In Absence Too Long

I'm not usually tardy and never absent, but for the last couple months this blog has been vacant. I'd like to say that starting graduate school at the Academy of Art for an MFA in photography made me stop, but the truth is I probably could have kept it updated a little bit more. Yes it is true graduate school has completely consumed my life. But as this year winds down, I think it only appropriate to have a New Year's resolution to be to get back to blogging. Hopefully I will continue throughout the year.

I'm Back, Broken, and Over Buying

I came back from my vacation and am excited to start taking images again. While I was out, I lost some tools and gained some too.

I ended up breaking my work camera the day before heading out for vacation. And the day before I came back to work, I broke my personal backup camera. So now both are out of commission. My personal one has been sent for repairs under warranty, but I'll have to wait 3 weeks until I can get it back. I hope it will be in time for me to start the MFA-Photography at the Academy of Art. My work camera was to costly to repair. I can only hope to get a replacement. There has been a discussion of the replacement camera to include HD video features. That might allow me to start producing more videos for the blog.

The damages were not my fault. They both were of simple wear and tear. My work camera, a Canon EOS 1D, had its power supply cut out. My personal camera, a Canon 40D, had the mirror hinge break.

But not all was lost. I had a good vacation trip with friends and my wife in Las Vegas. It was a nice weekend. And when I returned, I geared up with a new MacBook Pro... courtesy of student loans. So I still was able to enjoy myself.

I hope to start taking some shots again soon and sharing them as I have been doing lately.

The mirror hinge broke leaving the mirror in the way of the sensor of my Canon 40D while photographing friends wakeboarding at the Afterbay Monday, August 2, 2010 in Oroville, Calif.

(Jason Halley/ProPixelographer)

On Vacation!

I know I don't make posts all the time here, but for the next two weeks, I won't even be thinking about the Internet. I will be taking some much enjoyed vacation. I plan to come back in August. My first week back might be a little difficult to getting back in the groove. I hopefully will be able to get a nice refresh and come back to some exciting news. The fire season will probably be starting to get warmer and my only wish is for news to just take it easy while I'm gone. I hate missing the big stories. Although, my track record is for something unusual to happen while I'm gone. Although I did think to myself that something unusual happens everyday, so obviously it is bound to happen while I'm gone. Until then I hope to find some cooler weather. See you in August!

Be Prepared for Allergy Assignments

Last Friday, news was slow. I decided a good idea would be to find some image that illustrated pollen or allergies. Yeah, not such a good idea. Most people get allergies in Chico during the Spring, even if they've never had any. I found a group of maintenance workers blowing debris around the parking lot of an apartment complex. You could see all the dust flying in the air. I thought to myself, "Perfect, that totally says allergies." The worker was even wearing a dust mask. I thought I would be real quick and get in there and then get out before it got too bad. Not the case. The last couple of days, I have been battling heavy allergy issues, and I believe it has turned into a sinus infection. Oh, the joys of creativity. I took Claritin in the morning, but that didn't prove to be enough. I guess I should have grabbed a mask from my car. It has been nice to have my wife take care of me, but I definitely need to rethink this assignment before I do it again. 

Cuauhtemoc Rocha wears a mask as he uses a leaf blower to blow out debris in the parking lot of Meadows Apartment Complex on Friday, May 7, 2010 in Chico, Calif. The high pollen has hit many people with allergies. (Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record)

A portrait taken by my wife later that night shows the effects of photographing a leaf blower for an allergies story. I have been feeling the effects for the last couple of days. Thankfully she still loves me when I look like this. 

What is a Pixelographer?

I do consider myself a professional photographer. I mean I do make all of my income from shooting images that are printed in a newspaper. I have been doing this for over half a decade. (That sounds a little more impressive that 6 years). But why not be called just a photographer.

Well let me explain. I first and foremost relate myself to being someone who creates photographs that specializes in journalism photography. That would refer me most to being a photojournalist. However, I do not only have a concentration in a documentary style. I shoot anything I see. Weddings, portraits, landscapes, strobe, underwater, nature, animal, sports, news, features, experimental, and creative photography are all categories that I have developed skills in. You see it, I can photograph it. This extends my concentration in photojournalism more wide spread to being that of a more encompassing photographer. So why is it not ProPhotographer.blogspot.com?

With the digital photography reaching mass markets, it changed the way photography was looked at. Photography was the process and reaction of chemicals to light, thus creating photographs. These pictures were a tangible artifact of history.

Take it from the literal meaning of photography is "Writing (graphy) with light (photo)".

"Everything is the past, unless it is recorded; then it becomes History"

Or better explained by Ansel Adams as "Only the print contains the artist's meaning and message."

With digital photography, there are so many pictures taken and so little actually are published. A lot of my work is published, yet there is so much more that is stored in the digital space of hard drives and DVDs. These images I intend to showcase online. There will probably be ones that have been published as well. I do not feel that these images should be considered appropriately called a "photograph". From a digital perspective, this would make me someone who should not be considered a photographer at all, being that these images are primarily digital and not photographic. Therefore the name "Pixelographer" was created. It was meant to mean "writing with pixels", which is a pretty good definition for this blog. And besides it is easier to bookmark than:

http://www.photographerduringhisdayjobthathedoesprimarilyphotojournalismbecausehepublisheshistorybutcanactuallybeconsideredafullfledgedphotographerfromhisextensiveskillsinotherformsofphotographybutwouldratherbecalledapixelographerwhichisawordhemadeuptofeelcreativeandalittledifferentthateverybodyelsewhogotacamerathatisjustlikehisorbetterthanhismakinghisappealsbethatmuchgreaterwhichisablessingisdisguesethathopefullyotherswithfindhumorousandallowhistounderstandwhysomeonewouldcontinuereadingtheselongdrawnoutweblinkforaguywhocallshimselfapixelographer.blogspot.com/

Yeah, I think I'll keep it short.

A New Year and a New Blog!

So it begins. I figure it is about time that I start writing my thoughts. Is it the idea to better myself as a journalist or to catalog my adventures for the rest of the world. I don't quite know, but I figure a New Year is a good time to start. I have had this idea of starting a blog about 8 months ago, but was always too busy. Then I had a intense fire season, travels across the country to witness history and was part of a major opportunities in my career. Now I wish I would have started it that long ago. But as the press well knows, news becomes old fast. So this wishing of yester-year will become old soon and hopefully 2009 will be filled with many adventures too. This blog is intended to be an ongoing journal of my photographing career. It will start with simple posts about me and who I am. As it grows, I hope it will evolve into something I cannot plan. We will just have to wait and see what the camera focuses on.