Pushing Pixels

Perry Dozier Jr. - Columbia, SC 2009

Looking back on my email box, I found the first correspondence letting me know that I had been selected to participate in fourth series of the Palmetto Portraits Project a year ago today.  Less than five days from now, on Wednesday, September 16, 2009, the exhibit will open to the public with a reception at MUSC’s new James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine, located at 29 Bee St. in Charleston, SC.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: art, gallery, photo, photograph, photographs, photography, south carolina.

My first fine art photography show Symbology, installed in the black box theatre at the Columbia Music Festival association.

As I sat on the porch where I currently live, listening to the water fall in the Koi pond, and trying to catch up on growing email inbox this morning, I ran across a facebook message from a few weeks ago that new friend and fellow artist Anastasia Chernoff sent, after visiting my photo show, the subject of that message was “The after-show glow…”  In her message she equated the emotions of putting your first show together, to giving birth to a baby (something I’ll never know about), and went on to say “…the opening night was all so beautifully surreal. An incredible high that, to this day, STILL resonates within me when I think about it.”  That last statement is something I can now completely understand though.  Now that I look back on the whole experience of my show which closed at the conclusion of the 2009 Artista Vista three weeks ago, it STILL resonates within me, and I’m sure it will continue to, for the rest of my life.  While my entire life has been a complete whirlwind for the past 3 months, filled with the stresses of work, travel, putting on my first show, and trying to buy my first home, I sit here this morning feeling the calmest, and certainly the most content I’ve been in the past 8 months, all thanks to the wonderful friends, and family who now share my life with me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: art, artist, gallery, photograph, photographer, photography, picture, show, video.

I believe that our culture is founded on, and formed by symbols that enable us to connect what we can see with those things that can only be understood by our souls.  The symbols we use to express our patriotism, faith, love, and even socioeconomic status, are simply an outward expression of the desire we all share as human beings to belong to something larger than ourselves. The representation of these symbols in the images I have created reflects the way I see what my subjects present, as a means of communicating their belonging to the world around them.

A political protester grasps a confederate battle flag, outside of town hall meeting at Seawell's, in Columbia, S.C., for Republican presidential hopeful John McCain.

The proceeding statement was the founding basis for my first fine art photography show titled “Symbology,” which contains 15 16×20 format silver halide prints, from editorial images which I have created over the past decade as a freelance photojournalist.

The show will run April 23-25, 2009, at the Columbia Music Festival Association located at 914 Pulaski St. in Columbia, SC. Click Here to View a Map. 

Symbology will open with a free reception on Art Night, Thursday, April 23, 2009 from 4-9pm.

The show will continue on Friday, April 24, 2009, with gallery hours from 11am-3pm, followed by a special performance from local rock band, All Walks of Life from 7pm-Until.  Tickets for the show are $5, and can be purchased at CMFA in advance or at the door.

Gallery hours will continue on Saturday, April 25, 2009 from 11am-3pm, and will conclude with a special talk, and question and answer session from 2-3pm.

For more information on Artista Vista, Columbia’s Premier Gallery Crawl, visit their website www.artistavista.com or Click Here to download a PDF gallery map.

Tags: art, artist, fine art, gallery, photographer, photography, print, show.

As featured in the Oct. 30 - Nov. 6 MSNBC TWiP: As tears stream down his cheek, Quentin Patrick, center, clad in a red prison jumpsuit, signs paperwork during his bond hearing at the Sumter-Lee County Detention center, Monday, Nov. 3, 2008, in Sumter, S.C. (AP Photo/Brett Flashnick)

As I checked my Facebook page before heading out for a 12 hour photo day on Saturday, I was a bit perplexed when I saw that friend and fellow shooter Chris Keane had left me a note for me to check out MSNBC’s The Week in Pictures for Oct. 30 – Nov. 6, 2008.  Much to my surprise one of my images from the bond hearing of Quentin Patrick, who is accused of killing 12-year-old, trick-or-treater, T.J. Darrisaw, when he fired 29 rounds from his AK-47 through the front door of his house in Sumter, S.C., upon seeing the 3 masked figures, outside of his home on Halloween night, and thinking he was about to be robbed.  This image came from my second day of covering this extremely emotional tragedy for the Associated Press, and can be found in Oct. 30 – Nov. 6, TWiP at the following link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27578284/displaymode/1107/framenumber/7/s/2/

Tags: ap, assignment, associated press, award, death, MSNBC, photography, photojournalism, SC, shooting, south carolina, sumter, TWIP.

I recently found out that, the image I took of then Sen. John McCain’s visit to Adluh Flour in Columbia, SC during his campaign for the Republican Presidential Primary while on assignment for the Associated Press has been selected for a traveling photo exhibit by the AP titled The American President.  I feel extremely honored for my image to be selected for this exhibit since, “The photos in this exhibition are drawn from the AP Images photo archive, which contains more than 10 million film and digital images and is one of the most extensive collections of news and documentary images anywhere,” according to the exhibit’s official promotional flyer released by the AP. 

Additionally, I am the only freelance photographer whose work is contained in the exhibit, all of the other images were created by some of the best AP staff political photographers of all time, and I feel honored for my work to be chosen to be displayed side by side with the work of photographers of that caliber.

