Memory Box Photography

So after hearing a week of reports that our families up near Saline and Pulaski county had been getting out of school for snow, we FINALLY got some. NOT much, but a little bit! Throughout the day, I’d been telling Emma, “Hey…if it snows, let’s go take pictures. And by let’s take pictures, I mean I want to take pictures of you….not so much me be in any of them.”

Well..it started snowing.

I grabbed my jacket, my gear bag, my body and 24-70 f/2.8L and a walmart sack and ran down the stairs to my car. We went out to Lake Degray and found a cool spot. I decided to hook up my strobe to a bar via Gorilla Pod (lifesaver) and set my umbrella up. Well…..I had a bag to put over my camera…but not a bag to put over the strobe. So…that’s what my jacket did during the shoot. It didn’t keep me warm (AT ALL), but it kept my flash dry. I wish I’d have taken a picture of the setup to show you all, it was pretty funny. Also…I couldn’t feel my arms. BUT we got some great shots out of it, and I decided to try a little something different, almost a filmish style (on some of them), so here they are!

WinterChill for Fellowship Bible Church was this weekend at Shepherd of the Ozarks. I dont know how well any of you know me, but I’ve worked with FSM (Fellowship Student Ministries) for a while. My freshman year of college, I started thinking about what I wanted to do for the summer. In November, I called my friend Paul Stevens, who at the time was campus pastor for Fellowship Benton. He informed me that FSM in Little Rock had gotten a new youth pastor, and he may be interested in an intern. So I called Brandon Barnard, who just started working for FBC. He didn’t answer. So I called him the next week. No answer, so I emailed him that day, no answer. SO…I went up there with my friend Aaron Williams. We talked and he seemed interested to an extent. A few weeks later, I called. No reply. This went on for literally (and embarrassingly) months. Finally, a new guy, Tim Caldwell, started working for the junior high, and one of his first jobs was to finally call “that kid” back.

LONGER story short, I was hired. Whether out of sheer nussance, or merit, i was hired. The original deal was for it to last through August 2008. Well….I’m still here. Still kickin’ till they tell me to quit showing up.

Over the weekend, we took our Senior High on the yearly retreat. Our speaker was Dave Edwards, the band was Solace Found, and Drew Worsham is an illusionist that came. I took the opportunity to bring some of my gear, and had a BLAST! Soon enough, we’ll have a too-legit-to-quit coffee table book around the offices. Here’s my top 10 favorite shots from the memoryBOOTH.

10. Youth Group Rule: You can’t dance in line for lunch and then turn down a photo request.

9. Bobby has been one of the amazing adult volunteers around FSM in the past. He’s recently started working as a youth minister in Camden, AR…AND falling in pictures.

8. If you’ve been around FSM long enough, you know the staff kids. Hudson is a tiny ball of crazy huge energy, as he runs through a shot while Momma’s trying to get a family picture together.

7. Landon’s arm is the one you see in the photo. His direct quote after the shot, “Dude…you were supposed to hit my arm and fall to the ground. Let’s try again, I’ll put some force in it.” We didn’t try again.

6. More staff kids. Ready to fight…and to tease you….and again, to fight.

5. Guys saying “Lets make fun of their jump picture” turned into a near black eye. Worth it.

4. Wes is one of the more reserved out of my closest group of friends. But the second he realized taking pictures like this had limitless possibilities, he lit up like a Christmas tree.

3. FSM Staff pic! I seriously couldn’t hand pick a better group. I love our staff.

2. Aaron and Mallory had rice krispies…..and used them with deadly force.

1. Any time two high school guys say, “Hey man…lets get a running start and kick each other,” find yourself a camera.

Those are the top 10, here’s a link to the FB album with the rest of them. Check it out!!! [[link]]

I took these “Blackberry Polaroids” Wednesday afternoon. Yes…WEDNESDAY! Remember, Arkadelphia, all the rain we got on Friday? The ankle deep water we trudged through to get to class, just to sit in the classrooms soaking wet? Well, a mere 35 miles north (and beyond), that was snow. Snow that was so intense, it was STILL around on Wednesday! That’s CRAZY! So I just wanted to show you some quick phone shots of what exactly it was that we missed out. Granted, it’s had days to melt, but its still a lot. Which just shows you how much there was in the first place.

