I added a page to the blog today that was who am I, and i had to stop and think about it and this what i wrote. It seemed like a good blog post also. Enjoy.
You know I am sitting down here thinking about what I should think about what I should say about myself. First off I am a Husband, Son, Father to four legged kids, Civilian, Military, and a Photographer and those are just some of the titles that I have. I have been trying to figure out who I am over the past year and I know that I am not a definition. People try to place themselves in one category or narrow it down to area and I am not that, A different day and I am a different person. Some days I am a happy go lucky guy and other days I just want to say “Hug this place”.
As I mentioned before one of my attributes is Photographer and I am one on certain days. It isn’t something that I am never because I am always looking at how I can shoot something it is just there are days that I don’t shoot and there are days that I do. I have the job title Air Force that is Photographer and I am currently deployed to Afghanistan. I am now looking to see where this will lead me. I have already made some breakthroughs in what I am doing in my life and I haven’t been this at peace with myself in more years that I can count. I always am thinking that I could be doing more but I am getting to the point where I am ok with what I am doing.
So this I started this up to help keep my loving family and friends in the loop of what is going on in my life and to show them what I do.
So who am I? I am Kyle and I am ok with that.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
One Crazy Week
Hello everyone,
I have been looking at writing this for about a week and I have finally gotten to sit down and write it. We had a big mission this week. We did a pruning class, for locals down in Tagab. It took place over three days and it was a great success. I have not been that sore but the farmers loved the training or maybe it was the free pruning tools that we gave out at the end of the training that was the big hit.
I did get to play PA for good bit on this mission, I not only took the pictures, I interviewed the district sub-governor (County mayor), and I wrote the story for the mission. It was a real busy week.
I will post the story here, in a day or two when it is released, but that is not what I really want to talk about. I had an interesting week with some email with a princess. Do I have you attention yet? Yes I was in contact with a princess and I am not talking about Nicki. She is a photographer whose husband I met over here. I knew that she was a wedding photographer and was shooting a wedding in Hawaii during the time that I met the hubby. He had told me to contact her and she could help me with starting up my photography business. I did searching the same day that I met him but to know avail. About two weeks ago I was listing to a podcast of Chase Jarvis and he was interviewing a world famous wedding photographer, and not it wasn’t the one I was looking for but I did check out the Facebook page of the photographer and I started looking at posts. About a week later I had looked at a bunch of the photographers on the site and I came across one that was “Photos by Princess” so I started looking at her site and after putting together a bunch of clues I decided to email her and see if she was “the Princess that I was looking for”. Her fist name is Princess so it is just fun to say it some sentences. It was and she sent me an email back that to tell you the truth was a little demeaning and I actually was a little pissed but I had never explained do her what my shooting experience was. So I wrote her back and gave her links to my work and I got back a reply that I was a more accomplished photographer than her and that I should be telling her how to shoot. But she is able to help in the area of portraiture. I don’t have much experience in that field. And we have talked some about that. I have to say that it has been a fun journey to talk to the princess. Bazanga!
Anyways I hope to post at least three times this week so keep an eye out.
More to come…
I have been looking at writing this for about a week and I have finally gotten to sit down and write it. We had a big mission this week. We did a pruning class, for locals down in Tagab. It took place over three days and it was a great success. I have not been that sore but the farmers loved the training or maybe it was the free pruning tools that we gave out at the end of the training that was the big hit.
I did get to play PA for good bit on this mission, I not only took the pictures, I interviewed the district sub-governor (County mayor), and I wrote the story for the mission. It was a real busy week.
I will post the story here, in a day or two when it is released, but that is not what I really want to talk about. I had an interesting week with some email with a princess. Do I have you attention yet? Yes I was in contact with a princess and I am not talking about Nicki. She is a photographer whose husband I met over here. I knew that she was a wedding photographer and was shooting a wedding in Hawaii during the time that I met the hubby. He had told me to contact her and she could help me with starting up my photography business. I did searching the same day that I met him but to know avail. About two weeks ago I was listing to a podcast of Chase Jarvis and he was interviewing a world famous wedding photographer, and not it wasn’t the one I was looking for but I did check out the Facebook page of the photographer and I started looking at posts. About a week later I had looked at a bunch of the photographers on the site and I came across one that was “Photos by Princess” so I started looking at her site and after putting together a bunch of clues I decided to email her and see if she was “the Princess that I was looking for”. Her fist name is Princess so it is just fun to say it some sentences. It was and she sent me an email back that to tell you the truth was a little demeaning and I actually was a little pissed but I had never explained do her what my shooting experience was. So I wrote her back and gave her links to my work and I got back a reply that I was a more accomplished photographer than her and that I should be telling her how to shoot. But she is able to help in the area of portraiture. I don’t have much experience in that field. And we have talked some about that. I have to say that it has been a fun journey to talk to the princess. Bazanga!
