Truth be told, the great sense of humor and abundance of laughs reminded me of my own family’s gatherings. I’m convinced great humor was part of how my Grandma Eleanor lived to be 96. Our family gatherings are full of chuckles, family stories and ornery jokes. Hazel’s party was nothing less!

Never Underestimate the Power of Grandma

The laughs continued into the evening portraits when the ladies decided to help the birthday girl not feel too self conscious about her height. Just before I hit the shutter release they all decided to shrink a little. Unscripted, but maybe rehearsed. Outtake? Given the family’s humor I’m thinking it’s a keeper!

Lots more laughs on the way – see them at the proof gallery here.

Happy birthday Hazel!

Here’s an extra dose of laughs for everybody from one of my favorite movies – enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last Friday, September 2nd, I set up shop downtown at Generic & invited shoppers to put together a favorite outfit of their best style (or worst, depending on fashion taste) and model it for a mini-session. The results were no less crazy than I expected.

Come take a look and vote for your favorite on our Facebook page. The photo with the most votes by this coming Friday, September 9th wins the model a full photo shoot!

Keep an eye out on our Facebook page for more contests & fall shoot specials ahead! -eB

Check out more performance photography here

Have me shoot your show & promo shots – drop me a line here

The anticipation, nervous energy before the stage comes to life, and one-shot no retakes atmosphere gets my creativity charged up. I absolutely love the countdown to go time. Troubleshooting in a pinch to make it work and look flawless. Fast paced action all around! (These all translate just fine to wedding photography moments too… but that’s another post.)

Earlier this month I joined the production of Caught – a senior thesis turned full out dance production by Hannabeth Fischer. A brief excerpt from the show’s event page goes like this:

Artistically acclaimed “mesmerizing”, “enthralling”, and “beautiful the whole way through,” Caught is up for it’s second run in South Bend, IN. Choreography and film: Hannahbeth Fischer. After a highly successful debut at Saint Mary’s College in November, Caught has grown. Adding two musicians to the original sound artist, Patrick Quigley, the Analecta trio is complete. Analecta is a group of rising local musicians: indie, progressive, classical. http://www.myspace.com/analectaband

Experience a cross-platform performance with digital film and dance, playing on the borders of Dance Theater. Live sound engulfs the entire audience, the entire building. This performance, while beautiful on camera, cannot be experienced anywhere but live. Fischer’s statements about movement, duality, tension, architecture, desire, and interaction permeate the multiple channels.

Audience members should look forward to an exciting new space at LangLab. The truly unique space, conducive to incubation and artist musings, will shock many that it exists in South Bend.

Fischer shot some of the film for the projection in the space, adding a unique parallelism to this run of the piece. This is LangLab’s first full length dance performance. Neither South Bend nor LL have experienced a full kinesphere performance such as Caught, and should make it out to LangLab on December 10. Fischer and collaborators welcome conversation in the post-show hang time.

Aside from the usual available light performance photography I also worked with a great crew to provide video and multitrack audio recording for the performance portfolio DVD project. This was a first to go a huge step past mics-mixer-camera to allow for precise audio postproduction mixing of the single-take recording. Translation: geeking out.

Shots made with Nikon D700 and Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 lens in existing light / video projection.

Technical challenges outside of the recording side included adapting a theatrical stage performance at Saint Mary’s College to the LangLab warehouse art venue (very cool feel!). Full theatrical lighting and dimming control was simplified to fit the intimate space. I do enjoy a good brainstorm and improvisation!

Congrats Hannabeth and the cast of Caught on a wonderful 2nd performance! Glad to have been part of it!

More photos on our Facebook page too, become a fan and see our work as soon as it’s posted to enjoy!

UPDATE! Jan 2011 – Check out the LIVE recording album the band made from the audio tracks from the show.

Happy Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and leftovers weekend!

If you’re looking for an easy way to avoid dark-thirty doorbuster lines to find a fun gift for us (read: probably Eric) boy have we got a surprise!

Our camera bag made it into a contest!

Drop on by the Digital Wedding Forum’s contest to see all the camera bags and vote for your favorite and ours, number 18!  Consider it a great Christmas gift you don’t have to pick out, find, wake up early to stand in line for, buy, wrap, or sneak under a conifer!

Please VOTE FOR #18!

VOTE HERE >>> http://www.digitalweddingforum.com/blog/whats-in-the-bag

Plus a gift* for you!

After we have won and are crowned Camera Homecoming King & Queen / Cutest Couple, Eric will record and post a geeky video of all the gear we haul around and WHY we use it (besides it being shiny).

