Was just thinking about this...

I do think that music helps form who you are - especially if you are exposed to it at an early age. Through your early experiences, it shapes how you perceive the world overall. I remember the first music album I ever bought/received. My mom, on a whim, bought me U2's Rattle and Hum on cassette tape from K-Mart as a gift.

I remember taking it back, still wrapped in it's protective anti-shoplifting plastic cage (they used to put the tapes in these things and YOU would have to cut it out, thank you very much), and trading it in for the soundtrack to Weird Al Yankovich's UHF.

I think that explains everything.

Getting the Ball Rolling

I hate winter for photography. It has been quite rainy around Sacramento for the last month or so and I HATE having to be wet and uncomfortable while I am in turn trying to keep my equipment toasty and dry. Even the sunny days are shitty cold and usually windy. I think I had enough of that during my newspaper photography days...

The above pictures were taken for an art show where the only rules were that you had to find the crappiest camera possible to photograph with. I found this beautiful 2 MP beauty circa 2001 and hit the street on one of the before mentioned cold/windy days. Yuck.

First Day of School 2008

Here I am keeping my student loans at bay.



This is what I do with $200 and 16 spare weeks.

I caved and made a Flickr page...

Nicole for NeoVintage Clothing
Originally uploaded by devinbruce

Here is one of the first entries I've plopped on my new Flickr page - it is fro a fashion shoot I did back in the day. I played a bit with it useing Photoshop and Voila - Nicole from NeoVintage!

Super Bingo

Get Out And Vote!

This is Kelli:

Kelli is a model I shot for a fashion shoot in 2006. She is participating in a contest to be the face of "Yes To Carrots" - a line of beauty aids that incorporate the remarkable cleaning and regenerative power of... yes, carrots.

Vote for her - she is nice and deserves to become the image I imagine when thinking about roots I can clean my hair with.



P.S. - That's my picture they are using for the contest - yeah me!

Spare Time

So I'm shuffling my way through blockbuster Video a few days ago when I see this perched on the shelf:


"Hey", I think to myself, "I was at that one shooting."

I pick the DVD up to take a look at the back and - BEHOLD:



Yes, that's right. That's ME!

I actually bought the DVD and found that it is chocked-full of me - next time you see me, be sure to ask for an autograph!


PS - I tried to find a picture of me taken by one of the other photographers there but all I found was a picture of one of the ring girls with my zoom lens sitting next to photographer Jaimee Itagaki on the bottom left (I was between her and the guy taking this picture):


Where the hell was I?!?! (Image by David Brooks/signsonsandiego.com)

I'm Still Alive...

Miss me?

I know, I know.... I've been gone a long time. To be fair, I have been busy. Since my last post I have:

- Gotten to work with Sports Illustrated for two rounds of the NCAA Championship in March.

- Gotten a new job as the Manager of a Portrait Studio.

- Been taking care of my wife who had to go on disability because of her pregnancy.

- Ended the brunt of work with SierraStyle Publishing (mainly because of said new job).

- Shot two weddings.

- Officiated one of the two said weddings.

- Became an Ordained Minister (obviously BEFORE I officiated)

- Had a photo essay published (both text and pictures) in Mainline - an experimental magazine put out by Sacramento City College.

- Bought five new dress shirts.

- Put together a crib.

- Shaved almost every day.

So, that's about it. You should be all caught up now!

XOXOXO
- Devin

HA!

The above is a posting from this week's PostSecret. (If you don't know about PostSecret, you should. Go here.)

Noticing that on the receipt that you can make out both "CA" for the state as well as the beginning of what looks like "Sacramento" for the city, I did a search for the name of the hotel here in the city.

Lookie what I found!!!!


Someone from Sacramento has been naughty....

Wow!

Over the last 24 hours, the blog has had a flurry of visitors all searching for the same thing - Jeff Landay. (You can read my previous post on Jeff and the event held in his honor here.)


Last night, one of the local TV stations did an update on his progress back to health. I didn't get to see the piece myself but, in the teaser clips in commercials I saw a young man that is coming along quite nicely. When I photographed him a few short months ago he was so skinny and almost... frail. Having a massive head wound can do that to you, I guess.


Last night, the kid looked absolutely ripped! Well, not body builder ripped - but he's put on weight and just looks like he's progressing so well. (The clip I saw had him doing some sit ups with a physicail therapist and he was just cranking along!)

I'm really excited for him because he seems like a genuinely nice guy and what happened to him just seemed so unfair.


Later today (when I get home from shooting) I am going to put together a slideshow of the evening at Club Aqua for everyone to look at. Most of these pictures haven't been seen before so it'll be a new look at a truly inspiring night...


Related Tags: jeff, landay, sacramento, club, aqua, aaron, tippin, marines, Iraq, veteran, injury, recovery, update

Laura

Laura and I got together and shot a number of pictures over the weekend. She needed a few headshots and I needed to try and cheer myself up and get out of the house. The picture above is one of the pictures that I took not as a headshot for her but a part of a portrait series I am thinking about putting together into a show.


I realized something today. Out of all of the people I have taken pictures of over my whole career a photographer, there is one who I keep coming back to - Laura.


I started shooting her back when I was in school and just starting out learning photography - we ran around in the same circles (mainly centered around the theatre department at our school) and became friends. It seems that everytime I shoot her I seem to be on the cusp of another personal breakthrough in my skill as a photographer. Does this mean that she is my muse (if such things exist)? I don't know.


What I do know is that I really enjoy shooting with her - she's always super relaxed and, even though she is definitely a hard core feminist through and through, she still allows me to make dumb, sexist jokes without giving into the urge to perform an impromptu tracheotomy on me with the nearest ball point pen.