing interesting has happened to me lately. I did get a new frickn' sweet looking Bianchi bicycle. I had hoped to post photos of it on here but it already left me. The Bianchi left a note behind saying that it was too pretty to be seen with me. Who new bicycles could write? So now I'm riding my old Huffy from when I was 12. I take it off of some pretty sweet jumps though. The Bianchi couldn't jump.

Another hum-dinger of a story for yinz all. Yesterday in the McDonalds drive-thru I rear ended some dude in a truck. All I did was bump into his massive trailer hitch. He got out, looked to survey the damage my Cavalier did to his monster truck, then got back into Gravedigger, received his McGriddle sandwich and was on his way. It happened about 24 hours ago and I have yet to walk around the front of my car to see if I scratched it.

Livestrong Challenge

Me and GW headed to Philadelphia over the weekend to ride in the Lance Armstrong Foundation's Livestrong Challenge. The mileage options for cycling were 10, 40, 70 or 100 miles. Months ago when I asked G if he wanted to do this with me he said only if we rode the 100 mile course. So I signed us up for the century ride. We did it and it was an awesome experience. Being cheered by the people standing along side the roads had to be the highlight for me. Since I can't figure out this blogger crap, here's a link to the photos from our trip.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gmtarr/sets/72157601690227479/

Art School Pays Off

When I first started this blog I thought I'd talk about how things go down behind the scenes at work. I haven't done too much of that yet. So here goes something along those lines.

My boss came to me and said that we needed a photo of the editor, Liz Rogers, for the new Living in Washington magazine. They wanted something more than a head shot, which we used for the first 3 issues. I don't consider myself a portrait photographer but I had quite a few classes in that subject at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I first attempted to shoot some photos of her outside with a pleasant yet simple background. I failed quite misreably. The more I gave it thought, the more I realized how stupid a photo of her would look with a summery scene behind her in an issue realesed in the middle of winter. The next idea was to somehow shoot the photo in the office. That's when my brain turned on and I came up with the idea to use this small, glass block privacy room as a background. I went to Michael's and bought some materials to construct a gel filter to put over the studio light that I placed in the room shining out. I used a regular flash and a fill card to light her. Anyway, the photo turned out better than I thought it would. Here's an exclusive sneak peak look at the photo.

The Driver

While getting that rabbit photo off of the card I ran across this picture of my dad driving us to Indiana and I kinda liked it, so here it is for your viewing pleasure.

The Bunny Ranch

For the second time in a matter of months a rabbit has made a nest and then had babies in my lawn. The first time was in the front yard and sadly some of the bunnies didn't make it. Now I found a new nest in my fenced in back yard, which is some added safety for the rabbits. Here's a photo of two of them.

T Minus Five Days

Five days to the Larry Armstrong Challenge in Philly. I've been riding pain free for months but it figures that with under a week to go my left knee has some pain issues. Whatever, I'll survive. It's a bit sick of me to complain about a slight pain in my knee days away from riding for a foundation that helps people with cancer. I don't even know the begining of what it's actually like to suffer.

New Travis Video

These guys put out the best videos. This one makes me want to water slide.

Bring It On

55 miles in the pouring rain and wind.

Goodbye to Myspace?

It's crossed my mind to drop my myspace account a few times in the past but yesterday that thought popped into my head again and I'm seriously considering it this time. I'll be 30 in December, and what 30 year-old should be on myspace? Not this one. I rarely use it to keep in touch with friends that have moved out of the area. I rarely use it period. So sometime before December 16, 2007 I'll be signing off of myspace for good.

One of My Favorite Videos

This is one of my favorite music videos of all time.

Airport Video

This is kind of an old video that Toby shot. It may be new to some of you so it's worth posting. It's basically G Dub and I acting like fools at the Pittsburgh Airport.

Don't Cry Over Spilt Milkshake

I was shooting pictures of award winning animals at the 2007 Wash Angeles County Fair earlier today. We scheduled for supreme champs to meet us in the show arena between 3:00 and 5:30. At that time in the arena the judging of the goats was going on with all kinds of little kids struggling to manage their animals. That's the set up, are you still with me, it's going to get good real soon. Our first supreme champ arrives in the shape of a large beef cattle setting the parents into a tizzy. "Hey don't bring that in here now!" "C'mon there's all kind of little kids around," people were saying. A grandmother had to push a young child with a soupy milkshake in a stroller out of the way, causing the shake to spill onto the kid. "See what you've done now," the gramdmother said to me. Then the "superintendent" of the goat show came up to me and said that if any child or animal was injured in the photo taking process I'd be personally responsible. Like I tell anyone who says that I have the perfect job. No job is perfect.

