From the beginning, I got the feeling that the film was trying to reclaim the feel of the first three (or middle three) films. The menacing death star, the overwhelming power and commanding presence of Darth Vader, the innocence of Luke, and the everyday life of living on what seems to be a wild frontier. It tried, but it failed. I mean it had glimpses of the right juice but just as it was about to find it's way the director threw in terrible dialogue, questionable characters with no direction and off the wall things like cute little beings or droids reacting to situations with innocent indignation.

I have been to a few auditions, and I have held quite a few auditions. One thing that I know is what not to do.

When I was eighteen, I saw an ad in the paper (yes, the paper, that’s all we had and stop judging) soliciting for actors to be in a film. It was in the basement of a church in Fayetteville. I was suspicious about it and unsure about what I was walking into. I thought about all the news stories I had heard over my youth about abductions and the like. It made sense to me to feel that way; after all, it was Arkansas in the ’90s. No one around here made movies, at least not ones you could show to the public. But, I am pretty much not afraid of anything, so I went anyway.

Yeah, yeah… I know I am supposed to write in this blog space every day, but life is worth living when you get to experience it. Sometimes writing about what I did just takes the fun out of it. I mean, what's fun about writing a lengthy article that takes forever to proofread?

Yeah, your right. It is kind of fun to write these things. Kinda.

Kelli and I went to BB&BBQ on Dickson street a while back. I found it to just be a craft fair for bikers. Kind of a snooze for me. If I was still riding, it might have a little more appeal, but I quit riding over ten years ago. I wasn’t that big a fan of the culture then and now that it has nothing to do with me, even less.

I love making films. If you didn’t know that already, well, now you do. Sometimes we have a fleshed-out script, and sometimes we don’t. The real fun of making films sometimes comes from not knowing what I am going to film and figuring it out as we go. I know that sounds dumb, but it always seems to work out.

This last weekend, we did exactly that. We had outlined a few scenes and practiced some stunts with the actors. It worked out alright; it was one of those times when working on a wing and a prayer just felt right.

I went to a hot air balloon demonstration in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Saturday. I spoke to the governor, found out that Arkansas is involved in NASA and got some tremendous slo-mo and time-lapse film of cool looking hot air balloons.

I also got some pretty cool shots while I was there.

Everyone was watching and enjoying the spectacle, drinking beer, pop and being eaten up by vampiric flying syringes, otherwise known as mosquitos when a massive explosion went off near the staging area. The immense fireball rose above the treeline, the flames lighting up the entire area. The heat from the fireball was still prominent three hundred yards away, where I was taking photographs. I wondered to myself if anyone was hurt or if there may have been any damage done by the explosion. It seemed like everything was fine after a few minutes, the show continues, no lights or sirens from emergency vehicles. Ok, cool. Everyone is ok.

Then it hit me, I may have a picture of it! I immediately began to scroll through my images and there it was. Frikin Awesome!

As you know, I love filmmaking. The one thing that always brings a smile to my face is when a project is finished, and the world gets to see.

The end of a day; the sun making its nightly exit known to all. Its colors are the last grasp with the exclamation that it will return. It's rays folding through the trees, over the fields and bringing the depth of what is real to a warm and loving close.

So, I just spent almost four hours and fifty bucks in a car to attend a meeting that made me want to give up acting forever, and now I have to drive back home.

Now, we have had a lot of rain recently, as we all know. The River Valley (Fort Smith Arkansas) has flooded, levees have broken, and roads are closed. The water from the Arkansas River hit record levels, and here I was driving through it. Another reason for a rental car.

Over the past three weeks, I haven’t posted much or taken that many photographs. It may seem like I am neglecting my duties, but in reality, I have been very sick. Over my life, I have had pneumonia dozens of times. This time I thought I was OK until I wasn’t. It put me down hard. In fact, I didn’t know how sick I was until after I started to get better.

For those that don’t know or haven’t had the privilege to book a photo session in the past three or five years, the current going rate for a truly professional photographer may shock you. A traditional wedding shoot with just one photographer starts at about five thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money for photographs! Honestly, if you want really good photographs of the wedding and the reception, you need two shooters since one photographer can’t be everywhere. To add that second shooter though, you're looking at another twenty-five hundred dollars. OUCH!

When we got the the park we looked at the hills, studies the trails and some topographical maps and this thing looked brutal. Maybe not for the guy or gal that walks or runs ten miles a day, but for two guys that spend ninety percent of their time sitting in front of a computer screen, yeah…

Yesterday seemed like a great day for taking a photograph of the sunset. If only I had looked closer at the weather. While it was a great day yesterday, today is looking to possibly be a brute with a storm barreling in from the west.

I went to the University of Arkansas to find a great spot to get the stadium and all that traffic. The video I got was all made in camera and isn’t the quality that I will get when I do it for real. This is just a scout to see what it might look like. Honestly, I am not going to use that spot again, it’s just not that interesting. But that’s why you scout!

We have all heard it and just shrugged it off at least once in our lives. When we went for our first job interview or trying to get up the nerve to ask someone out on a first date, that was probably the advice. It’s no different in an audition.

The very first thing about taking photographs is the “Rule of thirds”. This rule is something that every photographer uses and will always use. This doesn’t mean that every photograph you take should follow it. It is not a rigid thing that cannot be broken. More of a great technique to build your shot around. Once you get it in your head and find yourself applying it without thinking about it, that’s when you know it’s time to start finding great ways to break it.

It was going to be the first time I got to use my Sony a7III in a real studio environment. And It didn’t let me down. My a77, the camera that I have been using for the past eight years did though. I honestly didn’t have any idea just how behind the times it was.

While he was staring down the old weapons I was wandering, looking for crazy things. There are stacks and stacks of shelves all holding important mainstays of archaeology like pottery and household implements to some really crazy and exotic things. It is kind of an x-file looking stack of shelves too. Just like in the movies and TV. So that made me somewhat interested to browse the place.

They didn’t have just pottery and bones though. I was kinda excited to see that they haven’t forgotten about the other things from history especially the more recent history. They had military helmets, Crazy formaldehyde jars of snakes, frogs and other not so normal things.

Once we got there, it began to pour. Maybe I could have found a way around the weather and shoot from the truck or other cover but the sky was also littered with lightning. Now, I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to stand outside holding onto a large metal tripod in a lightning storm. Call me overly cautious but I wasn’t actually made with a bolt of lightning, stitched together by a madman in a dungeon laboratory even though that may be what many former high school girlfriends might claim.

Some of the best portraits you will ever see more than likely could be a great photo without the subject sitting, running, walking or doing some damn thing. Its about the dream, your photograph. When taking portraits for clients it becomes even more important to have that backdrop be something spectacular. So today I was looking around for something that might make some great lines for some wholesome portraits.