Happy April Fool's Day!!

Today is the day. I thought about making up some crazy April Fool's prize or something, but then I thought that would just be too mean. Instead I've decided to share with you one of my (really my only) April Fool's Day prank. For being the only one, I'd have to say it was pretty good!!

About 5 years ago, my college roommates and I thought it'd be fun to play a prank on our teacher Newell. We tossed around a few ideas until this gem popped in our heads: Let's fill his entire office with thousands of sheets of crinkled up paper! So that's what we did. We got the other teachers in his office area to let us in and spent at least 2 hours crumpling and tossing paper. By the time we were done we'd crumpled 5,000 sheets of paper and stuffed it in and around the bookshelf, the trash can, the desk, the chairs, and even made a "golf pencil" out of paper for his little pencil rack! In the beginning of the extravaganza we were trying to toss paper over the 8 foot walls (it was like a tall cubicle with a locked door). Naturally, some of the paper got stuck :o) To top the whole thing off, we wrote a note saying Happy April Fool's and tied a nice little trash bag to the door handle.


Now Newell had gone out for dinner with one of the other teachers last night - the one who let us in Newell's office to be exact. Apparently at dinner Bradshaw couldn't keep from giggling just knowing what Newell would face the next day. The following morning, Newell was sitting in on yet another teacher's class. Newell tried to pull a prank on him and when he found out he said something similar to "Just wait Newell, you'll get yours!" Then as Newell arrived at his office a few hours later, he ran into Paul. Paul was sitting outside Newell's office with all of his teaching materials with him and said "I just want to see it before I go." Naturally Newell was intrigued at this point. According to him, his exact words were: "Oh..... my.... God!" For the next hour he got absolutely no work done. Teachers and staff from other campuses were calling to ask him about it as well as stopping by. The whole time he assumed it was the OTHER TEACHER!!! Until of course he arrived and informed Newell that it was 4 of his students. That was the end. He figured it out right away then :o)

We arrived a few hours after that only to find this picture attached to the door with the tagline "Weather forecast: Snow 3-5 feet!"


To this day his family members still know us as the students who trashed his office :o)
What about you? What's your best prank?

What's a PPNC?

Last week was the PPNC convention. PPNC stands for Professional Photographers of North Carolina. Every year, we get together in Durham, NC for a 5 day convention. During this time, several photographers from around the country do presentations, we get to see all of our friends, and there is a print competition. This year's theme was "Tackling the Art of Photography." I always feel honored that such talented photographers are willing to spend their time sharing their gems with us. One of my favorites was Tim and Bev Walden at www.waldensphotography.com. Tim's father was a photographer before him so photography is in his blood. His creative approach to relationship photography was inspiring to me. He also has a fantastic story about his father, who became paralyzed from the arms down and did not have a good prognosis for his future. After this event, he continued his business and was able to work from a wheelchair. He told his son Tim that he would accept no excuses. This is a good word for these times.

I volunteered on the committee for print competition. Seeing the best work of many amazing photographers together is inspiring and humbling. Listening to the judges comments is also quite a learning experience.

Being a member of PPNC has been an invaluable asset for us. This community of photographers is a close group willing to share and help each other succeed. Check out the web sit at www.ppofnc.com.

Bentley Speck

We got another new toy yesterday :o) First it was the Fisheye lens, but now we have a Lensbaby. Oh so much fun!! Today I went over to a friends to play with her new puppy and my new toys! Check it out:
Lensbaby

Fisheye

George Hurrell

In the 1930's anyone who was anyone in Hollywood was photographed by the great George Hurrell. To this day he is still considered the "Grand Seigneur of the Hollywood Portrait". His unique style of lighting and over retouched skin tones created the signature "Hollywood Glamour" style. Here's a taste of our recent George Hurrell inspired photo shoot.

What's a wordle?

I found this today.



Click on it to access it and create your own. It's fun.

Meet Fred.

Fred... meet the blog readers. Blog readers... meet Fred. 
      
            


Gotta love the snow. (Especially if you're from the part of California where snow happens once every 15 years!)