Anyways I hope to post at least three times this week so keep an eye out.
More to come…
Monday, January 24, 2011
Up Up and Fire Away
It has been a few days since my last blog post and I have to say that I have wanted to write but I just haven’t. I know that I need to get on the internets and write but I haven’t done it. I have been in kind of a funk for the past few days. I have been thinking a lot (it is a bad thing) and I have been not sleeping well and I think that the combo of those things has just left me in a slump.
One of the things that has been bugging me is a comment that I contently hear. !!!!! I KNOW THAT THIS IS GOING TO SOUND VER NARSASIC!!!! I always am getting “your photos were great” or “you did a great job with those photos” and to tell you the truth is I am getting sick of it. Yes I know that I am a great photographer. First off you say it like you didn’t think that I could do a good job. We have been working together and you don’t think that I will be doing a good job, Come on. And secondly you could give me a little bit of feedback. I am getting bored here. Give me a challenge.
I know that I sound like an asshat but it is something that is on my mind lately. It is not that I am all above everyone else but I don’t feel challenged. I know what people are trying to say but it isn’t what is coming across.
I am sorry for the rant and I hope that you can understand what where I am coming from. But on to other things. We had a joint US and French helicopter exercise with combat ground controllers and 4 differ models of helicopters conducting live fire training (firing their guns and rockets) on the mountain next to the FOB. It was a great day. I got some amazing imagery, but better off, I got time with helo pilots and time with a USAF Combat controller (he is Special Forces) and it turns out that he was a aircraft mechanic and he and I were in basic and tech school together. I mean we didn’t really know each other but we had to have pass by each other. It is a small small world.
It is amazing how some of these things work out. I get to expand my knowledge base in the coming weeks and I will be pretty busy. Well I will get on to that at a later date. It is time for me to go
More to come…
One of the things that has been bugging me is a comment that I contently hear. !!!!! I KNOW THAT THIS IS GOING TO SOUND VER NARSASIC!!!! I always am getting “your photos were great” or “you did a great job with those photos” and to tell you the truth is I am getting sick of it. Yes I know that I am a great photographer. First off you say it like you didn’t think that I could do a good job. We have been working together and you don’t think that I will be doing a good job, Come on. And secondly you could give me a little bit of feedback. I am getting bored here. Give me a challenge.
I know that I sound like an asshat but it is something that is on my mind lately. It is not that I am all above everyone else but I don’t feel challenged. I know what people are trying to say but it isn’t what is coming across.
I am sorry for the rant and I hope that you can understand what where I am coming from. But on to other things. We had a joint US and French helicopter exercise with combat ground controllers and 4 differ models of helicopters conducting live fire training (firing their guns and rockets) on the mountain next to the FOB. It was a great day. I got some amazing imagery, but better off, I got time with helo pilots and time with a USAF Combat controller (he is Special Forces) and it turns out that he was a aircraft mechanic and he and I were in basic and tech school together. I mean we didn’t really know each other but we had to have pass by each other. It is a small small world.
It is amazing how some of these things work out. I get to expand my knowledge base in the coming weeks and I will be pretty busy. Well I will get on to that at a later date. It is time for me to go
More to come…
Thursday, January 20, 2011
thought the lens
I wrote an artical for the PRT newsletter last week. I am going to post it here. Hope you like.
THROUGH THE LENS
I look at the world in 1/250th of a second slice or a single click of the shutter. In that instant I am able to capture a moment in time and record it into history. As the photographer of Kapisa Provincial Reconstruction Team, I tell a story that encompasses multiple cultures, generations of people and a multinational force working to bring a better life to a war torn country.
Life over here is foreign to what we see in the U.S. and it makes it hard to comprehend sometimes. As I watch a child drink out of the gutter or sit in the dirt because he has nowhere else to sit, I see my role as a photographer expand. I am not just telling the PRT’s story; I am telling theirs. The PRT and the local government work together to change the quality of life for the people of Afghanistan and I have the opportunity to capture that.
