Yesterday was the birthday of the future Mrs. DIGImmortal, so we decided to take a small trip. We're nature people, so the mountains in the Winter was a no-brainer. Unfortunately we're not skiiers, which kind of singles you out in a ski resort kinda town, especially when the only thing to do at night is go out and get plastered. Actually, it seems to me that there are 2 things that people do at night in a ski town: First, is go to bed early so they don't feel the aches and pains they acquired all day long sliding down a mountainside while standing on giant popsickle sticks, Second is to go out and drink the pain away. Either way, not much nightlife if you aren't a big drinker or into late night snowboarding.
Brought out the camera, as I always do when I get the chance to go someplace new. Haven't had too many photo ops yet though. Yesterday we drove into town, went snowmobiling, got dinner and had a small birthday celebration alone. Spent the rest of the night looking up stuff to do today. Hopefully there will be plenty of chances to bust out the camera and take some cool photos. That's the problem with snowmobiling, it's a little too intense to be taking out a camera and trying to get nature photos, especially when you're supposed to be following closely behind the guy who runs the place and is used to all the bumps and twists and turns that you don't even see coming until you almost tip the damn thing over. So yeah, not a good idea.
Today should be a little easier though. Doing some snowshoeing/hiking, some ice skating, and perhaps horseback riding, if we can find a place that is run humanely and doesn't also fund a local roadside zoo with a newly added tiger. See, there's the hard part when you're an animal rights advocate, it's hard to decide where to spend your money.
Anyway, have to run since it's after 10 and I still need to get ready to leave and go through checkout and all that. Then it's off into the semi-wilderness, with nothing but my wits and my camera. That loosely translates to just the camera. Hopefully I'll have some cool snowy updates tomorrow once we get back to boring old suburbia.
More soon,
Rob
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
New Year, Attitude, and Goals
So I'm finally getting to follow up my New Year's Eve post. I promised I'd work on updating this thing much more often, so this is part of my attempt at refocusing my energies in 2010. You'll have to excuse me if from time to time I repeat myself or just ramble. I want to make this whole social networking thing work for me this year, so I'm going to be doing a lot of stumbling at first.
Anyway, it's still too soon to tell if this year will be a good one or not overall, but I'm going to try to look at everything with a refreshed view anyway. Does that mean I'll be deliriously positive? No way. In fact, I might be doing a lot of dark work in the coming months in an effort to purge some of that negative energy. It's not art if it's not interesting, right?
I want to make 2010 a big year for DIGImmortal Photo. I've recently been talking over some of my goals and plans with my ever-so-supportive fiance, and realizing that I'm putting a lot on my plate. I'm used to it though, so it should be OK. Plus, I'm tired of failing at nothing. I walk around at times with a huge weight on my shoulders and a feeling like I'm not doing anything right. The truth is, most of the time I don't have any real reason to feel like a failure, what I'm really feeling is the pressure of paranoia and being scared to fail. Those thoughts and feelings hold me back from ever trying anything and put me into a rut, a funk, a standstill. I need to break those chains that my mind puts on me and face things head-on. This morning David Hobby of strobist.com put a link up on Twitter to a video about failure. This is the first time I'd heard of this site or this video series, but it's called 30 Second MBA. It's a 30 second video, so just go ahead and watch it and come back. I'll wait...
OK, you see? There's a very important point there. Think about it for a minute, most of the wisest people we've ever known are always telling great stories. Our grandparents, parents, mentors, bosses, etc... they all have amazing stories of what it was like either growing up, growing a business, or just plain growing as a person. They have stories because they tried things, they attempted to make changes, try new ideas, new angles. They didn't sit in one place scared for their lives and not making a move. I'm not saying any of us should just up and leave if we have something worth sticking around for, but if you've got an idea and you think it's a good one, go for it. Even if it fails, at least you know not to try it again. Better now than later, right?
I've got some ideas for my business that could possibly result in me losing time and money instead of making anything, but the point is not the money, or even the time, it's the lesson that I can learn from it. I've got some goals that may seem miles away from what I could pull off in a year, but if I don't at least try, I won't even know exactly how many miles. It's time to embrace uncertainty instead of fearing it.
