2011 was an interesting year, with a lot of changes. The collection of images in the gallery below is the best way for me to share that. I’ve been putting together galleries of my favorite images for the past seven years, and this gallery looks completely different than any other gallery I have shared before, and that excites me beyond belief for the potential to grow even more in 2012. I hope you enjoy looking through this gallery as much as I enjoyed putting it together.  I can’t wait to see what 2012 has in store for us.

-Brett

(click “more” to see the full gallery after the jump)

Exactly a year ago I finally decided to break down and get an iPhone 4 (my first iPhone).  One of my favorite things about this phone is the camera and huge variety of photo editing/sharing apps that are available for it.  I’ve had several phones with cameras before this one, and always found myself snapping a photo on them from time to time, but I usually wasn’t happy with the resulting image quality, and almost always forgot to download the picture to my computer so I could share it.  In all honesty what is the point of taking photos if you can’t share them for others to enjoy?  The iPhone has changed all of this for me.  I’m now happy with the results more often than not (realizing the limitations of the camera on a phone), and I almost always share them via facebook, twitter, and as @flashnickvisuals on instagram, or here on the blog.

You can see a 25 image gallery of my favorite photos from my first year of iPhone photography, and a list of my favorite iPhone photo apps by clicking to read more below.

Here are my favorite iPhone photo apps for shooting, editing, and sharing all from the phone. Some of these apps replicate some of the same features, but I’ve found that some apps do one thing well while others to something else well, so I just keep a lot of photo apps in a folder on my phone.

Camera+

Adobe Photoshop Express

Camera Bag

TiltShift Generator

Impression (watermarking)

iWatermark

Last but not least (after they improved their ToS) I started using instagram late this year.

Yesterday the University of South Carolina football team announced that quarterback Stephen Garcia, a fifth year senior was off the team for good.  If you live in South Carolina or went to USC, then you no doubt have heard about all of the trials and tribulations this guy has been through over the past five years.  This year (2011) is the tenth season I’ve been photographing NCAA college football.  That means more than 100 games, thousands of players, and at least 50,000 images. During that time I can’t think of a single student athlete which I have photographed that has been as controversial, both on and off the field as Garcia has.  So with that in mind, I put together a gallery of 20 images taken over his five year college career at the University of South Carolina, from the first photo I took of him speaking to the media on August 5th, 2007, to the last photo I took of him leaving the field after his last play in the Gamecocks loss to Auburn on October 1st, 2011.

Once you’ve taken a look through the images in the gallery below, I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this. I’ll save any of my comments until everyone has had a chance to chime in, but most importantly I want a conversation to take place, and I want these photos to be a catalyst for that.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

-Brett

Auburn running back Onterio McCalebb, center, finds a hole in the South Carolina defensive line, during their game in Columbia, S.C., Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Brett Flashnick)

On Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011, Flashnick Visuals owner and photographer, Brett Flashnick was on assignment for the Associated Press to cover the Auburn Tigers as they came to Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C. to face the No. 10 ranked South Carolina Gamecocks, some of his thoughts and a gallery of his images are available after the jump.

Below are a few of my thoughts from the game, a gallery of 20 images and a list of gear used. If you’d like an actual recap of the game check out the article by my AP colleague Pete Iacobelli over at usatoday.com.

While going through my mental gear checklist before heading out to the field to cover the Auburn at South Carolina I checked in with my editor at the AP Sports Photo Desk in New York to make sure everything was set. At the end of our conversations he said “… One more thing, be prepared for an upset.”  Being a “neutral third-party” here to cover both teams I knew that was a real possibility, even though I always want to see the home team (especially one I grew up watching) do well.  With that in mind my game plan was to focus on South Carolina during the first quarter. Over the past four games, I knew that their offense had been struggling, and realized that if they were showing the same signs of weakness during the first quarter against Auburn, the defending BCS champions and a team they lost to twice last year (once during the regular season, and once for the SEC title game), I knew an upset was a real possibility even though this was a much younger, and less experienced team.

After a very long first quarter with South Carolina only up by 3, I made the decision to start focusing more heavily on Auburn.  This proved to be a good decision by the end of the first half Auburn led South Carolina 9-6. The Auburn defense had found a way to contain South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore and quarterback Stephen Garcia’s passing was everything except accurate. Auburn’s offensive line had started to wear down the Gamecock’s defense, and quarterback Barrett Trotter and running backs Michael Dyer and Onterio McCalebb were finding holes on almost every play.  I began to doubt this decision when Lattimore scrambled for a 21-yard touchdown during the third quarter, but a last minute, game-winning touchdown by tight end Phillip Lutzenkirchen, erased those doubts.

Its always stressful for a game to be this close, especially coming down the the last minute and thirty seconds. But thankfully my editor had prepared me for this possibility and I listened. Even though all of my friends here in Columbia, S.C. left the stadium feeling dejection, I was able to walk out knowing I delivered the images AP needed to tell the story of this game.

