This is Arkansas Repertory Theater in Little Rock. I mentioned a few posts back that I was here acting in a production of Next to Normal…and the show closed this past weekend. Amazing run…amazing audiences. Such a great time. Next Sunday it’s moving to Kansas City, MO and playing there for a week as well. Until then, I’m still here without my cast…shooting headshots and packing. Got very lucky and The Rep hired me to do daytime and nighttime HDRs of the joint…thus, this shot. Gonna miss this place. Love coming to the south.
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This is Arkansas Repertory Theater in Little Rock.


I mentioned a few posts back that I was here acting in a production of Next to Normal…and the show closed this past weekend. Amazing run…amazing audiences. Such a great time. Next Sunday it’s moving to Kansas City, MO and playing there for a week as well. Until then, I’m still here without my cast…shooting headshots and packing.


Got very lucky and The Rep hired me to do daytime and nighttime HDRs of the joint…thus, this shot.


Gonna miss this place. Love coming to the south.

After a daily commute of about 500 feet, this is my office. I love my job.
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After a daily commute of about 500 feet, this is my office.


I love my job.

A few months ago, I mentioned the folks over at Mark Fisher Fitness and how I had created a RIDICULOUS image for them……fast forward to now. I’ve spent the past 3 days and countless hours creating this bad boy for some advertising they’ll be doing for events that benefit the BC/EFA. The idea here was to top the over the topness (if you will) of my previous image. Mark had already done this photoshoot with Dirty Sugar Photography in nothing but a loin cloth….but that’s all I had to go on. The phrase they gave me was “a fitness fairytale”. For some reason…that immediately brought the image of those Fabio romance novel covers to mind. (I may also be in the middle of watching Game of Thrones and it’s entirely possible that the show influenced this a bit too). Ya know. Fabio meets Game of Thrones…….like ya do. Throw in a little inspiration from those original Star Wars posters and it all started to come together. So, tons of masking…TONS of dodging and burning…lots of trying to match color and light. Special thanks to Joelle Reeder for suggesting the stars to take things up a notch and also to RC Concepcion and Corey Barker. Nothing will ever beat the moment of me finally getting stumped by Photoshop only to have the men who literally wrote the book on it give me a hint over video chat. The MFF motto is “Ridiculous humans. Serious Fitness.” I’m hopin’ this’ll get the point across.
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A few months ago, I mentioned the folks over at Mark Fisher Fitness and how I had created a RIDICULOUS image for them……fast forward to now. I’ve spent the past 3 days and countless hours creating this bad boy for some advertising they’ll be doing for events that benefit the BC/EFA.


The idea here was to top the over the topness (if you will) of my previous image. Mark had already done this photoshoot with Dirty Sugar Photography in nothing but a loin cloth….but that’s all I had to go on. The phrase they gave me was “a fitness fairytale”. For some reason…that immediately brought the image of those Fabio romance novel covers to mind. (I may also be in the middle of watching Game of Thrones and it’s entirely possible that the show influenced this a bit too).


Ya know. Fabio meets Game of Thrones…….like ya do.


Throw in a little inspiration from those original Star Wars posters and it all started to come together. So, tons of masking…TONS of dodging and burning…lots of trying to match color and light. Special thanks to Joelle Reeder for suggesting the stars to take things up a notch and also to RC Concepcion and Corey Barker. Nothing will ever beat the moment of me finally getting stumped by Photoshop only to have the men who literally wrote the book on it give me a hint over video chat.


The MFF motto is “Ridiculous humans. Serious Fitness.”


I’m hopin’ this’ll get the point across.

So, right now I’m out in Little Rock, AR playing Doctor Madden / Doctor Fine in Arkansas Repertory’s production of Next to Normal. Having the time of my life….the people are amazing…the food is amazing. Couldn’t be happier. I asked for permission to shoot during one of our rehearsals and everyone agreed…so here’s my take on a little of the behind the scenes… For the full gallery of photos, please click here.
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So, right now I’m out in Little Rock, AR playing Doctor Madden / Doctor Fine in Arkansas Repertory’s production of Next to Normal.


Having the time of my life….the people are amazing…the food is amazing. Couldn’t be happier.


I asked for permission to shoot during one of our rehearsals and everyone agreed…so here’s my take on a little of the behind the scenes…


For the full gallery of photos, please click here.

Here’s a little postcard design I did for the boys n’ girls at Mark Fisher Fitness. photo by Dirty Sugar Photography
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Here’s a little postcard design I did for the boys n’ girls at Mark Fisher Fitness.


photo by Dirty Sugar Photography

Hal Prince
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Hal Prince

Went off to New Hampshire this weekend to shoot a ridiculously epic wedding atop a mountain with my good friend Jenny. The bride n’ groom were married at the peak and then the entire party skied down. I’m not sure anyone was sober for very long the entire time. I think I got 10 hours of sleep over 4 days. Bus rides, car rides, staying at a strangers house in Boston, and then having to stay in the bridal sweet with 7 or 8 out of control women. Amazing, amazing weekend. Here, I got to spend some time with the dudes and shoot a little at the base of the mountain. They went into the shoot as men… But when I was done with them….they left as BADASSES.
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Went off to New Hampshire this weekend to shoot a ridiculously epic wedding atop a mountain with my good friend Jenny.