No animals or small children were injured during the posting of this blog.

Highland Park Race

The good: Four members of the Trek of Pittsburgh cycling club team raced on Tuesday at the Highland Park oval track. GW, Steve 3PO, Harry and a guy named Perry, who I don't know. The guys raced really well and placed high in the standings. Steve won the final sprint to take the victory with ease over the field. GW finished in 8th place with Harry close behind in 9th. So that was all very positive.

The not so good: I figured I'd go shoot some pictures of the guys racing because I'm such a nice guy. Also it gave me an excuse not to race myself. I used an old, junky 300mm f4 lens and the lighting was pure crap when the mens race started. Needless to say I am pretty dissappointed with my photos.

Anyway I promised I'd post them, so here they are. Just click on the Flickr pics link on the right side of the page.

Peace

Appreciate Life

I always hate having to cover fatal accidents or fires. Monday morning I was told to head towards Burgettstown for a car accident where we knew someone had passed away. It is the absolute worst part of my job. If there is a silver lining to any of it then it has to be the lesson that life should be appreciated because you never know what's going to happen. We're not owed or guaranteed a certain number of years here. Sorry for the downer post but I just had to get that off my chest.

Mountain Biking is Hard

Let me say right off the bat that I've never been naturally gifted at anything. I'm not complaining though. It's actually one of the things I'm most proud of about myself. Anything that I have ever done or accomplished was due to hard work, not pure luck or extreme talent. So I can now add mountain biking to the list of things that I will have to bust my butt to try and learn. I had totally underestimated it. I thought we'd go into the woods with our bikes and ride dirt trails for a few hours. I hadn't even thought about having to attempt to ride a bike over logs and big, knoby rocks. Without going into much detail I was totally man-handled by the trails at Hartwood Acres. I have the scraps, bumps and massive bruises to prove it. Anyway, I bet in the future I will enjoy it. A big shout out and thanks to those extremely patient people that witnessed this historic event. From left, Harry, Tanya, Casey, GW, Joel, Joel's brother Nathan (I think) and myself.

Oh yeah, the pink shorts. GW wore them on a road ride and I thought we'd try a new tradition of someone having to ride in the pink shorts. Kind of like our own little maillot jaune.

Official Announcement

Today I offcially announce my retirement from Pittsburgh Steelers photography. For the first time in seven seasons I will not be trolling the sidelines at Heinz Field hoping to get "that" shot that tells the story of the game. The decision was made sometime last year when that part of my job became no longer fun. It became more frustrating and more of a hastle than anything else. With numerous NFL players being arrested and charged with various crimes my decision to end my pro football photo career was made even easier. I also want to devote more time to my true passion of cycling. Most people in the Greater Pittsburgh area would kill for these passes and here they are in my name and I want nothing to do with them. In conslusion I would like to thank my many fans, The Observer-Reporter, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL for the opportunity, the many memories and some cool photos. I won't miss you in late December with the temperatures barely reaching the teens.

That's the Biz

Here's a little story of how the news business works. Actually the feature photography side of news. We're doing a story on band camps for our new Living in Washington County magazine. I was assigned to go to Ringgold High School, hang out and shoot their marching band practice. The only picture that I liked out of the nearly 300 frames was this picture of a kid laying in the parking lot, where the band was practicing during a water break. I didn't think we would use it in the magazine because it doesn't illustrate the story and I didn't think we'd use it for news since we were committed to the magazine article but we were so desperate for art for tomorrow's paper we had to use it.

Moral of the story. Never eat a bad burito before riding in a race.

Frickn' Potter

So I bought these pretty sweet glasses about a month ago off the interwebs. The problem is every time I wear them around my mom or sister they say I look like Harry Potter. So I've stopped wearing them. I used to wear wire rimmed "granny" glasses long before Harry Potter was ever even dreamnt up. Problem is, I've never been in a movie so I didn't make them famous. Dear ole Harry didn't make them famous either so screw him, man. There was a man who just happened to start the greatest rock band ever. That's right...Fred Menudo and that band was, well...Menudo. That's actually not right, it was John Lennon. Maybe once I grow my hair a bit they will say "Hey you look like that Ringo Starr guy."

Crappy Weather = No Cycling

Since the weather was poopy all day I rode a total of zero miles. That's not good considering that in 21 days I'll be riding 100 miles. I wanted to get in at least 60 miles today. Oh well there's always tomorrow's group ride at Trek of Pittsburgh, which is good for at least 30 miles. I realize this post is not worthy of a post but it's the first one and it's more or less a test. Hopefully I will have something deep and meaningful to post real soon so Ya'll come back now ya hear.