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Gear Used

Cameras: Canon EOS 5D MKII & EOS 7D (both cameras with their respective battery grips)
Lenses: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L, Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS
Camera Support: (w/ 300mm f/2.8): Manfrotto 679B
Memory: Sandisk Extreme 8gb CF & Lexar Professional 8gb CF***
Computer/Software: Apple MacBook Pro, PhotoMechanic (workflow), Adobe Photoshop CS4 (color correction, cropping, etc.)

Error Message re: Corrupted Lexar Compact Flash card

***Ever since I got these cards I have been having issues with my SanDisk CF readers (both the FW800 and USB 2.0) reading the cards accurately.  When inserted the read indication light will flash rapidly indicating an inability to read.  Typically this can be resolved by removing, and re-inserting the CF card into the reader.  However during my ingest of photos at half-time the card from my 5DMK II was corrupted during this process.  I have tried running Image Rescue 4 on the card to recover images to no avail. I am planning to give Lexar a call this morning to see if they can advise on this issue, and help me figure out a way to recover the first-half images.  I will update with a post in the “Gear” section as soon as I have a definite answer.

A rainbow appears over a neighborhood in downtown Columbia, S.C., on Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011, following a severe thunderstorm. (© 2011 Brett Flashnick/flashnick visuals, llc.)

Click “More” to see the technical details after the jump.

Technical Details
Camera: Canon 5D MKII
Lens: Canon 24-70 f/2.8L USM @ 24mm
Memory: SanDisk Extreme 8GB
ISO: 160
Shutter: 1/320
Aperture: f/4

Last week flashnick visuals, llc had a quick trip to the “Music City” Nashville, Tennessee.  While we were there we decided to take in the sights, and spent some time at Centennial Park which is located on West End and 25th Avenue North, the 132-acre features: the iconic Parthenon.  The Parthenon was originally built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exposition as a replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece.

We are now back home in Columbia South Carolina, and with the 25th Annual Greek Festival kicking off tomorrow we thought you might like to see a little slice of Greece that is just a few hours away by car (or a 45-minute flight on South West Airlines from GSP airport).

More photos and stories from our quick visit to Nashville after the jump.

While we were searching out some adventures (and trying to find a good place to catch the Georgia v. South Carolina football game), we also came across the closing weekend of the Warhol Live exhibit at the FRIST Center for the Visual Arts.  If you ever find yourself in Nashville, the FRIST is a must visit.

Here’s more on the exhibit from the FRIST’s website.

Over the course of his meteoric career, Andy Warhol (1928–1987) used the medium of music to transform himself from fan to record album designer, producer, celebrity night-clubber and rock impresario. Warhol Live presents a comprehensive exploration of the artist’s work as experienced through the lens of music and dance. This exhibition juxtaposes major pieces (Elvis, Marilyn, Liza Minnelli, Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, the Self-portraits and the Campbell’s Soup Cans) with lesser-known works inspired by music and the performing arts (album covers, illustrations, photos and Polaroids), along with films and sound recordings, which provide a visual and aural score to Warhol’s extraordinary work and life. The exhibition includes nearly 300 works, including objects and documents from the artist’s personal archives.

A few “illegal” snapshots in the gallery below.

It was pretty amazing to see the work of Andy Warhol (which we are huge fans of) up close and personal.  The exhibit wasn’t just paintings, but also included re-creations of an Exploding Plastic Inevitable installation with the Velvet Underground, 16mm films, screen tests for the Velvet Underground, and some original Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photographs of Liza Minnelli, The Rolling Stones, Grace Jones and many others, along with some of his original album designs.

As huge photo geeks it was pretty amazing seeing some of these Polaroids up close and personal, as they were the foundation for some of his most famous pieces.  By far one of the coolest things in our photo geek minds was the ANDY WHARHOL embossing on each of them (got our wheels turning about the re-launch of our print collections coming pretty soon). It is much more understated and way cooler than today’s digital watermarking.

We were pretty inspired after leaving the exhibit, and that feeling is still with us.  So on that note, as we head out to create, we’ll leave you with this quote from Sir Isaac Newton “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Four years ago I was asked to photograph the first of many structural beams for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum as they rolled out of Owen Steel Company Inc., in Columbia, S.C., on September 11, 2007. As I arrived on location along with a film crew just before sunrise the workers at Owen Steel were already busy preparing the rigging to lift two massive I-beams onto a 50-foot flat bed trailer for their journey across the United States. There had been many sleepless nights leading up to this moment as a sense of tension and accomplishment filled the air of the massive building, while officials with the NS11MM met with executives of Owen Steel to witness this process. After the beams were lowered onto the trailer and strapped into place, all of the employees made their way to the parking lot to watch the tuck depart and begin to make its way through downtown Columbia toward the unveiling at Finaly Park.

