Jeremy's Blog

It’s important to have something to live for.

jkim6 — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:36:36 +0000

I mentioned a few years ago in a conversation with a friend of mine that the reason Joe Paterno hasn’t retired yet is because he’s afraid of the curse of Bear Bryant, who died four weeks after coaching his last game. Looks like my unfortunate prediction is coming true. I honestly believe that he could have been immortal had he been allowed to coach forever because coaching football was his life, but circumstances and events did not unfold that way. For many of these legendary coaches who have spent so much of their lives recruiting, mentoring, teaching and spending time with their athletes, there is not much to life outside of football or basketball or whatever it is they coach.

On the flipside is a guy like Gary Williams who I believed would die on the sidelines while coaching a game. His first marriage ended primarily because his life was basketball, and with his personality and love for the game and his student-athletes, I didn’t see a reason for him to ever retire. However, having remarried in April 2011, and with grandchildren to spend time with, he was able to walk away from the game while he still had something to live for.

Ultimately we choose for ourselves, through the decisions we make, what we are living for, be it money, fame, security, God, or football, but in the end we have only one life to live. What are you living for today, and can that be taken from you?

Switch to Nikon?

jkim6 — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:38:14 +0000

Yes, I’m thinking about it. I’m intrigued by the D700, and I could switch over without really downgrading. I haven’t really researched it much, and the idea is just in it’s infancy, but it is a terribly tempting idea. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side, but I feel like the D700 is really the body I want. The best thing to do is to probably wait it out and see what happens in terms of D800/5D MK III, but waiting for Canon or Nikon to release a new body is usually a pointless practice because you never know when it’s coming out. We’ll see if I end up doing anything about it.

Light Modifiers

jkim6 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:41:57 +0000

I’ve been looking into some new (to me) light modifiers, and it just keeps leading me towards studio strobes. I like the flexibility and portability of hotshoe flashes, but at a certain point, I’m gonna need the power and adaptability to various light modifiers that you can only get from studio strobes. Because I’m still probably going to want to be able to carry them on location, I’m leaning towards Alienbees and a Vagabond set. I guess I need to schedule some more shoots and start saving up my pennies.

Are there any hobbies that don’t make you spend all your money?

To do:

jkim6 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:25:08 +0000

Buy velcro, cut gels, attach gels to flash, shoot photos.

New Year, New Posts

jkim6 — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:20:43 +0000

I’m coming up with a schedule for blogging so that it’s a little less random, and hopefully it doesn’t get neglected so much. It’ll be a little bit of the same, some random stuff I like on the internet, a bit of info about a photo I shot, or something about MD Basketball or fantasy football.

Anyways, as 2011 has come and gone, and 2012 is now here, I took a look at my lightroom folder to see how many photos I had from this year. I don’t download all the photos I shoot into lightroom, but my workflow now consists of all the photos I work on being brought into lightroom initially, so basically it’s pretty much my first round of culling photos from what I’ve shot. There are a few duplicates, and plenty that shouldn’t have made it through, but in all I have 11,146 photos from 2011 or 30.54 photos per day. Even just quickly scanning through them, I can see I’ve learned a lot about photography this past year, but I’ve still got a long way to go. Pretty cool to see all the things I’ve worked on, maybe if I can set aside some time, I’ll put together a little portfolio of my work from 2011, but let’s be honest, that’s probably not gonna happen. Partly because I’m lazy, but mostly because I’m too critical of my work and hate looking at my earlier stuff.

I’ve got some exciting ideas for 2012, and hopefully I’ll be able to accomplish one or two.

I wish I could make things like this

jkim6 — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 21:16:43 +0000

I really can’t tell if I like the song because the video is so cool. Creative people amaze me.

I need someone to make me one of these:

jkim6 — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:18:09 +0000

Christmas is coming up

Basketball season has begun.

jkim6 — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:00:01 +0000

Everyone’s saying it’s a rebuilding/transition year for MD basketball, but I think our current talent is rather underrated. Not saying we have a world-class starting lineup, but with expectations so low, I don’t see how we can fail to meet them. If anything, Nick Faust should get plenty of playing time, and even though from the neck up he looks like a 12 year old boy, he’s got plenty of game.

In related news, apparently I am approved to shoot the basketball games. I didn’t know that I was being processed, but apparently the Diamondback takes care of these things for me. I’m still not super comfortable shooting basketball yet, and I’m still learning how to time my photos so I don’t have arms covering faces, but I guess I’ll have plenty of chances to learn.

Almost becoming a weekly post thing…

jkim6 — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 23:29:20 +0000

Last week I had 2 exams and then this past weekend was a whirlwind of photography: I shot 8 different assignments between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning, so I didn’t have time to eat or breathe, let alone work on anything. Looks like tomorrow is a gonna be a fun day of editing/submitting everything that I’ve procrastinated on.

Anyways, I got to shoot my first engagement session on Saturday for Nick and Eileen. Nick is a friend of mine from elementary school, and even though life has taken us all over the place, we’ve managed to keep in touch. When I heard he got engaged, I decided to send him a message to see if he was interested in letting me practice on him. One thing led to another, and next thing I new, I was headed out to Southern Maryland this past Saturday. I’ve just barely downloaded the images, and hoping that they’re at least exposed correctly, but here’s one that caught my eye.

Maryland Madness

jkim6 — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 03:36:50 +0000

It’s not at midnight, and we didn’t have any rappers performing, but I loved the alumni game, even though it was a lot like an all-star game, and it was nice to get a look at the team this year.

The Terps’ have two new scholarship players this year: Nick Faust and Alex Len. Faust looks super comfortable and loose and definitely has a high level of athleticism, and Len looks, well huge. Hopefully he gets cleared by the NCAA, so it’s not all a waste. I was shooting for the Diamondback, so I was on the floor for the event, and getting to see so many of the players I followed for years as a fan was pretty exciting. Anyways, here are a couple shots from the event, and if people are interested, I might post a few more.

Faust:

Len:

And a photo that may never happen again, Steve Blake and Steve Francis: