I haven't posted here in a while...but it's been for a pretty good reason. Due to a string of equipment problems, catastrophic computer issues, and poor backup decisions, I was unabe to shoot for some time and when I did finally get a chance to, I ended up losing a lot of the data.

Ever the optimist, I see it as somewhat of a blessing. I'm revamping my blogging presence and moving over to a self-hosted WordPress site (again) at http://gordon-ryan.com.

That isn't to say I haven't been incredibly active elsewhere. Twitter has been my voice of choice (rhymes!), Facebook has probaby gotten sick of me, and various boards across the interwebs have been dropped in on. But it's time to get formal again, whatever that means.

I will also be moving my photography to a more formal site that will serve as both a blog and a marketing tool for my freelance work. The jobs I get from word-of-mouth have been great fun, but it's time to see what I can pull in through a more concerted effort. Posterous has also grown long in the tooth, so I want to move away from what I'm starting to view as a stagnant platform.

So, in short, there's a lot going on and even more brewing. I'll post an update here when new things go live, but I imagine this blog as it is will not exist in the not-so-distant future.

I just realized that I haven't uploaded a new set to this site in quite some time. A lot of what I have been shooting lately has been corporate/event work, so not terribly exciting (though I may post them sometime in the near future), but I just did an engagement session with a great couple who will be graduating from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business with my wife in a few short weeks. These are just a handful of quickly processed shots, but they definitely show off how awesome Marlene and Raman are and how amazing the Duke Gardens are looking this time of year.

A few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to shoot the engagment photos for two Duke friends—Abby, who served on the Fuqua Partners board with me over the past year, and Barr, a classmate of my wife's at the Fuqua School of Business (and the class President). We decided to take a trip down to the Sarah P. Duke Gardens to take advantage of the incredible fall foliage and the numerous backdrops that can be found around the property. The weather was great, the couple was incredible, and the photos speak for themselves!

I'm not going to say much else about the session, other than it was awesome and I couldn't have asked for two better people to photograph. As you can see, they make a very handsome couple and their love and the fun they have with each other really comes through.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending one of photographic lighting guru Don Giannatti's Learn to Light workshops in Apex, NC. Those in the photography world may know of Don from his popular Lighting Essentials blog and his always entertaining @wizwow Twitter feed.

In short, Don is an amazing photographer, a genius at manipulating light, and an incredibly good teacher who—get this—loves to teach. You don't find that very often in any field. At $450, his workshop, which he brings all over the country, is an absolute steal. For less than the cost of an iPad, you get two full days of theory and hand-on training from a master, along with additional learning materials (DVD, workbook), and access to Don in perpetuity, if you so choose to remain in contact.

Hot damn it is worth it.

I highly recommend the Learn to Light workshop to any photographer who is curious about off-camera lighting and wants the tools to get started and a solid foundation to grow from. The workshop is not just a bunch of lighting recipes that you see and copy and go home with a binder of diagrams. Don definitely subscribes to the "teach a man to fish" philosophy in regards to how he runs these things; you'll learn the basics and ways to creatively solve lighting problems and by the end of the second day, you'll be off cooking up some incredible set-ups on your own.

The NC State Fair, of course, is traditionally an agricultural exposition (first held by the North Carolina Agricultural Society in 1853) bringing together farmers from throughout the state to showcase their livestock, produce, and products and educate fairgoers about what they do. Needless to say, this is a group of hard-working people who love what they do, and it shows.

The animals shown at the fair—pigs, cows, sheep, goats, chicken, ducks, turkeys, etc.—are all stunning creatures that represent the culmination of the best husbandry techniques in the state. The same is absolutely true about the incredible—and incredibly large—produce on display.

However, the aspect of the agricultural element of the State Fair that interests me the most is the interaction of the farmers with their animals, produce, or products and the way they convey their love of what they do to the inquisitive fair visitors. Whether it was the beekeeper in the screened-in hive swarming with bees happily answer questions from awed onlookers, the affection a young farmboy showed for his prize-winning goat, the pride in the voice of the man who grew the state's largest pumpkin discussing his monstrous orange squash, or the look of exhausted satisfaction on the faces of livestock handlers who have returned to their non-exhibition stalls after a long day, I definitely didn't have a lack of compelling subjects to capture.

