HOS 2010...OMG!!

Boston Rock Gym's Heart of Steel 2010

The Heart of Steel Bouldering competition was this past weekend.


















The Staff at t he BRG did an amazing job setting up again this year bringing on even more excitement than last year. They worked with the folks over at Brewers to fashion what was deemed “The Dark Crystal”. This feature, cooncealed by a tarp, was revealed at the start of the final round. The tarp dropped and there was this spinning diamond that swung freely in the cave. The crowd crazy. Everyones jaw dropped when the tarp did.
































Here is some pics from Jon Glassberg’s site "Louder than 11" from earlier in the week when they first hung this beast in the cave. A finalist last year (and my poster boy if you will) he helped out the BRG Staff this year and set some amazing routes. Jon has a pretty cool site. You can check it out here...







Climbing on this was a dynamic task on all axises imaginable. I was fortunate to be able to at least hang on it the week before the finals as it was covered up as soon as it was hung.












They also had this 3’ diameter semi-sphere fashioned just for the comp. This all made for some sweet images as the climbers twisted and contorted themselves in ways I don’t they could have anticipated.










So how do I some up the spirit of the event…well as a fairly avid indoor sport climber myself, I have to say it is about the overcoming of a personal challenge. I would say that even though by the end of a LONG day of climbing for the competitors there are ultimately 3 Guys and 3 Gals competing against each other for the top spot in the finals, the crowd there understands that is about working out the problem and overcoming it. Trying, failing, try again, failing, and trying again until you get it. That to me is truly the spirit of the Heart of Steel.




This was never made more apparent to me then when Rob D. from Phili was up last for the guys on the finals wall. After a couple of minutes I could tell that he was not going to be able to get this route down like the other two finalists had, however he kept hoping back on as the crowd cheered him on. He was going for this HUGE dyno move (essentially a flying leap from one spot to another) that he missed twice. Everyone started cheering for him “COME ON ROB!” “GET IT ROB!” , I was one of them. Eyes focused on his target, he went for again and this time his hands stuck. Feet and body still swinging out wildly from all the momentum, he held it! The crowd went nuts! It did not matter that we had seen the previous two climbers get it on there first attempts. That was Rob’s challenge and he sent it. All the other climbers there know that feeling and at that very moment they were all right there with him. HEART OF STEEL!


















































I spent the previous week planning some remote camera set-ups and ended up only sticking with one, but what an angle it was. I made what amounts to large smooth stud that screws into there wall which I attached an adjustable stand head to use that as my remote camera mount.






This is one of my favorite shots. Sasha tops out on one of the ladies final routes and plucks a $50 from the wall. Remote camer with a fisheye lens. you can see me on the ground (just to the right of her head in the frame) triggering it.























Here are the finalists and man, can they climb. Worth the mention, Vasya (orange top)and Francesca (blue top)repeated there visit to the finals again this year as they did last.




Check out all the images we took here...

You can can also check out all the videos of the final climbs here on Thomas Sherman's Blog.

Get Lit - Lighting Seminar and Workshop...Check

Another workshop is in the books and we got our coolest class photo yet thanks in part to a sweet 60" Umbrella that Doug brought along for the workshop.

So, my hats off to Mr. Doug Levy for a well taught workshop. Likewise, Gail and I would also like to thank everyone who came to participate (from as far as Connecticut in one case). Gail and I had a GREAT time!

The day started off with a few hours in the classroom for some review of lighting modifiers as well as some gelling lessons.













As I was the first time I reviewed the class slides with him, I remain very impressed with the hands on knowledge that Doug brings to the table. All self taught, I have not come across someone as young as himself, especially in the digital age, with the hand one knowledge that he possesses. He remind me more of a veteran of film.



At the end of the class we raffled off our Hunt Photo Gift Certificate, the winner of which just happened to be one of our "scholarship students" Kellie. A big thanks to Hunt Photo for again contributing to the excitement of the workshop.


I did a quick demo on the Popper units just before lunch arrived. Thank you again to Radio Popper for sending us the demo units to play with! Several of the demos are not going back and have already found a permanent home at our studio = ). I had the Radio Popper Jrx system set up on a couple of Alien Bees in the conference room to use the model lamps for note taking. This allowed me to be able to adjust the lights up and down from my camera...LOVE IT!

