After encouragement from good friend and astute photographer, Jeff Lynch, I’ve decided to add poster sales to the home page of this site (you’ll notice a new tab for Prints and Posters on the main navigation). Periodically, I’ll add to this collection and create poster series, but already there are several posters to choose from. I’m excited about this new addition, mainly because it allows me to share an even more broad spectrum of images from my archives that may not necessarily hit the blog. Each poster is printed on Kodak archival digital paper, and if you need a different size than what you find, then just let me know!

I’m particularly excited about one poster, which I may turn in to a series. Currently, when you click on the Print and Posters tab, the first poster you see is exclusively sold for New Life Children’s Home in Villa Nueva, Guatemala. Specifically, profits generated by this poster will go toward medical expenses for one of their fantastic children that I photographed over two years ago, Michelle. At the time, Michelle was 18 months old, and she weighed a little over seven pounds. Needless to say, she was little, very little. Her adopted parents, Kendon and Wendy Wheeler, the wonderful leaders of the children’s home, brought her to the states for some medical analysis, and a university magazine assigned me to do the shoot. You can see a post about that experience here.

Fast forward two years, and Michelle and the Wheelers are now finding out more about her condition. Just months ago, doctors diagnosed Michelle with Majewski’s Osteodysplastic Primordial Dwarfism, type 2 (MOPD II), which surprisingly only 200 people worldwide are affected by this syndrome. Unfortunately, this particular type of primordial dwarfism commonly affects those with it negatively by age four, and Michelle turned three on May 16. Medical tests and trips to the U.S. are costly, and that’s the impetus for the poster sale. I can’t tell you how much little Michelle affected me in a POSITIVE way when I met her, let alone how much she has affected the Wheelers and New Life Children’s Home. This is the least I can do to help out such a wonderful individual and family!

Thanks again for visiting the site, and I hope you browse the Prints and Posters section periodically for new offerings! I appreciate all my readers, and I hope I can keep providing continually resourceful information down the road!

10.Q Logo is copyrighted by Heber Vega.

I’ve been fortunate this past few months to have met several great people who provide fantastic photographic and creative services to not only their immediate surroundings but to those worldwide as well. Heber Vega, a humanitarian and cultural photographer based in northern Iraq is one such person. Heber’s work as a photographer and aid worker deems recognition, and I hope you visit his site often as it is a wealth of photographic and storytelling resources.

One of the more prominent features of Heber’s site is his 10.Q blog series, where he leads interviews with some of the top cultural/travel/humanitarian photographers in the world. A little while back, Heber asked me if I would like to participate in an interview, and I was humbled. Link here to see the interview. This is a great collection of interviews and an even more impressive group of interviewees, including David duChemin, Matt Brandon, Gavin Gough, Karl Grobl, and Brian Hirschy. I’m lucky/fortunate/proud to be included in this series.

Thanks goes to Heber Vega for this opportunity! Hopefully you’ll see more from him soon on this site as well!

To check out more of Heber’s work:

Web site: http://www.hebervega.com

Twitter: @hebervega

On Facebook

That’s right, an HD video/documentary course, in Junction, Texas, Texas Tech University satellite campus, May 12 – May 27. If you are frequent readers, you know I’m a photography instructor (of sorts) at Texas Tech University, and for five years now, I have been teaching a field photography course with Wyman Meinzer at the Junction, Texas, campus. This year, we’ve decided to test out a new course in high-definition video. I’m basing it off of the foundations of the photography course, which is “get your feet wet working like a professional.” For 15 days, students and instructors alike work tirelessly, pursuing the story of the land and the people on it. Each year is a treat, finding ourselves with a new bunch of students and some familiar and veteran areas of the state to point our lenses. We travel well over 1,000 miles during our 15 days, and we see a lot of country. If the video/documentary course turns out anything like the photography course, and it should (we’re going along with them), then it’s bound to be a challenging, yet inspiring, experience for all parties involved.

