A Special Day

Special Guest Blogger today!

Friday, January 22, 2010 was the best night! It was a great way to start the new year and look good! Ad and I got all dressed up, curled our hair, and went out for our first annual birthday dinner. Mark came over and took some unbelievable pictures of us! Afterwards, we went to go get pedicures and ate at YaYa's. The food was excellent, but expensive. Our Uncle Timmy at the Capital Hotel made Ad a Bellintini and I had a chocolate milkshake. The night couldn't have ended better than pajamas and a great movie. Our new tradition couldn't be more perfect than this!!

Keeley

Long time no see

Wow! Has it really been almost two years since my last post? Talk about forgetten blogs. This would continue to be forgotten if not for a text I got tonite asking about the photo clip of Colby. I had to remember link, password, and where was this thing. Unfortunately it wasn't working. Researching to see what has happened to it.

So much has changed in the past two years. Still rehabbing my leg from the accident, mostly muscles in the knee area. I have made some great new friends, personal and photography wise. Lost a few along the way. All in the course of life.

Still have the jeep and loving it. A few travels to Key West, New Orleans and around the state. Started some photo projects that have been pushed aside for other life projects.

I am now a Windows Server Admin for UALR moving from the Ottenheimer Library in 2008. It is refreshing and troublesome at the same time to be working on such a large scale.

Now that I have rediscovered the blog I hope to add this to the other outlets available to us all. Mainly Facebook. If you are on the FB go find my fan page under Mark Pace Photography, become a friend. You will find specials there much quicker.

I have some interesting projects I hope to complete in the coming months. Stay tuned!

The photo above was from the last shoot I did in 2009. Ashleigh's birthday session. She was a joy to work with. I think she had more fun than I did!

Welcome to 2010, let's make the most of it!

Since I no longer have my motorcycle I decided to go back to Wranglers. This is my fifth Jeep. It's a Red Rock Crystal 2007 4 Door Wrangler. Jeep has made a lot of improvements over my last TJ. This one is more like a regular truck but convertible. Now if I can just get the weather to cooperate!

Processed in Adobe Lightroom only.

Coral

Break something? Surgery? Need therapy? You have go to go to Baptist Health. Today was my last day for therapy on my broken leg. Coral did a great job inflicting Pain and Torture on me the past couple of months. So to thank her she got a 30 second photoshoot while the medicine was being electrically stimulated into my knee.

Jeff

Jeff just shaved his head and was going to shave his beard. I thought he looked like the guy from Shaft and told him he needed a photo before losing the beard. This was a 5 min session in a parking lot. He was pretty apprehensive about the surroundings and very surprised with the results.

Pellet Gun at Cornerstone

I'm including another band on this blog, not because I went to see them, although I was on my way. This photo was taken by Daniel Trimble. When I saw it I knew I had to share it here. Most of my readers are heavy into Adobe Photoshop, and the cool creative things you can do with it. Well, Dan is not one of those!! He did invest heavily to be able to get a photo like this, more than what you are willing to shell out I am sure. You might be willing to acquire the main piece of equipment, but won't want to purposely modify it the way Daniel has modified his. Why? Well, this was taken with an iPhone, more specifically, one that has been dropped numerous times. The modification? His lens can now be "fiddled" with. Move it this way, things are ok, move it that way, get some cool creative results without the need for photoshop!!

Pellet Gun MySpace page

Daniel's MySpace page with more photos

Vince Martini and the Highballs

From Vince:
Vince Martini and the Highballs are here and ready to shake the timbers for those who do do the late night scene. Hopefully, our debut performance on Wednesday, January 9th was indicative of what we plan to do on a regular basis -- throw so much variety at our clamoring crowds that they shake their heads in submission and let out a healthy primal scream - "Go daddy go!"

Opening up for the tightest surf trio this side of either coast (The Reverburritos), Vince Martini and the Highballs gave the crowd of friends and supporters a octane dose of rockabilly, psycho-billy, swamp rock, swing and honky tonk, peppered with an occasional slow shuffle and a lounge nugget or two. Throughout our debut set, the band even unveiled a few original gems, to the delight of a great, appreciative audience. Either these cats in the crowd were just stroking our egos or they actually bought into our full fledged dog and pony show. Either way, our shirts were off and we were working overtime to get these folks hoping!

Merry Christmas!!

Santa left a few cookies for Colby. She decided this would make a great early morning snack!!


Happy! Happy! Happy!!

Colby loves to dance. This is her Bella High School Musical Dance pad and DVD.

We now have TWO photographers in the family. Should she get her own blog now?

This is a photograph from Christmas in Jonesboro. Colby and her cousin Alli had a great time together and must have been really good evidenced by the amount of gifts they got.

Welcome to Pepsi Country

I have passed this abandond store many times over the years. My best friend has worked for Pepsi since graduating college and I always thought it would make a nice shot for him. I finally stopped on the way to see family for Christmas. I knew the time of day would be right and sure enough when we got to the spot the light was just right.

