Week 1 EOC: My Voice

I am currently a student at the Art Institute of Las Vegas working towards my bachelor degree in Photography.  I am a disabled Veteran and compete competitively as a cyclist.  I am the front guy guiding and steer the bicycle on a tandem (a two person bicycle that work together) for a blind athlete.   I am called the Pilot and the athlete on the back is called a Stoker.  We race on an indoor Velodrome, a cycling track which is typically steep banked curves.  In 2014 we won the Gold Medal in our division and received the title National World Champions for the United States Cycling Team.  Last year I traveled as far a Europe and competed with cyclist from all over the world.  While in Europe I captured some great photography as we were able to have some time to ourselves and take in some European culture.   I love to travel while being able to cycling and take sports photography at races.  I turned to cycling after I became very sick while deployed, it took control of my health internally.  Every time I turned around doctors didn’t have the answers I was looking for so I figured if I did not get on top of my heath no one else would.  When I was on my bicycle it seemed to give me a since of freedom from everything that was going on around me.  I even felt that over time it had helped improve on my attitude, sleep and overall health.  I really enjoyed being outdoors and riding for miles at a time and taking in my surroundings.  As cyclists on our rides we tend to stop and take pictures with our friends or the group we are riding with and post them and always looking for a “cool” background.   So over time I thought why could not I turn photography into a business, travel and still race, so that is what has brought me to the Art Institute.  I find great balance in my life putting them all together and still fitting my family into my lifestyle while keeping my health in check. 
 While racing I observed sport photographers taking photos during the races then later posting their shoots on wither website or the event’s website for us to view.  Some websites you could view the photo’s and easily copy and paste them and others would block you from coping the photographs but you could order and pay for the pictures.  Over the years of collecting the pictures I have uploaded from other photographers I can look back and study and angels and see how I can apply them to my sports photography and have fun with finding my own techniques, styles and angles.  I have a creative mind so I am sure that I can add a creative side to photographs or certain angle.  I have also taken classes at the Art Institute over the last year and a half to help broaden my ideas with things like photo shop.  In photo shop there are so many fun and cool features whether I want to alter the back ground or add some fun wording to the picture for a caption.   I have learned so much taking the classes that I have from the Art Institute and so many options I can explore in the photography word.  It leaves me so many options to explore and be creative with.  I find photography can be very relaxing and low key, that you can lose track of time playing around that hours can and I don’t even realize it.  I also can go into light room and there I can add to or adjust my lighting again depending what statement I want the photograph to present.  I have also taken and now taking an advanced lighten class where I use my daughter and wife as my practice models for my homework projects.   Photography has not only been fun for me to learn but I can also include my family in on the fun.  Photography along with cycling is something that my wife and daughter also can enjoy and play around with.   I also enjoy taking photographs of my daughter during her karate performances and capturing the high kicks and moves that go into their hard work.  I am always willing to share the photographs with other parents, because depending where in the room we take photographs from, the angles can differ in the poses that the kids are demonstrating.  Especially when the kids are not aware that you are focused on them, you can capture some interesting shoots.  From time to time the cycling team I ride for does certain community functions and we always post the events to our website to let other know what we volunteer for in the community.  I have since volunteered myself to take the photographs then come home and clean them up before posting the photographs to the website.  This helps relieve my brain of the everyday routine.  I like to hear the feedback when people comment on “wow that’s a really cool photograph,” how did you do that.  Sometimes it is just a matter of playing around and stumbling across a new technique and it makes for something unique.  My dad is a retired art teacher so I am sure that some of my details came from him critiquing my art work over the years.  Especially the years that he was the only art teacher in the school I was attending.  I can look back now and say it has paid off.  I really enjoy the outdoors, whether it’s cycling, camping or just a good nature hike,  it seems like over the years we have always had some style of camera.  My wife and I have always been one to take a lot of pictures to capture the moments.  We want to be able to look back and reflect on the good times the photograph represents.  I am not sure that I want to really get into shooting wedding even though they would be a great challenge, from picking the right locations, capturing the lighting.  If I would get into taking photographs at a wedding I would want to stop by the location at the time the wedding was to take place to see what challenges I might face or be up against.  I would probably like to also have an assistant that I could rely on to help me move from location to location and help with the set up to keep things moving along on that special day.  Weddings can be a very stressful day as all the time and efforts that have gone into planning My goal is to keep my photography at an enjoyable level and stress free as much as I can.  I want my photography to be a hobby I get paid for not a job that rely on the pay.  I want my business to be word of mouth.  I don’t plan on relying on advertising to market myself, I want my work to speak for itself.    I believe in giving great customer service and stunning the customer with my images.  Being a disabled veteran photograph gives me relaxing piece of mind.