If there’s anything that can be said about our classes in Junction, it’s one of the only times you can receive that much one-on-one mentoring for the price (which by the way, is a great deal more affordable than other workshops). Also, you don’t have to be a TTU student now to take the course (that’s right, this is sort of a pitch). However, before you sign up, you will have to submit an application to Tech, a formality, to be enrolled in the course. If anything (if you have a degree or not), you’ll get three hours of college credit in 15 days. How cool is that!?

If you’re interested, please shoot me an e-mail. I’m sure there’s some technical details I left out, but I can dig up anything!

Some days I think I could live without it. Somedays I know and do live without it. But then there are the days that I know I’m going to use it, and I’m going to enjoy the utility it provides. Photoshop is officially 20 years old!

Just think of all the terrain this revolutionary software application has seen in the past two decades! Think of all the controversy it has caused (or perhaps we should say the user has caused), how many people should be thankful for its inception, all the images that get processed on a daily basis using this single application. The list could go on! Above is a short documentary that unites the creators and earliest Adobe adopters in a conversation about Photoshop!

Although long for Internet video standards, it’s worth a watch. No matter how you feel about Photoshop, this is fairly insightful, and if you walk away with anything from it, just imagine how amazing it is that this software is the root of many, many things (minute 15:00 of the video states this fact in more eloquent terms). It is useless to beg the question, “What would it be like if it had not been created?” because it would have inevitably happened, potentially later and under a different moniker. The question to ask is “What are we using it for now, and why, and how?”

After you watch the documentary, visit PhotoshopUserTV for live coverage of an event held in honor of the software package that changed and created a lot of what the technical end, as well as the conceptual and perceptual ends, of photography has, in some ways, transformed in to.

***DISCLAIMER: No matter where you’re at in terms of photographic/philosophical/ethical perspective on the very existence of Photoshop, this is just part of the conversation that will continue to take place in the arena of images, photographic or other. I think my first few sentences pretty much sum up my satisfaction AND frustration with the software, feelings I think we as photographers all experience!

Mondays are now officially dedicated (on this site at least) to a new weekly series I’ve named Field Lighting: Working with the light and the story.

Any regular readers of this blog know that I like to shoot environmental portraits, as well as light them in a way that stresses their story. I’m not an over-the-top type of lighter, preferring more subtle uses (notice I didn’t say natural, because often times, photographers say they are lighting naturally when we know that there is nothing natural about lighting a subject when the sun has already dipped below the horizon, such as the self-portrait above).

This series will be a practical look at lighting in the field (not literally, but sometimes we’ll be in a pasture somewhere), and it is meant to highlight the story-telling aspect of using this wonderful, quickly advancing technology of throwing light at a subject! Every once in a while, you might find a gear review in the mix as well.

The first post is already up: Field Lighting: Jeff Haley, Cattleman.

Hope to see you here each week!

Hello All! I’ve been on a much-needed hiatus from the Internet and my blog, but in the meantime, some good things have happened! If you’re a regular reader, you’ll notice the new Web site digs. Thanks to the folks at GraphPaperPress, they offer an easy way to integrate Photoshelter users’ accounts with their WordPress templates, making my online presence more manageable, and hopefully more accessible for you! Thanks to Charlie Stout as well for helping me streamline this process even more. If you haven’t been over to Charlie’s blog in a while, he’s starting to post some new work from a cross-national project he’s been shooting recently, and it’s worth taking a peek.

Now, as far as the new site goes, it’s a little different than most photog’s blogs go, but hopefully it will be conducive to your experience here. If you click on Blog, you get the blog, just a change in aesthetics. News on the Jerod Foster Photography front is much more visible (and will be kept more updated), as well as a section for Teachings (or at least content that I create with instructional value). Soon, a Videos section will be available as well!