2010 can be a banner year for DIGImmortal Photo if I let it be. So I'm inviting and welcoming all of you to come along for the ride and keep up with things as they progress. I hope to be able to keep the steam pumping from this engine for long enough to see most, if not all, of these ideas through. If I can accomplish even half of what I've got my eye on for this year, then I'll still have finished ahead of what I should realistically be expecting.
Deepak Chopra always says something along the lines of "In the realm of uncertainty, anything is possible" - So I'm going to try my best, and it will be hard, to embrace uncertainty and make my visions a reality.
In other news, I had to take down the Twitter feed that used to be on the right side of this blog. For some reason, all of the updates were someone else's, even though the account info in the back-end here was right, and even the preview that it shows you did, in fact, contain my tweets. For some reason though, when it would publish, it would be the updates of someone from the UK. So you can just click here if you want to follow me on Twitter.
That's all for now, I've got some ideas cooking in this noggin, but I don't want to give them away yet. I'll be back with more updates soon, so stay tuned!
More soon.
-Rob
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Happy New Year: What's In Store
So, this is it for 2009, and good riddance to such an awful year. But now isn't the time to air our grievances with what has passed, it's time to look to the future and try to expect the best.
I want to take this time to thank everyone who has read this blog through the course of this year and who has followed me on Twitter. The online community is great because it can bring people together from across the planet and I am grateful that so many of you have been appreciating my work and coming back regularly to see what's new.
I also want to apologize for not being as active on social media as I had wanted to be. This has been a trying year for me on the personal front and professional front alike, and I am sorry that I let it get in the way of keeping people informed on what's been going on with DIGImmortal Photo.
2010 is going to bring some big changes for DIGImmortal. I've been spending the last few months researching the best uses and practices of social media services as well as traditional marketing techniques and I plan to hit all of them pretty hard this coming year. It's time to take that next step and really push myself in everyone's faces. I've got some nice job prospects on the horizon that will allow me to round out my portfolio even better but I am also taking Zack Arias' advice and will try to be more selective about what kind of work I show. I will also be applying much of what I learned at a recent Joe McNally seminar to my location lighting techniques.
I've basically been sitting around this year wondering why my business hasn't grown in the ways I want it to, and as it started to come together for me I realized that I need to stop admiring some of these big-time photogs that I follow and start embracing what it is they put out there for us to learn from. At the same time I finally started that 365 project that I had been putting off for so long, and so far I'm very happy with the results. Not only the results I get from the photos themselves but from what it's been doing for my discipline and creative eye. I will be doing this thing until October 2010, so I've got a long way to go, but it should continue to be both trying and fun all at once.
Anyway, there are only a few hours left in 2009, and I want to wish you all a safe, healthy, and happy new year. Let's all focus on what good can come in 2010 and put our collective conscious together and make it happen!
Happy New Year, and thanks for everything!
More soon.
-Rob
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
5 Years: How it came to be
Intro
This isn't going to be an easy entry for me to write, nor will it be very short. All I ask is that if you enjoy any aspects of my photography, whether it's my concert work, still life, nature, anything, please read this. This isn't going to be me trying to get you to buy anything or support a cause or any of that. This post is a page right out of my life and I've torn it right from my heart to share it.
This entry deals with a matter of loss and gain, and explains how DIGImmortal Photo came to be, right down to the name. So without more useless introduction, here we go:
"Becoming"
In March of 2003, my desires of working in the music industry, coupled with the same desires shared with me by my best friend, and accompanied by my family printing business, led me/us to start Paragon Music Magazine. Our very first issue was 2 sheets of paper, printed in black and white, stapled and folded to make 8 whole pages. We had a centerfold article which was a review of Black Label Society's "The Blessed Hellride," an interview with a friend of ours who was in a Hardcore band, a local comedian who I met through a friend, and my own column that I called "The Vent Column" where I would bitch and moan about anything and everything pissing me off at the time.
We started putting out issues once every month and driving them around to local music hot spots where people could pick them up for free. We did OK for a while, the issues got bigger and we started to network and make real connections in the music industry. We started doing interviews with bands whose publicists saw potential in what we were doing. We learned everything as we went along. We made many good decisions, and we had some slip-ups as well. I don't remember what interview we were trying to book when the PR agent asked if we wanted tickets and a photo pass to the upcoming show. Free tickets is a no brainer, but photo credentials would be awesome! We took them up on it and I shot my first show. The photos were awful because the camera was awful. To put it in perspective, it was a 0.3 megapixel Sony Mavica. Yes, 0.3 - not even one whole megapixel. Cell phones took better pictures 4 years ago!