I love snow. But I live in Arkadelphia.

In other news, this weekend, assuming WinterChill happens (I prewrite a lot of my blog posts), there’s some pretty cool photo stuff up my sleeve to surprise the high school students with. It’s going to be a blast. Be praying that God first clears the way for us to get there safely, but just as, and maybe more importantly, pray that God does amazing things in the lives of these High Schoolers! It’s going to be a blast, I cant wait to show you some stuff from it!

Grace and Peace and I want snow next week,
Austin

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, so I thought I’d hop on and fill you in on what’s going on in the photo world I try and live in. A LOT of people are posting pictures of all this gorgeous snow that Little Rock got…BUT…I live in Arkadelphia, and we got rain. A boatload of rain. :/

But today was a great day. Ever since I’ve started out trying to find my way in the photography world, there’s been one noticeable aspect missing: community. I always felt like in an artistic arena, community and gaining information and inspiration from other people would be essential, but it was no where to be found. Then, Help-Portrait came along. I signed up for the Little Rock outreach of it, headed up by Grant Harrison. A few people were on the list of participants, so I decided to do what college students do best…..Facebook Stalk. I already knew Grant, but added another couple guys, including Eli. Eli’s always been incredibly friendly on Facebook and Twitter as well, and it’s been awesome to get to chat as time has gone on.

A week or so ago, Eli sent me a FB invite for a photog lunch meetup. So what did I do? I skipped a few classes (SHHHH!) and went. It was a blast to be able to sit and have a meal with people who live in this world full time and don’t raise a haughty nose at someone in college or not full-time! Fun meal, made great connections, learned plenty, and just had great community.

Community, though, isn’t limited to artistic expression. The same yearning for connection has been in a lot of aspects in life. So, here’s my challenge, a rhetorical one. What community are you a part of that challenges you and stretches you? Being challenged is the best way to grow, so look for areas that physically, artistically, spiritually, or mentally challenge you to go a step higher than where you are now. Community is the coolest.

Oh…and yes, a picture! Here’s a shot that Emma took of me during that photobooth set up on campus! I’m excited at the inquiries from businesses, parties, and weddings that I’ve gotten for it. Let me know if you’d want to book one for your next event!

For my 100th post, I thought I’d ask what you thought? Give me your feedback. Favorites? Least favorites? Likes? Dislikes? Or just watch them!

If it says 2009 commercials, come back later. They’ll switch it!

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I’ve been waiting to be able to post this for quite some time. I have a new product with wedding packages, and some of my 2010 brides have already booked it for their wedding this year! This is a GREAT addition to make your reception something to remember, for you AND your guests! When you reserve a memoryBOOTH with your wedding package, included is a memoryBOOTHbook, a book of your guests that got their crazy, fun, goofy pictures taken at your reception!

If you have any questions or curiosities about the memoryBOOTH or would like package listings for your wedding, feel free to use the contact link!

For this memoryBOOTH, I just wanted to test the setup. I have an event booked soon (I can’t reveal on the blog just yet, because it’s a surprise for the attendees) and wanted to have some fun with my new toys. A hand full of my friends showed up to have their zany pictures taken, and it was a continuous hour of solid fun! Here are a handful of the results, some of my personal fav’s.

Look out. This guy’s crazy.

It was an extremely successful day, pictures aside. Why? I was able to teach THREE people how to do back-button focusing (which also let me be in a pic or two)! Props to the students.

But on a couple of them, I held the camera myself. VERY nerve racking when you’re holding your camera, a battery grip, and a 24-70 f/2.8 at arm’s reach, trying to do back button focusing and shutter control! YIKES, but a couple turned out well enough!

She might be a little upset at me for posting this one.