In terms of content, expect the same type of corky, hopefully sometimes helpful, information coming at you…but more! Teaching at Texas Tech University for the past few years has given me the opportunity to speak and instruct on topics I’m passionate about, and I don’t see why that has to stop in the classroom on my end! If you’ve seen my posts in the past, you know they’re experientially-based, and geared for the working photographer. I plan on keeping it that way!

Stay tuned! I’m excited to get this new site off the ground, and I hope you all enjoy the blog!

I haven’t visited the blogosphere in a while due to some pretty exciting and unique opportunities, both photography and research-related, but I definitely had to give props to the October issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine. My good friend, Stayton Bonner, and I produced the cover story dealing with the growing wind industry and wildlife that may be affected by its production, more specifically the Lesser Prairie Chicken. The magazine produced a great spread!

This was a fantastic story to be a part of, and thanks goes to Stayton for a great job on the research and writing end, allowing me to be the eyeballs for the story! I’ll post more on the process of the story later, detailing the different shoots we went on, and how everything came together.

While you’re online, swing over to both TPW’s and Stayton’s sites to find out more information about the story and those behind it! More to come, including a how-to on Stayton’s bio shot…

This morning, Canon USA announced the unveiling of several new additions to the PowerShot lineup, including the new flagship G-model, the G11. In my opinion, it’s a little too early to tell how well this new camera will perform, but with the history behind it, I’m sure it will please consumers who feel it will fit their needs. I’m in favor of the smaller resolution and lower noise, for sure!

Canon also announced the rebirth of the S series with the S90, a sleek looking camera with a great deal of control and a very nice LCD. The SX20 IS is sure to see popularity with the addition of 720p HD video capability!

You can find the official press release for the announcement, as well as any spec sheets for the individual cameras, on Canon USA’s Web site.

Took a break this past weekend and spent some time on the road with my band, The Hogg Maulies. We traveled to Prairie Grove, Arkansas to play at a pre-wedding party for some of our closest friends, so it was more like a mini vacation for the whole crew!

The morning of the party was spent on the links. I’ll be the first to say I’m not a golfer. Instead, I photographed those that do. Why mention this? I read a great blog post over at Photoshelter’s blog, A Picture’s Worth, that dealt with exactly what I was doing, which fired me up to shoot some golf. The post, Fore! How to Photograph Golf Like An Expert, was written by Darren Carroll, an outstanding shooter for the sport, and a great educator on how to best approach the game (with a camera and lens in tow of course).

The post is worth reading, even if you are not a fan of sports photography. It’s a great primer for approaching not only golf, but the process of photographing other realms of culture that have a certain process to them, which is pretty much anything. The post is thorough, and doesn’t contain some mysterious, how-I-got-this-shot type of vernacular. I read this post while editing some portraits of a wine maker (more on that later), and his post inspired me to at least look into the opportunity to photograph some areas that I normally don’t spend much time focusing on.

If you do anything though, go check Darren’s Web site. He’s not just a sports photog!

Check back soon for some more shoot news!

Without sounding too pretentious, I would like to make some thanks to the Texas Techsan magazine! I have been shooting for them for several years, and their editors, Jean Anne Cantore and Jennifer Ritz are top notch writers and magazine organizers! On top of that, I am proud to call them friends. Jennifer and I even work, and are working, on several other projects together, which has been fun and challenging in the same boat!

The Techsan is the official magazine for the Texas Tech Alumni Association, and I was fortunate to grace the cover of the current issue! I have shot several covers for them, and many stories, but I was surprised and elated that I would actually BE on the cover! Inside is a fantastic photo-essay of my work, and Jennifer put together a great piece to go with it, including statements made by some of my biggest influences and mentors, including Wyman Meinzer. Brandi Price, the magazine designer did a wonderful job as well, allowing me to cram a few extra pictures in last minute!

Thanks again to everyone who had a hand in this! It’s a great honor, and I appreciate all the opportunities given over the past several years and in the future!

More to come on Texas Magazine, and a few more topics!