Even with crappy pictures, it was fun, and it gave us something exclusive to run with the feature, instead of the same old press photos that were going around at the time. I did a few more shows with that Mavica until I rationalized that if I was going to be taking my own pictures for Paragon's features, I'd be better off investing in something a little better. So I got myself an Olympus 4 megapixel point and shoot, or Prosumer, as they called it, because it included some manual controls that would make it appealing to pro photographers.
That was the camera for me, I was sure of it, that would be the one to get me awesome pictures of awesome concerts and it would help me put Paragon on the map. Now I just had to figure out how to use it. You see, most people use the creative modes, or Auto, to take their pictures and they are happy with them. But shooting concerts in low, constantly changing lighting conditions, without flash, takes much more know-how of the camera system and its abilities and weaknesses. So I would figure it out as I went along. Until December 2004.
"I'm Broken"
It was December 4, 2004. It was a rainy night but I was on my way out the door to a concert I had been waiting on for weeks. Just 2 nights prior I was able to set up an interview with the singer. The band was Damageplan and I was interviewing Pat Lachman. I would have loved to interview Dimebag Darrell or Vinnie Paul, since Pantera was such a huge part of my life for many years and I always drew strength and inspiration from their music, but getting to interview Pat was just as awesome to me because I would get to hang with him backstage before the show. I got there a little late, but still early for their performance, got escorted backstage and met with Pat. We did the questions, he was nice enough to take a picture with me and sign my Damageplan CD booklet, and then we did a shot of Jagermeister and he gave me a beer. It was so awesome to be there, I couldn't even describe it to you. Mind you I was still new at this but trying not to look like the newbie, so I didn't wanna be all "Where is the rest of the band?! Can I meet them!?" - So I just played it cool and we wrapped up because Pat was going up on stage in a few moments to do a song with The Haunted, and I hung out by the side of the stage.
I stood there in front of the crowd barricade, watching as they hauled in Bob Zilla's and Dime's amps, set up Vinnie's drums, and did all the usual mic checking. The lights went low and the band took the stage. I think I did more singing along than picture taking, but I also blame the incredibly slow autofocus for that. I stayed right in front of Dimebag the entire time. I got a bunch of shots of him, some shots of Pat, one or two of Vinnie, and unfortunately none of Bob Zilla. I did the allowed 3 songs with no flash and was led out of the photo pit. I hung out for the rest of the set, discreetly snapping a few more shots from the side of the stage while Dimebag played his guitar solo that led them into 2 Pantera classics to close the set. As he was playing I remembered why Pantera meant so much to me. The power in the music and the energy in the lyrics, they just drive you, and when that drive is positive you feel like you can move mountains. As the band was leaving the stage, I reached out for a high-five but all I got was Dime's arm. Fine by me, the man is a legend and a hero to me, I'll take grabbing his arm over nothing at all.
I hung around for a bit while they set up the stage for Shadows Fall, but I didn't really intend on staying for them because I was fighting a pretty bad cold and wanted to get home and look at the photos. On my way out I was flicking through the LCD previews and they were much less stellar than I had originally hoped they would be. A lot of blurry shots, either from motion blur or flat out bad focus. In the end, there wasn't really much besides maybe 2 or 3 photos that I thought would be acceptable for print. But there was hope because now I had a contact at their label who could hook me up in the future, and during the interview Pat told me that after the tour they'd be in the studio recording the second album. I figured, hey, it was still an awesome night, and maybe next time I can meet Dime and Vinnie backstage if the label was impressed with the quality of the interview (because they sure as hell wouldn't be blown away by the photos).
"Shattered"
5 days later I wake up and go online before work, only to see what I thought was a terrible joke. A headline on my homepage said "Rocker Dimebag Darrell Dead" - my jaw dropped and I felt a sinking feeling overcome me. This couldn't be true! No way! Dimebag isn't dead, this must be a different Dimebag Darrell, maybe some dummy in a tribute band crashed his car or something. Sure enough though, the article went on to read that Dimebag Darrell of Damageplan, formerly of Pantera, was killed the night before, December 8, when a crazed fan got on stage at the start of the band's set in Ohio and put a bunch of bullets into him.
