Inspiration: Max S. Gerber

I was introduced to Max Gerber at the Adult Congenital Heart Association conference last year. ACHA is an organization specifically established to serve as advocates for those of us who were born with heart defects (and the variety of them is staggering), and to make sure that we all realize that surgery isn’t the end of our journey, but just a part of it. We all need life-long care, but that doesn’t mean life-long disability. Far from it. The ACHA conference was one of the most inspiring events I’ve ever attended. Heart patients, their families, physicians, nurses, etc, all rubbing shoulders and united in common cause. For me, however, it was being surrounded by my CHD peeps that made the event memorable. Never in my life had I met another congenital heart patient and now here I was, surrounded by a ballroom full of them proudly showing off their scars and sharing their stories. I still get choked up thinking about it.

Max is a professional portrait photographer and author. I love his work.

He is also a congenital heart patient.

Max was given an area at the ACHA conference where he would shoot, for free, anyone who wished to be photographed. Here are a few of them. I recognize many of them and in particular, Gwen, with whom I shared a lively lunch, and Shirley, who was in the ASD (Atrial Septal Defect) breakout session I attended. The photos Max took of me didn’t make his website, but I did receive them.

carissa, heart patient (asd, sick sinus syndrome, pacemaker) © Max S. Gerber

Be sure to check out his portfolio and projects. Close to my heart are his photographs of evolutionists, and I was particularly delighted to see Eugenie Scott in the mix. She is a very special hero of mine.

Day 52 – Country Gas Station at Night

First day back at work after a three-day weekend, so of course I was busier than usual. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I need to leave early to make it to school by 4pm for my lighting class, so I don’t take a lunch. Tonight was critique night, so I had no chance to shoot anything until after class.

This gas station sits at the crossroads of Highways 50 and 95, the location of our town’s one and only stoplight; a blinking one. Shot at ISO 1600, f/13, 1/60s (hand-held).

About critique night. Our third assignment was to shoot a face lit from six different angles. This was the shot everyone, including our teacher, felt was my best. I’m very happy with this shot. There is always room for improvement, and it’s far from perfect, but for my first foray into the light studio, it came out pretty good. Shot with a diffused light camera right, with a white poster board reflecting the diffuse light to provide some fill for the left side of her face.

Daughter © Carissa Snedeker

Day 51 – Silhouette

More light play.

I shot these in my dark office. Holding my Speedlite 430EXII towards the wall I used manual mode to have the flash go off at a single point during the ten second exposure. I only set the exposure time so long so I could get in place. ISO 100, f/10, 10s.

I would have liked to have been a tad more to my left. I feel like I’m squished a little to close to the right of the frame, though I do like the light around my left arm.

I’m making a switch

I decided to switch out two photographs of the six I chose for my lighting class. Instead of Buddy and the Christmas tree photo, I went back to my Intro to Digital Photography class and pulled one photo each from Project 3 (Narrative) and my final project, Day and Night (you can see the series here). The first is my husband and me (Project 3), and the second is the Tracy Clark hydroelectric power station on I-80 (Final Project).

Day 21 – Caucus Day

Nevada Democrats met all over the state today to caucus in our individual precincts. Just like in Iowa and other caucus states, the precinct caucuses are the first step in selecting our party’s presidential nominee (no contest this time), selecting delegates for the county convention, submitting planks for the party platform, and to rally the troops for the election to come. I shot a lot of pictures and really liked this one of my friend and how intently she’s listening. I started the day shooting with my flash but didn’t like how the photos were turning out, not to mention that it was distracting to the caucus goers, so I dispensed with the flash and bumped my ISO to 800. I don’t generally like to go that high due to the noise, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. And the results were much better.

Day 13

Underwater at the duck pond. This is my 365 photo.

And I wanted to put this one up too. I took this photo of my husband at dinner tonight. The light was low and reddish, so I processed in black and white.