Yes, I drink Diet Coke. Yes, a lot of it ended up on my face about 1/200th of a second after this shot. Yes, I managed to keep any of it off of the background.

Every just have one of those weeks?

This one I just had too much fun with to not post.

READERS DIGEST VERSION: Thursday. 5-6 PM. Berry Chapel. Free Pics. Come by, bring a prop or something goofy if you want. Read on for details.

For any of yall that follow me on twitter ( @austinjwalker ) know that I have recently gotten a little bit more equipment in the mail! I’ve gotten a good bit of stuff, some of which I had trouble finding places in my room to keep it out of the way.

Here’s where you come in. I’ve reserved Berry Chapel for a fun MemoryBooth Shoot! If you are a college student in Arkadelphia, you are invited! Come and get a cRaZy picture made of you, your suite, a few of your friends, or whatever! Then, after it goes through the super secret process I send my work through, it will pop out as a great photo! For this one time only, I’ll post any and all that turn out well to an album on flickr, in which you will be able to snag it, download it, make it your profile pic, whatever you want! (details to come on that later).

Here’s what you need to know.

- NO normal stand and say cheese pictures allowed.
- Berry Chapel on THURSDAY from 5:00 P.M. until 6:00 P.M.
- Dress goofy if you want.
- Bring props if you want! These can be something as simple to something crazy. Huge sunglasses, your iphone, a strange gift you got for Christmas. If you think it could make for an interesting picture, bring it. Even if you dont know WHAT to do with it, we’ll figure something out.
- You dont have to be my friend, or even my Facebook friend to show up! If you want a picture, whether you know me or not, come. This isn’t just a hang out with my friends. I want to meet you, so come, introduce yourself, get some rockin’ awesome shots of you at the MemoryBooth, and add me on Facebook! I want to meet new people through this, not just get some pictures. So DONT be shy!

BEFORE you do anything else, if you’re going to show up, I need you to do something! On the left, see that bar of links? Click “TID BITS.” See those three options that popped down? Pretty sweet isn’t it?! What you need to do is go subscribe to the newsletter. I’m NOT going to spam you, I promise. This is just the easiest way for me to get the word out to anyone that wants a picture about how to go online and find it! I wont be putting on the blog how to find yours! I’ll load them, share how to access them, and let you enjoy.

Go do that. Right now. then come back and finish reading this.

……….

Ok. You back? AWESOME! I’m excited, and you better be too!

The last thing you need to do before coming is tweet the post below! The more, the merrier! I’ll shoot until my computer and cards run out of space or until 6 PM (mostly because I only have the chapel reserved for so long….also because I want to eat before the caf closes). Some of you may be thinking it sounds lame to tweet about it, but the more people we have, the more fun it’s going to be. If it’s just me and 3 other people, sure it will be fun, but I want as many people as possible to get their picture taken. Lets pack that place out!

TWEET THIS: Free pictures, check out the link for info http://ow.ly/13aMl

I know a few of you are skeptics. What’s in it for me? Free? There’s always a catch. Think about this. I just invested a LOT of money on stuff for the wedding season this year, and instead of it sitting under my bed in my room, I want to USE it! So I decided instead of trying to just tinker with it every once and a while, I’ll invite my friends to come reap the benefits. Will they be perfect? Probably not. Will they all come out awesome? A lot of that is up to you. Will we have a blast? Always.

So……..in summary.

- get pics.
- be crazy.
- free.
- thursday. 5-6 pm. berry chapel.
- tweet this.
- fb status this.
- txt this.
- share this.

And finally, because no post is complete without a picture, here’s a couple Blackberry Polaroids I took while I was driving back from getting all of these packages!

For those of you who haven’t ever been to the Memory Box Photography blog, take a look around. You’ll like what you see! Blackberry Polaroids are just shots that I take during every day life from my Blackberry. They’re not my portfolio work, but they are where I am (if that makes sense).

FINALLY! I KNOW there is some Running Back fans. Their newest song, “Serpent’s Tongue” is now the first song in the jukebox on the Memory Box Photography Main Site. Check it out!