Silence. That's all there was for a minute. Dead silence in my head. A man who meant so much to me was just killed in cold blood doing what he loved to do, doing the thing that people loved him for. How could it happen!?
I tried calling the tour manager, thinking that I'd be able to act like some big-shot press person or something, but got no answer. I found out later that day that the tour manager had also been shot. I called a photographer friend of mine who knew Dimebag personally, no answer. It was impossible to deal with, I was so shocked.
In the months that followed so much had been going on in the Metal community. Tributes, news pieces, interviews. You name it. If it had to do with Dime and his legacy, it was out there. All I had to offer was an interview with Pat and some blurry photos that didn't deserve the time it took to try posting them online.
"New Found Power"
I was depressed and angry for a long time, it took years to get over it. Some people would call it silly and childish, but when someone you could only wish to ever meet was inches away from you, or maybe just in the next room, and you blow your chance of meeting them, the last chance you'll ever have, because you're trying to look professional and play it cool, you find it hard to forgive yourself. I could have told him how much his music meant to me, or how his previous band got me through some pretty crappy times in my life. I could have told him that I loved the new album and couldn't wait for the next. Or maybe I wouldn't have had the guts to say any of that, maybe it would have just been one of those speechless "I'm a big fan" type situations, totally starstruck with nothing useful to say. But at least I would have had the chance.
Something changed the morning of December 9, 2004. I looked at my little bitty, virtually unknown magazine and my just-ok-camera differently. We put out a tribute issue featuring the interview with Pat. A year later we did another tribute issue that featured interviews with some of Dime's friends. We had Dean Z. from Dean Guitars, Chad Lee of rockconcertfotos.com, Nick Catanese of Black Label Society, and comedian Jim Florentine; all were close friends of Dime's. We got them to share some incredible stories and I ran some of the photos that I didn't really think were worth looking at when I took them.
But from the moment I knew Dimebag was really gone, I knew that I couldn't just take sub-par photos. I idolized a lot of these people, and I was DAMN lucky to be able to have the access to them that I had. I could not waste these opportunities. I started focusing on my photography much more seriously. If a concert came to town, I wanted to be there. Even if I didn't care for the band, and even if I didn't have a feature to run on them, I wanted to photograph them because someone, somewhere out there, idolized them as much as I idolized "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott.
I needed a place for people to see these pictures that I would take, though. I needed an identity as a photographer. Paragon was getting harder to keep publishing on a regular basis, and the gas prices were killing me. When you drive all over the state to give out your hard work for FREE, it gets hard to justify it. I decided I would make myself into a pro photographer somehow, someway. But what would I call my business? My name is Italian and it's hard enough for people to pronounce when it's in front of them, forget about trying to spell it on their own. So I wanted a cool company name. It came to me in part through the music, and part from my heart. I was looking for a name that would really exemplify what I do: I take pictures, digitally, that I hope will last forever and stand the test of time. I wanted to capture performances, bits of instances that people want to remember because they were at a given show. I was listening to Fear Factory at the time and one of their album names struck me - Digimortal - Yeah, that's it! The name is exactly what I want to convey. Well, sort of exactly. The way they spelled it and were using it, it was intended to describe a melding of human and machine, a digital mortal. I wanted something a bit different than "man meets machine," so I added an extra M to make it Digital and Immortal. After all, that was my intention, to make photos and memories that last forever, digitally, Digitally Immortal, DIGImmortal.
Since taking on that state of mind and determination, and coming up with an identity for myself, I've found myself in the photo pit in front of so many people that I admire, and even though some shows give me better pictures than others, I know I'm lucky every time. Every show is a reminder of why I do this, because everyone idolizes at least one musician out there. I have many musical idols, Dimebag was just one of them, but his death taught me to get off my ass and do something with myself - Take my artistic vision, bring it to a stage, and then put it out there for other music fans to see.
"Breathing New Life"
My styles and subjects have broadened over the years as I grow as a photographer, and my equipment and knowledge thereof has grown quite a bit, but with every single concert that I shoot I remember why I'm there. Every set of concert photos that I put out there, good or bad, is a tribute to the late Dimebag Darrell Abbott. He may be gone but he'll never be forgotten, and his inspiration will always be here with me.