In hindsight, I wish I had gone to the fair twice this year, because there is simply so much there to enjoy and document. My hope is to one day do several proper documentary series at several state and local fairs, with specific subject matter in mind each time. There's just an incredible wealth of stories to be found at them.

Check out Part 1 of this series: Food and Fun

A couple of weeks ago, Jess and I made the journey down to the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh to revel in the outrageousness of the sights, smells, and flavors of the annual festivities. The camera, naturally, was in tow—you can't beat the fair for interesting people, vibrant colors, award-winning farm animals and produce, and strangely wonderful foods.

The Food

First and foremost, the biggest reason we go to the fair is to sample the insanity that is fair food. This year had it's share of new and...uh...exciting...treats that we were able to at least witness if not try ourselves. We ended up consuming koolickles (dill pickles marinated in red Kool-Aid), deep-fried bacon and cheese mashed-potato bites, cajun crawfish tails (with fries, liberally doused in hot sauce), corn on the cob (buttered with salt and pepper, Jess' favorite fair food), and a chocolate turtle brownie funnel cake (funnel cake made with brownie batter, topped with warm chocolate, caramel and whipped cream. All were outstanding. Among the foods we saw, but didn't get a chance to try were the now infamous Krispy-Kreme Cheeseburger (your everyday cheesburger with two glazed Krispy-Kreme donuts instead of a bun), the wide assortment of deep fried candy bars (and cookies, and pies, etc., etc.), chocolate covered bacon, turkey legs, the world's largest Gummi Bears and Gummi Worms, alligator on a stick, and a host of other intriguing treats.

The Fun

The NC State Fair, of course, has no shortage of attractions outside of the rows of food stalls. From master craftsmen demonstrating their traditional blacksmithing, wood carving, and metal working to the array of performers (check out the 8-foot-tall robot guy...it was an insane mix of man and robotics...we think) and hoardes of everyday (but interesting people), there were all sorts of things ot take in.

Agriculture

The next post (Part 2) will focus on one of the traditional pillars of the State Fair, local agriculture.

Finally getting around to posting images that I took during October (I'll probably post three or four sets).

These shots are from the Fuqua School of Business "Beyond CPG Night," a Marketing Club event that brings in big industry names to talk about subjects that go...beyond consumer packaged goods. The speakers/panelists at the event included American Express, Cisco, Darden Restaurants, Dell, Disney, DuPont, Eastman Chemical, GE, John Deere, M&T Bank, NASCAR, Octagon, and Walmart.

This was my first time shooting an event like this and it certainly provided unique challenges, especially the need to somehow not be distracting when in a large room with only one person talking at a time. The click-click-click of my shutter definitely made me overly aware of myself at first, but as I gradually realized that no one was really paying attention to me, I was able to ignore it. I was also faced with horrendous classroom lighting—not very strong, weird color temperatures, and bad photographic quality—but from the looks of the shots, I was able to overcome them.

This past weekend I had the honor of doing newborn photos for my friends Marie (a fellow Fuqua Partner) and Steve of their new little girl, Georgia. Not only is Georgia cute as can be, but she's also pretty chill (for a two wek old!). Mom, Dad, and Baby all did great and it certainly shows in the photos. Lots of love in that home, for sure.

My niece started kindergarten this week. Suffice it to say, I was blown away by how quickly her first five years have gone by. Seems like it was only a short time ago that I took these photos of her and my dad (her grandpa)...she was only ten days old.

Congratulations on your first day of school, Hanna!

Porter was, as usual, moping on the couch while I was taking in the first day of Sunday football. In the late afternoon, the sun streams in through the floor to ceiling windows in our living room, so I figured I would bathe him in the over abundance of warm light washing over his lounging space.