Thanks so much for your help! – Eric & Sara

*gift may not be exchanged for cash or less geeky content. Void where prohibited by law. Please geek out responsibly.

I merely supplied cameras and lighting, a little bit of arranging folks but the final edit far outshines the straight out of camera shots I left with Phil to begin his poster designs. I was excited to see how his ideas would transform the photos into his finished poster, and am thrilled to share it here!

But first, a word from the artist.

This was a labor of love that took a lot of time and help from some friends. This promotional piece is 54″x24″ and will be hung up at the Buffalo Wild Wings located in the Village at Coventry in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It may be at other locations but not many.

I am not making any profit off of this so if any of you work for BWW corporate, no lawsuits please.

The photography was done by my friend Eric Bucholtz of eBphotography.com.

The models are my roommates Austin (far left) and Kelli (girl on top of couch aka my gf), and the others (all employees of BWW Coventry) are myself, Alisa, Serena and Stephen.

I’m so glad I finally finished this. Thank you, to those that helped take from a sketch to reality.

I will not be selling copies of this poster (that would be illegal) but if you work at a Buffalo Wild Wings and think you’d like this poster displayed at your store, send me a message [through dA] or email me at illuminist.designs@gmail.com and I will inform you of the information needed. Thank you.

I’ll add that in addition to posters to display, drop Phil a line about your own creative promotional piece ideas to see more of his graphic work in action. Well done!

Get on with the pictures already!

Check out the full version here.

Back during his 5-ish years as the Underground Cafe’s resident DJ and lighting designer, Phil came up with some pretty slick shows mixing music between bands and lighting up the stage when they played. He left town to study graphic design and the concerts sorely missed his mixing and lighting skills ever since. (Trust me, I’ve filled in both areas and it’s not the same whatsoever. I am a tech geek that keeps things running smoothly, not a crowd-rocker.)

If you’re following us on Facebook I posted a behind the scenes video there last month for a little preview of the shoot – here it is again to enjoy before the final poster design is shown – enjoy!

Part 2 coming later today!

I’ve always been fascinated by stage productions. The anticipation, split timing and single-take, no-redo LIVE production always seems to be my favorite. I love mixing and producing a live concert. Studio recorded audio is a different world to me. The LIVE version is my preference in photography too – I get charged up from the energy as a bride and groom await their wedding ceremony and celebrate the night away. (Our Engagements and Senior Portrait sessions are pretty lively too, don’t get me wrong.)

Back in 2002 I directed and produced a 3 act play with students in Junior and Senior High school, and it was no easy task. Director Jon West and Assistant Director Laura Miller have my respect and applause for what it must require to produce such a great production with most of the cast far younger than even mine was! Bravo!

The show is on for one more night, come see it for yourself TONIGHT, Friday April 23rd! Click HERE to view the event page with more info.

I gotta say he was looked pretty nervous while Armana Reign played and he waited to grab the mic before Haste the Day’s headlining set. Made me wonder if I looked that way when I asked Sara to marry me in 2005.

Jake greets the crowd, has the staff introduce themselves one by one, and when the last one was done he asked her to come back up. Still held it together pretty well at this point. Grabs the mic and re-introduces Jessica as his girlfriend and says “I’ve got a question for you…” drops the mic, drops to one knee, and gets the hugest smile ever while asking her to marry him. Everyone who could see the stage area went nuts cheering!

Most. AWESOME. Moment. Of. The. Night. – she said YES!

I’ve got to hear some pretty cool engagement stories but up till then hadn’t been in the same room or only a few feet away when the question was asked. WOW. It was crazy amazing excitement everywhere. People were flipping out…

And of course, Haste the Day played an awesome finale to this amazing day.

Congrats Jake & Jessica!

After 8 years of local live music, concerts, and friendships the Underground Cafe is celebrating one last show on the South Side of South Bend. If you know me even a little you know this has been my second home and second family since it’s beginning. My wife Sara was one of the people that hatched the idea to clean the old storage basement and make a cafe. The Underground is part of my family, not just my hobbies.

Join the hunt for RED NOVEMBER and add the Rockfest 6 poster as your social networking profile photo till at least Sunday the 15th.

Get a high-res printable poster to share at
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2759/4025904557_19daa61163_b_d.jpg

Check out the event pages -

Myspace event page – http://bit.ly/rockfest6-ms

Facebook event page – http://bit.ly/rockfest6

Click here to view the embedded video.

See you Saturday!

eB & Underground Crew