The rest of the morning was filled with incredibly intense emotion as police officers, firefighters, and family members of those who lost their lives in the attacks on the World Trade Center arrived to see the beams first hand. One family member even remarked how seeing and touching the gleaming white steel beams on a truck eventually bound for Ground Zero was incredibly important to them as a means of moving forward.  Its pretty amazing to think that in just 24-hours that all of the victims families might feel this same way, and in 48-hours when the NS11MM opens to the public everyone will get to experience that feeling for themselves.

For me this was an extremely meaningful event to be asked to photograph, and because of that I decided to capture these images in a very reactionary manner to convey the sense of awe and pride that I felt while witnessing this process. The images were originally captured in color using Canon 20D DSLR cameras and were converted to black and white in post production. I chose to make this conversion because I felt that it helped convey what I felt the first time I saw these freshly painted, gleaming white beams surrounded by the grit of an industrial metal fabrication facility, and the symbolism of that juxtaposition.

We would love to hear your thoughts, feelings and reactions to these images, as well as your reaction to finding out that the steel work for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum was handled by a company located right here in Columbia, S.C.  Feel free to share below.

Images are available for editorial license in our National September 11 Memorial & Museum archive gallery.

The first  video comes from a blog post by Chase Jarvis.  Chase shared video interview from The Atlantic with National Geographic photographer Sam Abell (one of my personal favorites).  In the video he talks about taking an entire year to make a single image. Like Chase I have to admit I’ve never spent an entire year trying to make a single image, some have taken hours, and a few have taken days but never an entire year.  However I have had the experience of watching someone thumb past those images in a newspaper or magazine, and really wish I had handled it like Abell did instead of just hanging my head and walking away.

The next video came from facebook page of the South Carolina Arts Commission. In this piece edited by David Shiyang Liu, Ira Glass of “This American Life” (another one of my professional heroes) talks about the amount of perseverance that it takes to really become good at your craft. In his case it is telling stories through spoken word and moving images, but the same applies to photography. This is something I was told, albeit a little less eloquently, almost two decades ago when I started with photography.

If you are interested in watching all four parts of the original “Ira Glass on Storytelling” from Current_TV/PRI, I put together a playlist you should check out http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC85F217C182194FF.

I think the most interesting part about these two videos is that I am somewhere in the middle.  I’ve been doing this for long enough that a large volume of work has been produced, but not yet at the point where I can spend a year making a single image.  This is a good reminder of why it’s important that you don’t just persevere through creating a large volume of work at the beginning of your creative endeavor. The real trick is persevering through this process over several decades, just like Sam Abell has done.  Just like anything else, the skill of seeing and developing a story, whether its with photographs, video or words, can grow dull over time if its not kept sharp.  I will admit that I have fallen victim to this in the past when trying to focus on business, marketing, etc… It was easy to say to myself “ok I’ve got this photography thing down pat, now I have to focus on the business side of things to be successful.” Unfortunately thats not the case and what you are trying to get out there grows dull in the process.

I’m interested to hear what you think. Do you think you have this level of commitment and perseverance?  What’s the longest you’ve spent working on one thing? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

I guess the iApp is the new equivalent to going to the paper box in the morning to see your clips for the day. It’s amazing to think about how the industry has changed over the past 12 years.

If you don’t have the USA Today app already, I would recommend heading over to the iTunes App store, and downloading it today. It has become one of my daily GoTo news apps.

P.S. This post was published from my iPhone. Yes the world has changed!

Here are a few of the outlets from Seattle on the west coast to NYC on the east coast that published my images last night.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/army-s-new-fitness-tests-add-taste-of-battlefield-1.2722013

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=13028950

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/armys-new-fitness-tests-857171.html

http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/national/117202543.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014368274_armyfitness02.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/01/national/main20037925.shtml

http://www.tdtnews.com/story/2011/3/2/72813

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1512110234/Army-swaps-sit-ups-for-combat-run-in-new-PT-tests

http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/armys-new-fitness-tests-add-taste-of-battlefield-1290144.html

http://www.salon.com/wires/us/2011/03/01/D9LMNSTO0_us_army_new_fitness_test/

http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/01/army-swaps-sit-ups-for-combat-run-in-new-pt-tests/

http://www.newstimes.com/news/articleGallery/Army-s-new-fitness-tests-add-taste-of-battlefield-1036257.php

http://www.kansas.com/2011/03/01/1741926/army-swaps-sit-ups-for-combat.html

For those interested, and not inclined to read the full story by my AP colleague Susanne Schafer, here’s the caption version. The new set of standards now includes two separate fitness tests, one which resembles the PT tests of the past 30-years which includes pushups and a 1.5 mile run, while adding new elements like wind sprints, long jump, and a hybrid sit-up/leg lift called the rower.  The new test requires soldiers to don full battle gear and take on a 400-yard run, then immediately complete an obstacle course that involves balance, agility and strength.  The latter of the two tests seemed more like an agility drill from the NFL combine, rather than an Army fitness test.  This all made sense when I spoke with Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who oversees all training in the U.S. Army.  Hertling said that the goal for these exercises, along with new nutrition guidelines is to bring today’s soldiers up to the level of elite athletes.