It's been 5 years now since he was killed, and it still feels like yesterday. Sometimes I still get that sinking feeling knowing that there will never be a new album from him. No one loved fun like Dime did, and anyone who knew him or even watched his home movie DVDs will tell you that he was a great person, genuinely caring and light hearted and always wanted people around him to have a good time, no matter what the cost. So with or without him, let's all raise a Blacktooth Grin and be thankful that he was here at all. His time was too short, but he left us with so much. Here's to you Dime, getcha pull!
You can click on the photos in the blog entry, or go HERE to see the Damageplan photos, as I've recently re-uploaded them for the public to see.
Paragon Music Magazine is still alive and well, however in 2007 we decided to switch to an online-only format. It allows us to publish issues in full color instead of black and white, and it requires no physical distribution, which makes it less of a strain on our gas tanks as well as the print shop. We put out around 4 issues each year now, you can check it out HERE.
More soon, as always
-Rob
This isn't going to be an easy entry for me to write, nor will it be very short. All I ask is that if you enjoy any aspects of my photography, whether it's my concert work, still life, nature, anything, please read this. This isn't going to be me trying to get you to buy anything or support a cause or any of that. This post is a page right out of my life and I've torn it right from my heart to share it.
This entry deals with a matter of loss and gain, and explains how DIGImmortal Photo came to be, right down to the name. So without more useless introduction, here we go:
"Becoming"
In March of 2003, my desires of working in the music industry, coupled with the same desires shared with me by my best friend, and accompanied by my family printing business, led me/us to start Paragon Music Magazine. Our very first issue was 2 sheets of paper, printed in black and white, stapled and folded to make 8 whole pages. We had a centerfold article which was a review of Black Label Society's "The Blessed Hellride," an interview with a friend of ours who was in a Hardcore band, a local comedian who I met through a friend, and my own column that I called "The Vent Column" where I would bitch and moan about anything and everything pissing me off at the time.
We started putting out issues once every month and driving them around to local music hot spots where people could pick them up for free. We did OK for a while, the issues got bigger and we started to network and make real connections in the music industry. We started doing interviews with bands whose publicists saw potential in what we were doing. We learned everything as we went along. We made many good decisions, and we had some slip-ups as well. I don't remember what interview we were trying to book when the PR agent asked if we wanted tickets and a photo pass to the upcoming show. Free tickets is a no brainer, but photo credentials would be awesome! We took them up on it and I shot my first show. The photos were awful because the camera was awful. To put it in perspective, it was a 0.3 megapixel Sony Mavica. Yes, 0.3 - not even one whole megapixel. Cell phones took better pictures 4 years ago!
Even with crappy pictures, it was fun, and it gave us something exclusive to run with the feature, instead of the same old press photos that were going around at the time. I did a few more shows with that Mavica until I rationalized that if I was going to be taking my own pictures for Paragon's features, I'd be better off investing in something a little better. So I got myself an Olympus 4 megapixel point and shoot, or Prosumer, as they called it, because it included some manual controls that would make it appealing to pro photographers.
That was the camera for me, I was sure of it, that would be the one to get me awesome pictures of awesome concerts and it would help me put Paragon on the map. Now I just had to figure out how to use it. You see, most people use the creative modes, or Auto, to take their pictures and they are happy with them. But shooting concerts in low, constantly changing lighting conditions, without flash, takes much more know-how of the camera system and its abilities and weaknesses. So I would figure it out as I went along. Until December 2004.
"I'm Broken"
It was December 4, 2004. It was a rainy night but I was on my way out the door to a concert I had been waiting on for weeks. Just 2 nights prior I was able to set up an interview with the singer. The band was Damageplan and I was interviewing Pat Lachman. I would have loved to interview Dimebag Darrell or Vinnie Paul, since Pantera was such a huge part of my life for many years and I always drew strength and inspiration from their music, but getting to interview Pat was just as awesome to me because I would get to hang with him backstage before the show. I got there a little late, but still early for their performance, got escorted backstage and met with Pat. We did the questions, he was nice enough to take a picture with me and sign my Damageplan CD booklet, and then we did a shot of Jagermeister and he gave me a beer. It was so awesome to be there, I couldn't even describe it to you. Mind you I was still new at this but trying not to look like the newbie, so I didn't wanna be all "Where is the rest of the band?! Can I meet them!?" - So I just played it cool and we wrapped up because Pat was going up on stage in a few moments to do a song with The Haunted, and I hung out by the side of the stage.
