Real talk. I’ve been everywhere.

It’s been a little over a month since my last blog post. That’s because June was a very, very busy month. I photographed several open mic shows and lots of events around Cleveland. I think I was outside every weekend.

But I’m grateful to be outside every weekend, sweaty, a little tired, getting tan. This time last year I was still in the throes of Covid and watching everyone else having a fun summer. I’m glad I can be outside this summer, enjoying my life, being employed…yeah. Very grateful.

Anyway. Where have I been and what have I been doing since May?

Photographing poetry shows

I’ve photographed Poetry Unplugged shows several times since last November. Lots of folks in the poetry community show up for their open mic and special events. In May, I photographed their special event at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, and in June I photographed a show at HOB and their poetry slam at Platform 13. I always have a good time shooting for PU! And I got to photograph Angry Cow Poetry’s anniversary event. The photos came out great!

Photographing Larchmere’s Porchfest

So this was one event that I had to miss last summer because of Covid. This year? I was outside. Pretty much crawled back to my car by the end of the evening, but it was worth it. I photographed Prince Ish’s set and took some candids of attendees throughout the day. Batuqui had a tent, and I finally got to try some of their food. They had a sausage bowl that came with rice, pico, and farofa, which was delicious. I want to go back.

Photographing Parade the Circle

The parade was supposed to happen on June 14, but it was raining that day. I remember getting down to Wade Oval at 8:30 to get good parking, but I didn’t see anyone there. About an hour later, they posted the cancellation notice on Instagram.

The rain date was on June 29. It was fun, but they didn’t have Circle Village this year. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Normally they have food vendors, the museums have tables set up, the library has books for the kids…yeah. Hopefully they’ll be back in full next year. Still, the energy was high and the floats were cool.

Buying photography gear (my poor wallet)

So, I love my X-T5. It’s my baby. But it’s my…unreliable baby. For some reason it throws errors when I put on the 33 or the 50. When it comes to paid gigs, I need a body I can trust. I was considering getting a Sony A7 series camera, but I can’t justify the price of buying into a new camera system. And Sony glass is crazy expensive. I think I’ve invested some $3.5k in to the Fuji ecosystem over the past two years.

So I instead decided to keep a used X-H2S. I know the X-H2 is better suited for photography, but I have been thinking about trying my hand at videography. Also, the stacked sensor is great. It honestly feels like the 26.1MP sensor takes better photos than the 40MP sensor on the X-T5 sometimes. At least the RAWs are smaller.

While the used body was still expensive, it was cheaper than buying it new. And so far the purchase is paying for itself. I’m enjoying not renting bodies anymore.

I also picked up the MagMod Starter Flash Kit 2 to use for events. I have a flash for my camera and it has a bounce card, but sometimes that’s not enough to soften the light. I’ve seen people using the MagMod diffusers before so I decided to get one.

NOTE: YOU WILL HAVE TO FIGHT TO PUT THE MAG GRIP ON YOUR FLASH. BEWARE. I NEARLY LOST A THUMB.

I had considered selling my X-T5 to fund a new body purchase, but I do have fond memories with it and couldn’t bear to part with it. I decided to keep it for fun stuff and personal projects, but if I ever need a workhorse, I’ll pull out the X-H2S. It’s not broken, just a little unreliable, that’s all.

Photographing events around Cleveland

There was Pride, Freedom Fest, and a No Kings protest in downtown Cleveland last month. Last month, there was a community barbecue in the Glenville neighborhood. While I primarily consider myself to be a performance photographer, I generally just like to photograph community events. It’s important, I think, to document current events happening around us. We only know how life was some 50, 60 years ago because there were photographers out there photographing daily life. So I made time to photograph some of these events on the weekends.

As you can see, I’ve been busy :’) But like I said, I’m grateful to be outside doing all of this stuff.

What does July look like?

I think it’ll be a bit quieter. At least I might try to slow down. I don’t want to overextend myself. Besides, I need to spend this month finding an apartment >.<

Anywho, here are two galleries of some of my favorite shots in June.