Lorr & Ger Cape Cod Wedding Day slideshow
Congratulations to Lorr & Ger who flew to the United States from Ireland for their wedding day! James Edward Bates Photography is honored to have been asked to document this wonderful couple's beach ceremony in Brewster, Massachusetts in June of this year. Cape Cod was as beautiful as ever for this loving couple. We wish them the very best as they begin their lives.
Below, we have shared the wedding day slideshow they will share with family and friends at a reception back home in Ireland this weekend. We hope you enjoy the images as much as we enjoyed getting to know this sweet couple!
Kali & Patrick engagement session slideshow
Take a look at our beautiful slideshow featuring great images from Kali & Patrick's engagement photo session on the Mississippi Gulf Coast! We know you'll love it! We can't wait to shoot this wonderful couple's wedding!
If you would like to know how you can receive a slideshow to music from your session with James Edward Bates Photography, contact us!
RC copter crashes into bride and groom
James Edward Bates Photography promises to never let this happen to our clients! Watch this RC copter fly into the bride and groom. Ouch!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ocqB6_y71xE
Detroit files largest municipal bankruptcy in American history
Residents watch as firefighters battle a structure fire that destroyed two vacant houses in their Detroit neighborhood. Intentional fires in vacant homes is a huge problem in the city. ©2013 James Edward Bates
Thieves steal manhole covers for scrap metal in Detroit, leaving dangerous obstacles throughout the city. ©2013 James Edward Bates
Detroit youth play a game of hoops near the site of the abandoned Fischer automotive plant (not the building in the background) on May 11, 2013. ©2013 James Edward Bates
The City of Detroit, Michigan, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection today, seeking to shield itself from creditors, as reported by Detroit Free Press on Thursday. The Motor City is estimated to have debts between $18 billion and $20 billion, making it the largest city to file bankruptcy in American history.
Feeling bankruptcy was inevitable for Detroit, I spent some time in the city in May of this year to try to get a feel for the challenges facing Detroit and her residents. What I found were a lot of blighted industrial and residential areas. There are lots of empty buildings, many of them relics from the automotive industry in deplorable, unsecure conditions. Some are clearly hazardous and easily accessible for children and youth to explore or vandalize.
During my brief time in Detroit, I found kids doing what kids do best, playing with their friends. I found residents taking care of their yards and spending time with their families. I also found the previously mentioned abandoned buildings and countless abandoned residential properties. Many of them had been burned out or completely burned down. In fact, while I was photographing the long abandoned Packard Automotive plant, a fire engine passed, sirens blaring, as firefighters responded to a call. After a few minutes, my curiosity got the best of me and I began driving in the direction the fire truck had gone. It didn't take long for me to discover a huge plume of smoke in the distant sky. Within about five minutes, I arrived at a structure fire of two abandoned houses situated side-by-side.
I captured a few frames with my camera and began speaking with residents who confirmed the reports I had already seen; that there had been a rash of abandoned properties torched. It really seemed common place to the folks I spoke with. Even the firefighters had a relaxed approach to the situation. I mean, they were doing their jobs, but you could tell this happened often.
As I began walking to my car, an elderly lady called to me from behind the screen door of her front porch. I walked over and introduced myself, learned that she was born in Detroit, but surprised to hear that her parents were born in Mississippi, where I am from and live. Having a connection, she began to speak freely of her disgust for the condition of her neighborhood and the city where she had lived her entire life. She was almost in tears. She didn't want to be photographed, but she wanted to talk.
As flames continued to billow out of the two houses down the street, she emotionally explained how she had just last year purchased the home she had rented for six years prior to that. She longed for a time where Detroit's problems would become a thing of the past and she and her fellow residents could move forward. She explained that she was sick and tired of people burning down her city and how the neighborhood deserved better; how her city deserved better. She seemed rather exhausted emotionally, but she still had fight within her.
Detroit is in a bad way and it's a condition that's been in the making for many decades. The current state of the Motor City didn't happen overnight. It's not a result of the most recent recession, though that surely didn't help matters. It's not the result of a single administration. It's a complex issue that I honestly don't know enough about to discuss, but I know one thing. Detroit needs a lot of help.
If the city is armed with residents like the lady I described above, then it has a fighting chance. There was talk by residents speculating that some officials were hoping for a bailout by the federal government. If it happens, throwing free money at the city may be a temporary fix, but it won't last. Detroit needs long-term solutions, a population that believes in her recovery, investors who believe in her future and a lot more. If Detroit has nothing else going for it, it has residents with deep-rooted love for their city. This is America and because of that, I personally have hope that this city can be turned around. It's going to take some time, perhaps 20 years or more before we could see a noticeable difference, but I have faith that the city will be back.
I believe in buying American goods as often as I can find the items I need. I'll be honest and say that I've owned a lot of foreign vehicles as an adult. My father had a Toyota with 350,000 miles and my last Honda had 435,000 miles. That's hard to beat. About the time of my visit to Detroit, I made the decision to purchase a truck. It came down to the Toyota Tundra and the Ford F-150 4x4 crew cab. I'm proud to say that I went with the Ford. With this purchase, I would like to think I'm doing a little something to help make America and Detroit strong again. I'm also happy that Ford didn't take the government buyout offered to the big 3 auto makers. A friend owns the local Ford dealership, which made my decision an easy one.