I stood there in front of the crowd barricade, watching as they hauled in Bob Zilla's and Dime's amps, set up Vinnie's drums, and did all the usual mic checking. The lights went low and the band took the stage. I think I did more singing along than picture taking, but I also blame the incredibly slow autofocus for that. I stayed right in front of Dimebag the entire time. I got a bunch of shots of him, some shots of Pat, one or two of Vinnie, and unfortunately none of Bob Zilla. I did the allowed 3 songs with no flash and was led out of the photo pit. I hung out for the rest of the set, discreetly snapping a few more shots from the side of the stage while Dimebag played his guitar solo that led them into 2 Pantera classics to close the set. As he was playing I remembered why Pantera meant so much to me. The power in the music and the energy in the lyrics, they just drive you, and when that drive is positive you feel like you can move mountains. As the band was leaving the stage, I reached out for a high-five but all I got was Dime's arm. Fine by me, the man is a legend and a hero to me, I'll take grabbing his arm over nothing at all.
I hung around for a bit while they set up the stage for Shadows Fall, but I didn't really intend on staying for them because I was fighting a pretty bad cold and wanted to get home and look at the photos. On my way out I was flicking through the LCD previews and they were much less stellar than I had originally hoped they would be. A lot of blurry shots, either from motion blur or flat out bad focus. In the end, there wasn't really much besides maybe 2 or 3 photos that I thought would be acceptable for print. But there was hope because now I had a contact at their label who could hook me up in the future, and during the interview Pat told me that after the tour they'd be in the studio recording the second album. I figured, hey, it was still an awesome night, and maybe next time I can meet Dime and Vinnie backstage if the label was impressed with the quality of the interview (because they sure as hell wouldn't be blown away by the photos).
"Shattered"
5 days later I wake up and go online before work, only to see what I thought was a terrible joke. A headline on my homepage said "Rocker Dimebag Darrell Dead" - my jaw dropped and I felt a sinking feeling overcome me. This couldn't be true! No way! Dimebag isn't dead, this must be a different Dimebag Darrell, maybe some dummy in a tribute band crashed his car or something. Sure enough though, the article went on to read that Dimebag Darrell of Damageplan, formerly of Pantera, was killed the night before, December 8, when a crazed fan got on stage at the start of the band's set in Ohio and put a bunch of bullets into him.
Silence. That's all there was for a minute. Dead silence in my head. A man who meant so much to me was just killed in cold blood doing what he loved to do, doing the thing that people loved him for. How could it happen!?
I tried calling the tour manager, thinking that I'd be able to act like some big-shot press person or something, but got no answer. I found out later that day that the tour manager had also been shot. I called a photographer friend of mine who knew Dimebag personally, no answer. It was impossible to deal with, I was so shocked.
In the months that followed so much had been going on in the Metal community. Tributes, news pieces, interviews. You name it. If it had to do with Dime and his legacy, it was out there. All I had to offer was an interview with Pat and some blurry photos that didn't deserve the time it took to try posting them online.
"New Found Power"
I was depressed and angry for a long time, it took years to get over it. Some people would call it silly and childish, but when someone you could only wish to ever meet was inches away from you, or maybe just in the next room, and you blow your chance of meeting them, the last chance you'll ever have, because you're trying to look professional and play it cool, you find it hard to forgive yourself. I could have told him how much his music meant to me, or how his previous band got me through some pretty crappy times in my life. I could have told him that I loved the new album and couldn't wait for the next. Or maybe I wouldn't have had the guts to say any of that, maybe it would have just been one of those speechless "I'm a big fan" type situations, totally starstruck with nothing useful to say. But at least I would have had the chance.
Something changed the morning of December 9, 2004. I looked at my little bitty, virtually unknown magazine and my just-ok-camera differently. We put out a tribute issue featuring the interview with Pat. A year later we did another tribute issue that featured interviews with some of Dime's friends. We had Dean Z. from Dean Guitars, Chad Lee of rockconcertfotos.com, Nick Catanese of Black Label Society, and comedian Jim Florentine; all were close friends of Dime's. We got them to share some incredible stories and I ran some of the photos that I didn't really think were worth looking at when I took them.