After lunch we reconvened upstairs in the fencing studio for the afternoon workshop.













Up first, the class was broke into groups faced with the assignment of taking head shots of each other.












The group I escorted wanted the roughest looking room in the mill I could muster. I think this one fit the bill.




Here is Andy (right)from the New England Institute of Art up to bat with the assignment that Doug threw his way.As busy aw we were I still managed to get some shots during the class. I dragged the shutter here in hopes of catching some flash activity and...BANG…nailed it!









Tony from LensPro and Mike from MKD Photography showed up to do a little SLR HD video of the class for us. These guys have the coolest gadgets and make the sweetest videos! Thanks for showing up.






Not sure what they were doing here. Some huge clash of SLR Digital HD video and still capture. I was afraid it could possibly rip a hole in the time-space continuum!





























Here is Carolyn getting an angle change.




This was our mock "First Dance" assignment that Meg and Krista tackled. I played the roll of the mock DJ = ).















Some of the assignments were intimidating to say the least, but I think everyone can say they fought through it and came out on the other side feeling like they were able to better than they thought.

Seeing how beneficial hands on workshop can be, I definitely think we are going to push for more.

We are definitely cooking up some even cooler variation of this workshop for the spring and we intend to incorporate even more of what our mills have to offer.

A special thanks to all our models Jess, Tony and especially Kenley who was able to get there on a couple hours notice to fill in as another one of our models was stuck with car trouble.











Andy and Kellie were our "scholarship students" for the workshop representing The New England Institute of Art and Boston University.




Thanks to Prise De Fer Fencing yet again for the use of their facility. Seems like they always have a hand in our trainings one way or another! Thanks you!

Another big thanks to Andy, president of The Professional Photographers Association of Massachusetts, for coming to sit in on the morning session and to ell everyone a little more about PPAM.


So what do the students have to say?....

Check out:

Matt's Blog

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

How do you ring in 2010?

Go to First night in Boston?

NO

Go to New York to watch the Ball Drop?

NO














An All Night Wii Family Bowling Pajama Party in Billerica!

















2009 ....3....2....1....2010 !!!!
Happy New Year to Everyone!

Star Wars Fever!: from 1977 to 2009

Talk about full circle…

So here I am (left) some 32 years ago with my first Star Wars Christmas toys…and here are the boys (right) last weekend with some true to life Star Wars personalities.

So about a month ago (when Gail was not home) I splurged for some tickets to “Star Wars in Concert” for this past Saturday. I was editing images when I heard the music on TV advertising the concert that was coming. I was giddy thinking about bringing the boys there.



After the newer star wars movies came out, my boys were NUTS about it. Light Sabers and Star Wars costumes from Nana took over our house. Boy were amazed when I pulled out my 1977 Land Speeder and some of the original figures. They sure did not stack up to the newer figures!





So when we got into the Garden about 1-1/2 hours before the show started, the halls surrounding the garden were filled with Star Wars original exhibits as well as club fanatics with some of the best costumes I have ever seen in person. When we went to sneak down the elevator to the floor level for our seats, a hole group of them came in with us! (left) I really felt like we were taking a ride in the Death Star elevator being brought to Darth Vader himself.


The boys LOVED the show as did we. It was very well done. Live orchestra, choir, top notch lighting, smoke machines, pyrotechnics, lasers and the world’s largest traveling true HD screen….29 feet high by 60 feet wide! The picture was unbelievable. Sir Anthony Daniels (the man behind C3PO) narrated the show and would introduce each video montage that told the story of the all 6 Star Wars movies. Definitely took me back!


I watched Star Wars for the first time with my sister on the on the roof of my fathers Nova in a sleeping bags at the Drive-in move theater.


Now here I am 38 years old married with two boys who are running around the same house I did with cooler Star Wars toys than I ever had!

The Football Finale!

(photos by ASA Photographic…of course)

So Sunday brought the end of another Pop Warner football season.