During my time in Michigan, I spent a morning at the amazing Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. If you've never been, take the time to check it out. It's worthy of a road trip with the family and a great place to teach your kids, and yourself, a whole lot about how America was built. Among the seemingly endless items of historical importance are the limo President Kennedy was assassinated in and the theater chair President Lincoln was sitting in when assassinated. Adjacent to The Henry Ford is Greenfield Village, a community built by Henry Ford to preserve homes, buildings and autos from the turn of the century. You can see Thomas Edison's laboratory and take a ride in a Model T or horse-drawn carriage.
In about a year, I plan to return to Detroit, to see how the city's coming along and you can bet I'll stop by to see how my Mississippi connection is making it.
-James Edward Bates
For more photos from my recent visit to Detroit: http://www.jamesedwardbates.com/detroit
Fireworks and a Ferris Wheel on the Fourth of July!
Photographing fireworks can be exciting and unpredictable. With a little experience, good equipment and some thought, you can come back with great photos.
I've photographed a lot of fireworks events over the years, but often, I'm left with images that are lacking content I feel worthy of sharing. As a photojournalist, I strive for a compelling composition, hoping to fill the frame with visual information for the viewer. To accomplish this with fireworks filling the night sky, I look for scenes with existing light sources, so I'm not required to paint the scene with light of my own. The goal is to include elements in the photo that give the viewer a sense of place while also capturing the event.
If you live in an area like the Mississippi Gulf Coast, you may have several fireworks events to choose from when deciding where to shoot. Our family is blessed to live in Gulfport, home to a fabulous, newly rebuilt Gulfport Harbor and Jones Park. As a resident of the city, I feel a sense of responsibility to help document events and life in Gulfport, as well as other communities along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Fourth of July fireworks are among events that lend themselves to great photos.
If you haven't had a chance to visit Jones Park and the Bert Jones Yacht Basin (aka Gulfport Harbor), I highly recommend that you take time to do so. Enjoy the vast green space with a family picnic, or the cool splash pad with your kids on a hot summer day, charter a fishing trip with your buddies, hop aboard Ship Island Excursions for a day trip to the barrier islands, take in one of the many outdoor movies the City of Gulfport provides for the public or just come down to walk around what has to be the best harbor along the entire Gulf of Mexico.
While walking across the park ahead of the fireworks on the 4th, I was thinking about the photographic image I hoped to capture. There were lots of people in the park and along the nearby beach, as well as boat activity in the harbor and to my surprise, a ferris wheel and amusement area setup for the Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. I was out of town for two weeks prior to July 4th and wasn't able to scout the location ahead of time. When you're out for the best image possible, you want to consider all that's available to you. My original thought was to include an overall, wide photograph that included the many boats in Gulfport Harbor. Since the fireworks are always off the southernmost end of the harbor, I set up along the north side of the boats and faced south.
When shooting fireworks, I use an extremely slow shutter speed of 15 seconds or more to capture multiple bursts and colors, a low ISO of about 125 to compensate for the bright light emitted from the fireworks and a wide open aperture of f22 to ensure everything's in focus, including my foreground subject matter. A tripod is an essential tool for capturing fireworks. It doesn't have to be an expensive tripod, but one that's sturdy and has a little weight to counter possible wind, especially near the water. If you don't have a tripod, take a small bean bag or sand bag, (I've even used a shirt in a pinch) and use the ground or the top of a wall or post to sturdy your camera. This method is not ideal, because you're limited in where you can position your camera, but it can work. If it's extremely windy, try to setup next to something that will block and protect your camera from movement.
As I mentioned previously, my original vision was an image that included boats and more of the harbor, with fireworks in the background. During my test shots before the event started, I thought I was about to get a great image, but after a few frames of the actual fireworks, I just wasn't happy with what I was getting. At some shows, fireworks bursts will be at varying heights, which helps fill the image frame. All of the bursts seemed to be happening at about the same height and were not spread apart. Knowing that fireworks shows are pretty quick, I continued to make a few exposure adjustments and fire off frames, but that ferris wheel kept coming back to my mind.
For my secondary attempt at a nice image, I thought about what was near the ferris wheel. The main show had ended and the public was exiting the park, but I felt there was something still there worth capturing. There was the fabulous Barksdale Pavilion, built with a generous post Hurricane Katrina donation from Jim Barksdale to help rebuild Jones Park, the water of the Mississippi Sound, street lamps and, of course, a seemingly endless array of fireworks explosions on the beach provided by the public. I found a spot that would incorporate as many of these key elements as possible, hoping to capture an image that would represent the beautiful assets that Jones Park and the Bert Jones Yacht Basin (aka Gulfport Harbor) have to offer Gulfport residents, as well as all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The fireworks from residents along the beach had naturally decreased during the main show provided by the City of Gulfport, but soon came back to life afterward. The ferris wheel had even gone dark during the event, but thankfully, the lights came back on, which were key to the vision for the photo I had in mind. With a long night exposure of a ferris wheel, you can get amazing effects, but I also wanted to the viewer to see the buckets for passengers, so I had to time the image where there was a combination of the stationary ferris wheel allowing passengers to get on and off, as well as the ferris wheel turning. To the right side of the photograph, you see the Barksdale Pavilion, the water of the harbor in the foreground and street lamps mixed in. The star effect from the street lamps comes not from a filter or post processing, but rather from the f22 aperture, which is an extremely small opening.
I hope you like the photograph and find the description of the process helpful if you're looking to photograph fireworks yourself. Always take the time to consider an alternate perspective for what you're photographing. You just might be surprised by what you find. Next year, there's a good chance I'll be back, looking for a different angle and experience; and, of course, hoping for an even better photograph!
-James Edward Bates, July 4, 2013