But from the moment I knew Dimebag was really gone, I knew that I couldn't just take sub-par photos. I idolized a lot of these people, and I was DAMN lucky to be able to have the access to them that I had. I could not waste these opportunities. I started focusing on my photography much more seriously. If a concert came to town, I wanted to be there. Even if I didn't care for the band, and even if I didn't have a feature to run on them, I wanted to photograph them because someone, somewhere out there, idolized them as much as I idolized "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott.
I needed a place for people to see these pictures that I would take, though. I needed an identity as a photographer. Paragon was getting harder to keep publishing on a regular basis, and the gas prices were killing me. When you drive all over the state to give out your hard work for FREE, it gets hard to justify it. I decided I would make myself into a pro photographer somehow, someway. But what would I call my business? My name is Italian and it's hard enough for people to pronounce when it's in front of them, forget about trying to spell it on their own. So I wanted a cool company name. It came to me in part through the music, and part from my heart. I was looking for a name that would really exemplify what I do: I take pictures, digitally, that I hope will last forever and stand the test of time. I wanted to capture performances, bits of instances that people want to remember because they were at a given show. I was listening to Fear Factory at the time and one of their album names struck me - Digimortal - Yeah, that's it! The name is exactly what I want to convey. Well, sort of exactly. The way they spelled it and were using it, it was intended to describe a melding of human and machine, a digital mortal. I wanted something a bit different than "man meets machine," so I added an extra M to make it Digital and Immortal. After all, that was my intention, to make photos and memories that last forever, digitally, Digitally Immortal, DIGImmortal.
Since taking on that state of mind and determination, and coming up with an identity for myself, I've found myself in the photo pit in front of so many people that I admire, and even though some shows give me better pictures than others, I know I'm lucky every time. Every show is a reminder of why I do this, because everyone idolizes at least one musician out there. I have many musical idols, Dimebag was just one of them, but his death taught me to get off my ass and do something with myself - Take my artistic vision, bring it to a stage, and then put it out there for other music fans to see.
"Breathing New Life"
My styles and subjects have broadened over the years as I grow as a photographer, and my equipment and knowledge thereof has grown quite a bit, but with every single concert that I shoot I remember why I'm there. Every set of concert photos that I put out there, good or bad, is a tribute to the late Dimebag Darrell Abbott. He may be gone but he'll never be forgotten, and his inspiration will always be here with me.
It's been 5 years now since he was killed, and it still feels like yesterday. Sometimes I still get that sinking feeling knowing that there will never be a new album from him. No one loved fun like Dime did, and anyone who knew him or even watched his home movie DVDs will tell you that he was a great person, genuinely caring and light hearted and always wanted people around him to have a good time, no matter what the cost. So with or without him, let's all raise a Blacktooth Grin and be thankful that he was here at all. His time was too short, but he left us with so much. Here's to you Dime, getcha pull!
You can click on the photos in the blog entry, or go HERE to see the Damageplan photos, as I've recently re-uploaded them for the public to see.
Paragon Music Magazine is still alive and well, however in 2007 we decided to switch to an online-only format. It allows us to publish issues in full color instead of black and white, and it requires no physical distribution, which makes it less of a strain on our gas tanks as well as the print shop. We put out around 4 issues each year now, you can check it out HERE.
More soon, as always
-Rob
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Help Wildlife Rehab This Holiday Season
I've been involved with a wildlife rehabilitation facility for about 2 years now. Animals, whether domesticated or wild, are very close to my heart. I started volunteering cleaning out a raccoon enclosure and feeding them. It was by far the most hands-on I've ever been with an animal of that kind. Everyone is afraid of raccoons, and reasonably so when you consider the risks, but it didn't matter to me. These little guys needed help and that's what I was there for. For lack of an effective way to put it any nicer, I was picking up poop, being bitten by bugs, and feeding them all kinds of things from apple sauce to frozen pinky mice and chicken bones, all while stuck inside a backyard gazebo sized structure. There was nothing between their teeth and my flesh other than a pair of jeans, but not once did they bite or scratch at me, they were just grateful that someone was caring for them.
I also got to prepare meals for opossums and bottle feed infant squirrels, as well as help out on the eventual release back into the wild of a baby bunny and 3 raccoons.