The bride n’ groom were married at the peak and then the entire party skied down. I’m not sure anyone was sober for very long the entire time.


I think I got 10 hours of sleep over 4 days. Bus rides, car rides, staying at a strangers house in Boston, and then having to stay in the bridal sweet with 7 or 8 out of control women.


Amazing, amazing weekend.


Here, I got to spend some time with the dudes and shoot a little at the base of the mountain.


They went into the shoot as men…


But when I was done with them….they left as BADASSES.

Listerine
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Listerine

This my friends…is what GLORY looks like. So at the end of last year..I was introduced to Mark Fisher Fitness through friends on Facebook. I was told that Mark was an amazing instructor and his program really kicked your butt and gave you changes that you could make you proud. I gave a 3 week holiday class a try and it ended up that a great friend of mine Brian Patrick Murphy was teaching this particular class. I fell in LOVE. Everything was challenging but not to a point where you couldn’t find a good place mentally and then push through. And that was a huge thing that I picked up in this class. Your body may want to give up but if you can find that place mentally…dig deep…that you’ll power through and really get some work done. I was completely sold. In January, I signed up for Mark’s course “Snatched in Six Weeks.” A little more intensive program that included me dropping down to 2200 calories a day, over 200g of protein a day, drinking so much water that I had to pee like an old man every 8 seconds. I got to work with Mark and he lived up to the hype. He’s absolutely ridiculous. But for every foul mouthed, eloquently inappropriate phrase he would spout…he’d have 100 times the knowledge and technique for us. I got better. The entire class got better….and what was even cooler was that we started to bond as we felt ourselves getting stronger as a group. Some of these folks are family now! The support system was unreal. The final class was today and I am completely changed. My body changed. I went from an almost 38 waist to a 33. I lost a great deal of weight and put it right back on in muscle. I went from only being able to do about 5 pushups to 50. Tangible results. More importantly though, these guys changed my mind. I went in hating the idea of working out and took pride in the fact that I could devour whiskey and bacon with an Olympic-level of stamina and skill to now looking forward to the gym. I’ll be working out 5 or 6 days a week for the rest of my life now. I’m taking in pride in my strength and in eating right. And it’s only the beginning which excites the hell outta me. This time next year you’re going to see gratuitous shots of my abs…apologies ahead of time. So the reason for the photo… As I said..the atmosphere is light and ridiculous in class. Talk of ninjas, unicorns, rainbows, and the like. I ran into Jerry Mitchell in the class and always loved how HUGELY supportive he was of every each day that he came into the class. So, the idea of this Jerry/Unicorn fantasy kettle bell workout popped into my head and we took it from there. Brian snuck me into the clubhouse before class, I shot Jerry separately with one light @ 1/16th in a 60 inch umbrella. Then I created an HDR image of clubhouse itself. Then purchased a rights-free white stallion and took it all into Photoshop. I spent 4 or 5 days attempting to make it more and more ridiculous to match the energy of class. What really hit it home was that AdoramaPix NAILED it…I printed it 20x30, had it mounted it on matte board, and finished it off with some sexy metallic paper. I will probably never have the words to thank Mark & Co. for truly changing my life. Hopefully this lil’ ball of glory will get the idea across.
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This my friends…is what GLORY looks like.

So at the end of last year..I was introduced to Mark Fisher Fitness through friends on Facebook. I was told that Mark was an amazing instructor and his program really kicked your butt and gave you changes that you could make you proud.

I gave a 3 week holiday class a try and it ended up that a great friend of mine Brian Patrick Murphy was teaching this particular class. I fell in LOVE. Everything was challenging but not to a point where you couldn’t find a good place mentally and then push through. And that was a huge thing that I picked up in this class. Your body may want to give up but if you can find that place mentally…dig deep…that you’ll power through and really get some work done.

I was completely sold.

In January, I signed up for Mark’s course “Snatched in Six Weeks.” A little more intensive program that included me dropping down to 2200 calories a day, over 200g of protein a day, drinking so much water that I had to pee like an old man every 8 seconds. I got to work with Mark and he lived up to the hype. He’s absolutely ridiculous. But for every foul mouthed, eloquently inappropriate phrase he would spout…he’d have 100 times the knowledge and technique for us. I got better. The entire class got better….and what was even cooler was that we started to bond as we felt ourselves getting stronger as a group. Some of these folks are family now! The support system was unreal.