Both Matthew and Steven had thier last games of the 2009 season. As we did last year Gail and I photographed all the kids in action at almost all the games. We posted the images online and for $2.50/ea, parents could download and own whatever photo they wanted. All the proceeds are going toward the end of the year festivities for their teams. We shot and edited through about 9000 frames of their games this year and posted around 2000-2500 of them.

We have a great time capturing the all the kids in action and the parents are always very appreciative.

I helped coach Stevens team this year as I had the last 2 for Matthew. I have to say after spending two years helping to coach the kids on Matthew's team, I missed them this year. However, all the new faces on Steven's team kept me more than busy! "Stay in line!", "Keep your hands to yourself!" "Stop ripping up the grass!"

Amazing to think that’s where they all were mentally not two years ago. They have come a long way!

As CRAZY as the schedule always gets, we love that this sport helps brings us all together with the kids and freinds at the field. They boys stay in shape, get stronger and the team ethics our doing a great job carving out our little men.


And now....well... now we get back about 20 hours a week...YIPEE!

We will miss our family at the field though.












Matthew’s team,the Lil’ Indians, went UNDEFEATED! Eight wins and zero losses. I am not sure how many times that has happened before in his league, but I would bet they had the best record in all Billerica Pop Warner…quite possibly the state!



















Steven’s first years with Pop Warner was great! Definetly getting my Rookie of the Year vote.





He had at least several QB sacs to his credit and a fumble recovery/return. Not bad for our little defensive lineman.

An Epilogue for Matthew Shepard

So, it all started with a call from Mike (Artistic Director at Westford Academy) the other week. “I need some head shots” was the gist of it. “No problem” I thought to myself right? Standard pricing bla bla bla. At the time I was frantically trying to tie up some loose ends with all the senior shoots so I could sneak away for a couple of days and fish the Derby down in MV. I guess at that moment I did not realize just how big this was, but I moved my return date up for the trip so that I could be there as I could tell this was very important to him.

It was not until I spoke with Gail later after she checked in with Mike to get the details that I think she made me understand what it was that we were really working on here with Mike. “How do we charge for this?” she asked me. She paused for a second and then answered her own question with …“We can’t”. She was right. I felt pretty stupid at that point when I realized how right she was.

Westford had been selected as one of only two public high school theater departments in the entire country to be used as a performance location. One of only two in the Bay State! One hundred locations for this reading where chosen across the US, and another fifty outside the US.

All One hundred and fifty theaters where to be joined via simulcast to New York city where actress Glen Close would open the evening.

“The Laramie Project 10 years later -- An epilogue” (by Moises Kauffman) focused on the long term effect that the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard had on the town of Laramie, Wyoming and how in my opinion Laramie as a town itself is a microcosm for the country as a whole. It uses dialogue from actual interviews with the towns people of Laramie and Matthews killers themselves.

For those of you who have not heard of Matthew Shepard, back in 1998 two men spotted Matthew in a bar and targeted him because of his sexual orientation, as his killer states in one of his interviews. In fact they pretended to be gay in order to lure Matthew from the bar. They took him to a remote area east of Laramie, Wyoming and tied him to a split-rail fence. Matthew was severely assaulted and tortured then left there to die. He was found the next day by a cyclist who thought at first that Matthew was a scarecrow (if that helps draw a picture of the condition that Matthew was in).

Matthew died 6 days later due to the injuries he sustained.

About a month after the murder The Tectonic Theater Company went to Laramie to interview the towns people about the how this had affected their community and created the play “The Laramie Project”. On the 10th anniversary, Tectonic Theater Project returned once again to Laramie for a second round of interviews which was the basis for “The Laramie Project 10 years later -- An epilogue”. By that time the original “The Laramie Project” had become one of the most frequently produced plays in America.

Personally I started to remember more and more about this the more I read. I remeber all the news coverage.

So when the Sunday finallt came to get the head shots they were missing a few people…..OK, like 6 of 14 were missing. Needless to say they did not happen that day. Instead I grabbed some P&R photos so they could send them off to the press et…



I went back that following Sunday (day before the performance) to finally get those cast head shots. In keeping with the gravity of the reading, I wanted something a bit more serious for these cast photos. Needless to say, smiling just did not seem to be the right fit this time around.