Amanda and Michael

I had the pleasure of second shooting with Jamie Fender this weekend in Hazen, Arkansas. Jamie is a wonderful photographer and it was fun to see how she worked. Here are some of my shots from the weekend.









Thanks a bunch Jamie!!

RK Fashion Show at Sticky Fingerz

First off, NEW CAMERA! I got lucky and bought the last Nikon D300 that Bedford Camera had in stock. Wow, what an upgrade!
Fellow shooter Michael Baxley asked me to come hang out with him and shoot a fashion show for RK Fashions being held at Sticky Fingerz. This gave me a chance to test out the new camera in some lowlight situations. I thought the camera did better than I did!
































































Bax hard at work! Thanks for inviting me!

Faces...Colby Dawn

OK..so you all know I like putting together multimedia projects from the photos I shoot. I found another software online with a little more control over the process. Animoto is still great, especially since they do all the work, but on this one I wanted a very short transition time. Jumpcut did this flawlessly. With a lot of work and patience, here is the result.

YES! YES! YES!

The day has finally come. I visited the doc today. He walked in, grabbed my crutches and told me to walk. Strength is low and balance is pretty much nonexistent. He said I should be ok in a few days, until then I will use one crutch to help balance. Small steps, right? I'm just glad to be back on both feet and get my freedom back. Thanks to all that gave of their time and energy to help me and my family through this tough time. You all were great. I'll see ya walking!!

Mark

New Toys

I found a new toy thanks to David Hobby over at Strobist.com. FlickrSlidr is a slideshow maker that will take your photos from Flickr and make them into an embeddable show that can be posted in a blog, to your myspace or other website.

Check out Colby at her friend Bevan's Pumpkin Birthday Party at the pumpkin patch. Since I am still on crutches most of the photos were taken by Micha. I think she did a pretty good job, don't you.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Four More Weeks!!!

That's what the resident doctor said at UAMS today. It was a different one this time. I got the impression it was going to be four more weeks no matter what. So no walking until another set of xrays are done. I really hate this, I was mentally ready to start walking. Oh well, eventually.

Below is an xray from 4 weeks still showing the zipper formation of my staples and the plate and pins that are helping my tibial plateau heal. It doesn't actually "brace" anything hence the long time til walking again.

LRKA Fall Season 2007

This is a compilation of photos from the LRKICKBALL flickr photo group. Thanks Dale, Vikki, and Megan. Unfortunately I was unable to contribute to the group this season due to my accident. I used Animoto again. Hope you like it. There are over 200 photos and it will run for a little over 3 minutes.

EDIT:Ok, looks like it didnt use all the photos. Oh well. Ninety one of them did make the cut. Learn something new everyday. Gotta edit tighter next time.

Colby Dawn video

Found a link on a photo site to Animoto.com. It's a mostly free slideshow creation site. This took me 5 minutes. I was able to pull photos from my Flickr stream, pick a song from the site, and click. Less than a minute later this is what I got. From the looks of it I can now edit this like I want to. Check it out and let me know if you create one too.
FYI- you can post to almost anywhere and it will auto post to most networking sites like MySpace.

Just What I Thought!!!

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

Found this link on http://1001noisycameras.blogspot.com/ and thought it was funny. Can someone at least give me a penny so I won't be worthless?

Broken

I know I don't post here as often as I should. I guess I don't think there are too many exciting things going on, or maybe I don't like to share. But on Sept. 1, 2007 my life changed. While coming home from the local cigar shop I was in a motorcycle accident. One of those freaky things, would have happened even in a car. I feel lucky to have only broken bones in one leg. Things could have been a lot worse. Even so, 7 hours of surgery, a week in the hospital, 2 months completely off the leg, has all put a strain on my family and friends. Everyone has really rallied around to help us out. More than we deserve. More than I deserve. Scott and Clay sat with Micha through the whole surgery. Joe and Garth mobilized to build a wheelchair ramp before it was even known what I would be using. (they were right). Many visitors, so many we had to start a list since I was so drugged up most of the time to not remember. I do remember each one of you coming by just not much of what was said or when it was. I thank you all. All the offers for help were greatly appreciated, and lets just say it was a good thing I didn't need to call on it. I felt very protected by my LRKA friends that just happened to be on UAMS staff.

Im going to keep this short, but will try to add to it in the next few days.

Love to all, Mark

Hilton Head- Golf, Gators, Guys!

This past April Clay and I flew to see our friend Mike (Doc) Rockers in Hilton Head, S.C. What a great weekend. Beautiful weather and scenery, awesome food, and great hospitality. We got to play golf on Mike's home course. He said my 105 for the first time on the course was really good.The 115 the next day..not so good. BUT...having a gator jump less than five feet from you can affect your swing!