It's not some people's idea of a fun and leisurely time, but for me it meant something much greater. I will be honest and tell you that I haven't been back into the raccoon cage since that first season, but I've been helping out behind the scenes in other ways when possible.
Right now you can help dozens of needy raccoons, rabbits, skunks, squirrels, chipmunks, bats, opossums and groundhogs. All you have to do is purchase any print from any of my Online Store galleries and use checkout coupon code "SMWRC" and 30% of the profits from that order will go directly to the shelter.
You can order from any of these galleries:
Nature
Architecture
Conceptual
Fine Art
You can also order photos of cute cats from this gallery:
PATCH Cats
365 Project
This rehab shelter is independently owned (not a government facility) and runs completely off of grants and donations, and the hard work of its volunteers.I will run this promotion until the end of the year and then in January I will donate any applicable proceeds to the South Mountain Wildlife Rehab Center.
Please consider buying some prints for yourself or as holiday gifts this year. Your friends and family will thank you for the gift, and the animals you help will thank you for the second chance they get at life.
This rehab shelter is independently owned (not a government facility) and runs completely off of grants and donations, and the hard work of its volunteers.I will run this promotion until the end of the year and then in January I will donate any applicable proceeds to the South Mountain Wildlife Rehab Center.
Please consider buying some prints for yourself or as holiday gifts this year. Your friends and family will thank you for the gift, and the animals you help will thank you for the second chance they get at life.
More soon.
Rob
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Rock Neck Park
It's been a while since I updated this blog with anything pretty or useful. Things have been going 100MPH around here, I just wish I knew which highway I was on.
A few weeks ago we took a trip out to Connecticut and stopped at Rock Neck Park for about 2 hours while killing some time in our travels. There is something so liberating about nature photography. Even though you feel pressure to "get the shot" the scenery is usually nice and calming. Maybe if I did it professionally I would feel differently, because I know pro landscape photogs probably pull their hair out trying to get something groundbreaking (no pun intended), but for me it's a welcomed change from my usual line of work.
It was my first time in this park, and the last and only other time I'd been in CT was when I was a little kid. The park is absolutely beautiful, and even though we didn't get to see the whole thing, we took a nice relaxing walk around the lake and snapped some nice pictures.
I don't usually share a lot of my personal photos that I take during my downtime, but I decided that these would look great in my Nature gallery. So if you know anyone who enjoys a really nice landscape photo, now's the time to pick up an early holiday gift. Actually, I'm not so sure I can even say "early" since most retail stores have been pushing the Christmas stuff since, oh, Valentines day! More like September, but it feels like they never even put the stuff back in storage. I'm not a Winter kind of person, so when I see holiday decorations out and Football season has barely even kicked in, I start to panic!
Click on any 3 of these images to check out the gallery and browse what I have to offer. I'd think that they'd make an especially nice gift for someone who has possibly spent a lot of time in this particular park, or in the general CT area.
More to come...
-Rob
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
365 Project Begins
I know it's been a while since I've put anything up here, life has been in the way. I've been busy with some personal things, as well as some charity photography I've been doing for a local cat shelter that I volunteer at. All this leaves very little time to keep up with blogging.
However I wanted to let you all know that I've started a 365 Photo project to keep the creative juices flowing. The idea is that you take at least 1 photo each day for a full year. It's supposed to help you develop your creative eye, as eventually you run out of cool things to shoot and have to make the most, artistically, of your bland everyday surroundings.
I hope this will enhance my skills, and I'm going to share the results with the online community on either a daily or weekly basis. It's hard enough to shoot something and post it online daily, it's even harder to write blogs and announcements and things, so I'm thinking I'll shoot daily, and update my website gallery daily, but maybe will post the results on here, FB, Twitter, and my business blog weekly, so as not to overload everyone.
I'm open to suggestions of what to shoot during the next 365 days, just don't be offended if I don't get to your request. Shots will range from ordinary things that border on snapshots, to full on studio work, to concerts and other things.
The first photo is online now, it's a photo of my new motorcycle sunglasses sitting on the headlight of my new (used) motorcycle.
Swing by and see, then bookmark the gallery or just look for updates on here. Most of these photos will also be for sale, so if there is something that catches your eye pick it up and help support independent art!
-Rob
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