Passion is a Habit

Throughout my life there have been a few things that have "come" to me and changed my perspective on life. One is climbing, nothing has transformed my view of the world so drastically, enough to change the course of my very existence. Little back story...for this we're going to go back to the golden year of 2001. What a year, GW was our new president, Harry Potter made his way into the theaters (and our hearts), Britney Spears established herself as a pop culture icon, and Bryan Rafferty topped out at 265lbs. Wait...what?! Yeah, 10 years ago I weighed 265lbs of unmotivated laziness. My glorious sunny weekends were not spent at the crag but scratching my crack while drinking a slightly cool Milwaukee's Best Ice...ok it was piss warm but hardly the point. In steps Andy Brower, now best friend, and roommate at the time. Andy was one of those, how do I put this, jack of all trades types that could crawl off the couch and kick your ass at almost anything if you dared challenge him.

Andy and I after one of many marathons that he runs without really training for...douche...

Anywho, his goal was to get me motivated to stop being as he put it, "the fat kid that shouldn't be fat." So one day Andy drags me up the hill of our campus to the rec center, and gets me to traverse along the bottom of our school's half assed woody and do a bit of bouldering (mainly because I was scared to death to go above 10 feet - rope or no rope). The beginning of the end, it's amazing that the 25ft high woody acted as my temple and sanctuary for the remainder of my years in school. Since then climbing has become my passion, my sanity and what has helped me find myself in the dark. I've dropped 85 pounds and have made climbing my life. I do not see myself going back anytime soon.

The second is a little book known as "The Symbol"...hahahaha just kidding. I'd like to say that it is something magically ridiculous but inspiration doesn't always work like that. I found the second on a whim, the intrigue had always been building, the means and motivation were not always there however. Once I got the news that I was going to be a father, the decision was simple. I wanted to document as much of my child's life as I possibly could and make it look good. Desire turned into reality when I bought my first D-SLR, what I'm talking about of course is photography, granted this is something very new to me but I have that good old fashioned feeling again, that tingling inside that gets you excited for that next fix. And more importantly than that, it complements climbing beautifully. I find myself absorbing as much as I can when I can, examining photographs and thinking about how that moment was captured in time. I started to analyze what I never would have considered when viewing a photograph; lighting, depth of field, colors, it's mind blowing!!! So this blog post is a way for me to share some of my favorites. They are not very good and by no way anything special, but when I see them I smile and find a small sense of pride. So I share them with you all:

Jamie 'Dreads' Anacleto - my first bout with photoshop and remote flashes. Love this photo...

Boof's eyeball through the sign 

Black and white adds such an amazing feel to photos 

Color is pretty cool too though 

Hehehe...Noah...having fun with the stink eye 

My first sunset shot, the shot I took two minutes earlier looked like shit, made me realize how timing and lighting play such a huge part in a photo 

Josh Larson on something hard! Photoshopped to shit but 

the angles and shadows were what I was focusing on

So there you have it, my newest venture, diving into the world of photography. I welcome feedback from you photogs out there because in all honesty I have no idea what I'm doing. But I know that it makes me smile to think about where I can take it and how great it feels to point and shoot. Hope you all enjoy the first batch, hopefully there will be more to come.

Cheers,

Raff

PS. Baby pics coming October 2011 :)