To request interviews or speakers, to request use of photos from the exhibit or to book an exhibit for display, contact AP Corporate Communications at 212.621.1720 or visit http://www.ap.org/americanpresident

Tags: ap, associated press, exhibit, feature, flashnick, McCain, photo, photography, politics, president, traveling.

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  I just finished up with some player portraits from Media Day at the University of South Carolina’s, Williams-Brice Stadium on Sunday afternoon.  It felt like it was 120 degrees on the field, and I was soaking wet by the end of it, but all of the players took my requests in stride, and I had a great time with it, and had the opportunity to make some nice images of some great student athletes.  I was caught in the act of shooting the portraits of new starting quarterback, Tommy Beecher, by friend and shooter, Drew Stewart of local NBC affiliate WIS-TV in Columbia, S.C., and according to his package from last nights newscast, I’m helping to contribute to quarterback, Tommy Beecher’s “Rockstar” status.  

Tags: carolina, football, Gamecocks, media, player, portrait, quarterback, SEC, south carolina.

Well, at least one of my photos isn’t dull, according to the folks over at AntiDull, an online Fine Art and Photography magazine that was started back in August of 2007. I was selected to appear in their June 2008 issue which can be viewed at http://www.antidull.com first PocketWizard now this… I’ll be an internet celebrity pretty soon if I keep this up. Hope all is well out there.

Tags: art, magazine, photography.

Welcome to the 2008 Presidential Campaign Trail….

Just spent my first week on the 2008 Presidential Campaign Trail, I can’t believe I’m saying that and its only February of 2007… This trail is looking more like a marathon course. With 11 months to go until primaries the outcome could favor anyone. Every editor I have spoken with this week has shared the same sentiment. Along the road I’ve had the chance to meet a lot of shooters… seeing old friends and meeting new ones. It has been a great journey so far, I’ve had a great time getting to know the candidates, their families, campaign staffers, and more importantly the voters. Everyone I have worked with has been extremely professional, helpful, and on many occasions have gone above and beyond the call of duty to help me get great access. To top off this crazy week, I was called to go on assignment for Newsweek, with former Massachusetts Governor, and Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, and I had a really nice frame published from it. Ahhhh… this is the life.

Cheers!
Flashnick

Tags: campaign, Newsweek, Romney, south carolina.

Ok, so the financial pay out isn’t as high as it would be at the horse track, but the feeling of accomplishment is even better.

When I woke up this morning and checked the paper as I usually do, I saw something that I haven’t seen in quite a while, if not ever. My images adorning the dominant location on the front pages of the three major sections (Front Page/A1, Metro/B1, and Sports/C1). What makes this even better is that when I woke up on Monday morning I had no idea that I would even shoot an assignment. But all of this didn’t come together without some planning and extra work.

At about 2pm, two minutes after I left the news room from turning in photos from an assignment I shot over the weekend I got a call on my cell phone from the director of photography at The State, “Before you get too far away turn around and come pickup the reporter,” were the first words out of his mouth. Arriving back at the paper a few minutes later, I found out that the Metro centerpiece had fallen through and we had to go on a feature hunt to try and fill it.

This is when having the idea book that I always carry with me, really saved our butts. The assignment was to find what high school kids do after school on the first really nice day of spring, and the first place we tried turned up no kids. I guess these days kids just go home to play video games, check email, IM with friends, or participate in after school activities, because after 30 minutes of driving around we couldn’t find any kids out and about. So referring to my little black book I found that I had jotted down the words “Owens Field Skate Park?,” and we headed in that direction. Thankfully we founds some really awesome kids that we hung out with and shot photos of for about 45 minutes, which turned into a nice spring day slice of life.

After that was turned in, I overheard that University of South Carolina head coach Steve Spurier had called the first day of spring football practice a day early, so I headed over to the practice field to just shoot some photos for myself, or stock of what was going on. Having also overheard that access was really tight and the staff photographer who was already out there hadn’t gotten much, I planned on just shooting some nice fan features. But when practice ended the gates were opened and a media frenzy ensued.

Seeing the rush of media, encircling the key players after they completed practice, like vultures circling a dying animal I decided to hang back and see how the players reacted to this, and that moment of pause paid dividends in the moments that I got. After leaving the practice field, knowing in the back of my mind that the staff photographer hadn’t gotten good shots of the players faces, and really thinking that the media circus was actually the real visual story, I called the director of photography at the state again, and let him know what I had. After some quick, and tense moments of editing and captioning on deadline I walked out knowing that I had something that they were looking for, I walked out of the news room for the third and final time on Monday night.

Even if I didn’t get the sections fronts, I knew that I had put in the extra effort and it had paid off in my personal satisfaction with a job well done, but now is no time to get over confident, and rest on my laurels, because my small victory today, will most certainly be forgotten or on the bottom of the bird cage by tomorrow. So I’m off to make calls and find out what else is going on so I can hopefully have another victory to add to my tally in this battle I have going with photography.

*note* this post is a few days behind schedule do to some issues I was having with the blogger interface on my computer. All is taken care of now, and more posts are soon to follow

.