Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby

Ready! Set! Go!!!!

This year the Boy Scouts of America celebrate a 100 years of Scouting!  Since its incorporation on February 8, 1910, Scouting has been a leader in providing leadership for America’s youth.  In fact, Scouting has been very important to my family. Starting with my father who obtained his Eagle Scout award back in 1947, there are nine Eagle Scouts in our family – my brothers, their sons and me.  In fact, our 10th Eagle Scout was just born January 22.  Alexander Ott arrived to the world as the son of Ana and (Eagle Scout) Jon Ott, of Hawarden, Iowa.  In seventeen years, he can sign his name in his Great Grandfather’s Scouting book, along with the signatures of all the other Ott Eagle Scouts.

Scouting is important not only to our family, but to families all around the world!  The first step in a Scouts journey is made in Cub Scouts.  There are many different activities throughout the year, but one of the most exciting is the Pinewood Derby.   In this event, the Scout builds a racing car from a block of… what else, pine!  They are encouraged to be creative and customize their cars. Then every year about this time of year, the Scouts hold their Pinewood Derbies and race against all the other Cub Scouts.

Last year, I photographed a local race and captured some of the excitement and pride.

Apprehensive Expectation

The Race is On!

Unfortunately, I arrived late to this race (ironically, due to a car accident) but I did capture the final heats.  I fondly remember my pinewood derby as a Cub Scout and I am certain these Scouts will too.

The Day's Fastest Car and Driver!

If you are interested in Cub Scouts or in Scouting in general, I encourage to go to the Boy Scouts of America website or visit your local Scouting Troop or Cub Scout Pack.

Thanks for reading.

2009 – The Year of The Military Family

I enjoy photography. I enjoy most people. But, when I combine photography and people, I really have fun!

I photographed 41 different Military Families in 2009.  41 great families all making the best of the impending separation of 12-15 months, with the Dad, husband or son heading to Afghanistan or Iraq.  Ft. Lewis opened the gates and flew 2/3 of its troops to the Middle East/Central Asia.  Ugh.  I really don’t know how they do it with a smile on their faces.  Everyone smiles for the camera when asked — most of the time…

Sensing underlying tension, I often asked  family individuals to look ’serious’, or to not smile and look straight at the camera.  The resulting images caught me off guard… more than I thought they would.  The honesty of their emotions and their underlying sadness were closer than I thought.  The soldiers were good at quickly dropping into the ‘no smiling now’ pose, but the wives were not as practiced at masking their emotion.

Deployment is Hard On Everyone - Even the Brave.

Though emotion showed when asked, the vast majority of the time we had fun (after the families got used to me shadowing them like a paparazzi photographer!)  Those who know me may blame me for getting the kids into trouble Sometimes, though things could get out of hand…

Corrective Action

In all fairness to the Brevers, I saw the the love the children had for their Dad, and I knew they would have fun posing for this ‘Corrective Action’ photo.

Drop and Give Me Ten, SOLDIER!!

But this was NOT a posed photo!    OK… it was. (The Sanchez family really enjoyed their session!)

The military families I met and photographed gave me far more in return by sharing their love for each other than I could ever have have provided them in photos.  When you listen to the news reports, or read the paper, pray not only for the soldiers in the field, but also for their families listening and reading the same reports at home.  The USA truly is the home of the free because of the brave!

Until my next post…

A Promise for the New Year

Happy New Year!

Just a quick note and update. I am ashamed to see that my last update was a year ago when I launched the new site.  In the past year, in addition to the new site, I got myself Facebooked, and Tweeted.  Both have taken a bit more time that I thought.  Not sure which of these social medias I will stick with.  I’ve used FB more and just have my FB updates automatically ‘Tweeted’.

For me, 2009 was the year of Operation: Love Reunited.  I provided 41 free sessions to deploying or returning military service personnel and their families.  This represents the following:

• Over 980 printed photos, in -
• 41 Albums, created by -
• Over 230 hours in sessions, selecting, processing, ordering, mounting and shipping photos, resulting in -
• Over $20,500 of donated products & services

That is a lot of work and all of my free time to get all those albums out.  The families were patient and gracious as it took me to the holidays to get these albums out to the guys stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I’ve created a slideshow to celebrate all the military families photographed this year.  You can view this by going to my website (www.jeffreyottphotography.com), and from the Flash site, choosing Slideshows and following that to the OpLove slideshow.

I am working to make this coming year better, with better photography, more customers and clients and a broader range of photographic experiences.  I am looking forward to blogging more, and even incorporating some video from the iPhone taken during different photo sessions.  It promises to be a good year!

New Website Launch!

Well, the new year has kicked off and is well underway.  There have been some exciting developments here, the first of which is the release of my newly redesigned website!  The old website was well worn and used… but sadly out of date!  The new website utilizes web Flash technology that allows me to present my images in an active and high quality fashion!  The downside to the Flash site is that it requires a high-speed Internet connection and is not viewable on many mobile devices.  Therefore, I have also made available a standard website that IS fully accessible on mobile devices and slower Internet connections.

One of the really nice features of this new website is the new Calendar.  On this calendar, you can check for a request session dates.  If you are planning a date for a wedding, an event or other photographic session, you can go to this page, look at the calendar, see if I have any sessions booked and request a date.  Just one note, though. Just because a date indicates I have a booked session, it may not be an all day session. I may only be an hour long session.  If you need an all day photographer – for a wedding, race, event, etc. You can see if that day is open.

One of the other features I’ve included in the site is the Testimonials page.  Since I’ve been involved with the Operation: Love Reunited program, I’ve received many nice emails and letters from service personnel and their families.  I now have a great location to share the page with others.

Go to my site and explore it.  I’ve had a great time pulling it together.  I plan on changing the content and photos about once a quarter.  One last thing regarding my new site I would like your feedback on.  I’ve included music on most of the pages.  It is royalty free music, which means you will not hear the latest Fall Out Boys, We The Kings, or Yellow Card song.   Licensing that music is just too expensive.  My question to you is do you like the music or do you find it distracting?  I will add a quick poll to this post. Let me know!

As always, I will be interested in any feedback you want to give me in order to improve the site.

Thanks!

– Jeff

 

Winter Snows

Simply stated, it just does not snow here in Olympia… or didn’t.  But it did.  It started snowing on the 15th and didn’t stop until the 26th.  It was pretty at first.  I’ve always enjoyed heavy snows, snow falling so hard you can actually hear it.  I used to love backpacking in the winter.  It was a physical and mental challenge.  It helped to develop and shape my appreciation of the beauty of the settling of snow on the branches and boughs of trees; the million swirling individually shaped snow flakes collecting and gathering into drifts; the beautifully lit night as it reflects the smallest amount of ambient light transforming the nighttime world to an rarely seen netherworld.

It was with this anticipation that I stepped out the other day with my camera and took this photo.  The snow was falling as hard as I have ever seen in the mountains of Colorado.  So unusual for this area… but that is also what made it so beautiful.

As the sun set and neighborhood Christmas lights came on, I caught the following photo.  Winter is not the time to hide out inside. It is a time to explore and appreciate the many different worlds just outside your front door.

Happy Holidays and may the New Year bring you, inner peace, love and prosperity.