The final class was today and I am completely changed. My body changed. I went from an almost 38 waist to a 33. I lost a great deal of weight and put it right back on in muscle. I went from only being able to do about 5 pushups to 50. Tangible results.

More importantly though, these guys changed my mind. I went in hating the idea of working out and took pride in the fact that I could devour whiskey and bacon with an Olympic-level of stamina and skill to now looking forward to the gym. I’ll be working out 5 or 6 days a week for the rest of my life now. I’m taking in pride in my strength and in eating right. And it’s only the beginning which excites the hell outta me. This time next year you’re going to see gratuitous shots of my abs…apologies ahead of time.

So the reason for the photo… As I said..the atmosphere is light and ridiculous in class. Talk of ninjas, unicorns, rainbows, and the like. I ran into Jerry Mitchell in the class and always loved how HUGELY supportive he was of every each day that he came into the class. So, the idea of this Jerry/Unicorn fantasy kettle bell workout popped into my head and we took it from there.

Brian snuck me into the clubhouse before class, I shot Jerry separately with one light @ 1/16th in a 60 inch umbrella. Then I created an HDR image of clubhouse itself. Then purchased a rights-free white stallion and took it all into Photoshop. I spent 4 or 5 days attempting to make it more and more ridiculous to match the energy of class. What really hit it home was that AdoramaPix NAILED it…I printed it 20x30, had it mounted it on matte board, and finished it off with some sexy metallic paper.

I will probably never have the words to thank Mark & Co. for truly changing my life.

Hopefully this lil’ ball of glory will get the idea across.

This is how I relax. Crazy long day. But I ate like a champ. Destroyed my workout class like a champ. Even did an impromptu shoot in the kitchen of a studio apartment while a 12 girl a capella group rehearsed / swapped in to pose. They sang some badass 80’s medleys. But at the end of the day, the reward was going up on my roof….where it’s near silent except for the sound passing cars below (this also doubles for the sound of the ocean for me) and shooting the skyline. I was coaching a headshot client a while back and trying to get her to sigh into a look…to give me some serenity in her face and in her eyes. She replied “oh, you mean a hot chocolate moment! Where you take that first sip and think mmm hot chocolate.” Which, yes, actually, that was exactly what I was going for and I completely dug the term…I still use all the time with other folks. Tonight, I figured out that the term can kinda be universal though. In this case, the scene itself was personifying that idea. Personifying? I don’t know what I’m talking about here…it…took on the qualities of that idea or that emotion. So, yes, long story short… Serious hot chocolate moment for me right here. EDIT: I just showed this image to my lovely friend Jen Kipley (aka My Muse). She was up there with me when I took this and I asked if this is what the moment looked like to her. She said, “I think it looks like the skyline on its best day.” …referring to how I describe my headshots to people. “Make you look like you on your best day.” And I think that’s an interesting point in what I do with my HDRs. I think I see that moment in front of me and kind of idealize it… romanticize it a bit and then use HDR to get that across. So it’s not only what I see but what I was feeling too. Overactive only child imagination + somewhat sappy verbosity = whatever the fuck. I don’t know, man. Aaaaaand…stepping away from the keyboard.
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This is how I relax.

Crazy long day. But I ate like a champ. Destroyed my workout class like a champ. Even did an impromptu shoot in the kitchen of a studio apartment while a 12 girl a capella group rehearsed / swapped in to pose.

They sang some badass 80’s medleys.

But at the end of the day, the reward was going up on my roof….where it’s near silent except for the sound passing cars below (this also doubles for the sound of the ocean for me) and shooting the skyline.

I was coaching a headshot client a while back and trying to get her to sigh into a look…to give me some serenity in her face and in her eyes. She replied “oh, you mean a hot chocolate moment! Where you take that first sip and think mmm hot chocolate.” Which, yes, actually, that was exactly what I was going for and I completely dug the term…I still use all the time with other folks.

Tonight, I figured out that the term can kinda be universal though. In this case, the scene itself was personifying that idea. Personifying? I don’t know what I’m talking about here…it…took on the qualities of that idea or that emotion.

So, yes, long story short…

Serious hot chocolate moment for me right here.

EDIT: I just showed this image to my lovely friend Jen Kipley (aka My Muse). She was up there with me when I took this and I asked if this is what the moment looked like to her. She said, “I think it looks like the skyline on its best day.” …referring to how I describe my headshots to people. “Make you look like you on your best day.” And I think that’s an interesting point in what I do with my HDRs. I think I see that moment in front of me and kind of idealize it… romanticize it a bit and then use HDR to get that across. So it’s not only what I see but what I was feeling too.

Overactive only child imagination + somewhat sappy verbosity = whatever the fuck. I don’t know, man.

Aaaaaand…stepping away from the keyboard.