Well, that Monday evening started with the simulcast from NY with Glen Close as the MC after which Matthew Shepard’s mother came out on stage to speak live to all one hundred and fifty theaters.









The simulcast ended with the hand off of the performances to the individual theaters.




Gail and I didn’t know what to expect.

Mike told me not to worry about photographing the reading itself, but we brought the camera gear just in case we felt compelled.

Again, this was just supposed to be as Mike put it “a reading”.



Well from the second the Westford crew took the stage, We knew it was going to be more than that.














They put so much into there every mannerism, stage placements and just their overall presence.

I found myself immediately reaching for my gear and I took off down the theater wing so I could try my best to capture this while remaining out of sight.







I just could not see myself moving around in the aisle at all during this one.



Read more about this at Westford Academy's site, on Boston.com or in the Lowell Sun among a few of the places.


Hats off to Mr. Towers and all the alumni that came together to tell his story.

Fall Fishing......STAG!

Saturday...Day 4 (coming home)

Wokeup this morning and ran over to the "Big Bridge" (Jaws bridge) and fished a bit then ran over to the Tashmoo inlet hoping to maybe pull one more fish in in time for a quick trip to the weigh-in and just make the ferry. No big surpise as I never saw a fish let alone caught one : ).

Stopped in at the gift shop in VH to grap a little somthing for the kids and drove right onto the boat.

Rough ride on the ferry....... pulling into Woods Hole now....well, until next year.

Friday...Day 3

WIND....WIND...WIND!

Well, thanks to a well timed Nor'Easter, my face is thoroughly wind burned. I have been fishing ALL day and the wind was crazy. Started out this morning on the south side of the island down at Lucy Vincent Beach.




















Met up with a couple of guys out there that had already been working the beach with no luck. They were nice enough to snag a shot of me which was better than the one I took (right).



Don’t forget, this was the calm side of the island!


After that I went further east to an area near Philbin beach. A nice quiet stretch of beach with no one around.

I was happy to break my skunked spell with this whopper! Hey, it beats no fish at all. Looks like he was snacking on Sand Eels as he spit this one out after I pulled him up on the beach (right).



This one is for the boat!
















After that I hit Gay Head and met up with the guys I bumped into earlier. Defeating the fish shut out, I felt good enough to break out the camera and snag a few shots of them fishing.

From there I hit the jetties at Menemsha, South Beach and East Beach. Not even a sign of fish at all. That small blue I caught was the only fish I had seen all day! Lucky me.

Thursday...Day 2

Woke up around 6:30AM and started out at Wasque (the Southeastern most part of the island). Saw a couple small blue fish brought (I again had no luck).

Drove over to the gut after that and tried my luck there. You guessed it...nothing.









With the storm taking hold, Paul and I went over to the breech. Paul was hoping the wind would push all the bait up against the beach putting al the fish in our lap. Again no luck, in fact we had to move our trucks as the beach was being overrun by the surf. The wind was right in our face. The rain felt like ice cystals bouncing off my cheeks. COLD COLD. Would have been worth it if the Bass were there.

Spent a couple more hours bottom fishing at South Beach before heading back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is the last day of the derby, so I will have to try and fish it despite the Nor-Easter.

Wednesday...Day 1

I am here at Woods Hole waiting for the ferry to pull out.

Hoping to catch the last big fish of the derby this year. Weather is looking like it is going to beat the bag out of me, but I am going hit it as hard as possible!

Had to push it back a week (from last Wednesday) due to a wind advisory, but know is looking like I was better off then. At least it was warm wind! Oh well. The derby ends this Saturday, so I have no choice now.

Once I get over there, going to settle in at the hotel and head right out and get ready for the first tide drop out on Menemsha....enter Jaws music here = ) then over to Chappy for a late night tide drop on the east side of the island.

It was a beautiful night at Menemsha (without fish). Had one strike that was undoubtedly a Blue Fish as it left the tell tale bite that left the squid half gone.

Stopped in at the weigh-in station then went out to South Beach and fished there until about 1 AM. Though this was and will be the nicest night while I am out here, still no fish. There wasn't any mood so the stars were brilliantly painted across the sky. It was nice to just lay there and watch the rod tips against the sky. Wish Gail and the boys could have joined me then. Truly beautiful.