Some people may think that all I do as a photographer is snap some pictures, right? Wrong. Capturing imagery is only a small aspect of what I do. The images that I collect ultimately become the face of the PRT; they are what people see and how people connect to us. Whether it is a civil engineer inspection or a key leader engagement during a shura, the world sees it though my lens and it is those images that tell the world what we, as a PRT, are doing here after 9 years.
My photos also provide a glimpse into the life of the PRT, which allows family and friends to better understand the importance of the mission we’re supporting while away from home.
Capturing that critical moment of time isn’t as easy as it seems. In order to produce the best image possible, I need to understand what someone is doing and why they are doing it. I love it when I have the time to work with an individual before I photograph them and gain that feeling. I feel that by seeing something though someone else’s eyes your photographs can convey emotion.
Emotion is a huge aspect of photography and can ultimately
turn a “good image” into a “great image.” The emotion conveyed within an image allows you to see the character and personality of person, and personality is something that the Afghans have a lot of.
While working with the Afghans I have found two groups of people that have emotion flowing in their eyes. The children who have not had the rule of the Taliban over them and the elders who lived though the soviet occupation, civil war, Taliban occupation and Operation Enduring Freedom.
The children here live in conditions that we would consider to be primitive at best and yet they have such life in their eyes. The elders have been through so much in their life and it is worn on their faces, but they still have hope for the future of their home, their children and their country. I think of the children when we are completing a school or working on a road that will connect a village with the district capital and hope that what I am doing is going to play a part in the rebuilding of this province.
My time with the PRT is short, but the images that I produce will live for the unforeseen future. My goal is to document this history with my images so hopefully in 15 or 20 years these photos will become pages of history that the children here will be able to look at and reminisce about similarly to how we look back at photo albums created by our own families. If I can change the life of even one person over here with my photography, then my time here will have been a success.
Photography Quick Tips
One of my favorite photographers, Chase Jarvis, has coined the phrase “the best camera is the one you have on you.” The key is that you just have to get out and shoot. Here are three quick tips that will help improve your imagery.
Change your point of view — Most of the world sees things from 5’4” to 6’2” off the ground. So if you take a picture from a normal standing position, it’s how everyone normally sees it, so get high or low. Step up on a chair (one that doesn’t swivel or have wheels) or a ladder to look down on those subjects. Get to the ground and shoot with the camera at knee level or lower to provide you a unique look at the world.
Fill the frame — There are times that you should have the person in the photo be really small like your family at Mount Rushmore, but there are many time that you need to cut out all the dead space in the picture. By filling the frame you make your subject prominent and you can remove clutter and unwanted stuff in the background. This can be done in a few different ways. The first is with the camera zoom, which will allow you to appear closer without actually moving. The other way it to simply move around and that leads me into my next and final tip for today.
Move Around — One of the keys to good photography is to be flexible both physically and figuratively. Standing in one position and shooting images is possible and can sometimes be the only way to shoot depending on the situation, but you really need to get to the action. Don’t be afraid to get up and close to the subject that you are photographing.
THROUGH THE LENS
I look at the world in 1/250th of a second slice or a single click of the shutter. In that instant I am able to capture a moment in time and record it into history. As the photographer of Kapisa Provincial Reconstruction Team, I tell a story that encompasses multiple cultures, generations of people and a multinational force working to bring a better life to a war torn country.
Life over here is foreign to what we see in the U.S. and it makes it hard to comprehend sometimes. As I watch a child drink out of the gutter or sit in the dirt because he has nowhere else to sit, I see my role as a photographer expand. I am not just telling the PRT’s story; I am telling theirs. The PRT and the local government work together to change the quality of life for the people of Afghanistan and I have the opportunity to capture that.
Some people may think that all I do as a photographer is snap some pictures, right? Wrong. Capturing imagery is only a small aspect of what I do. The images that I collect ultimately become the face of the PRT; they are what people see and how people connect to us. Whether it is a civil engineer inspection or a key leader engagement during a shura, the world sees it though my lens and it is those images that tell the world what we, as a PRT, are doing here after 9 years.
My photos also provide a glimpse into the life of the PRT, which allows family and friends to better understand the importance of the mission we’re supporting while away from home.
Capturing that critical moment of time isn’t as easy as it seems. In order to produce the best image possible, I need to understand what someone is doing and why they are doing it. I love it when I have the time to work with an individual before I photograph them and gain that feeling. I feel that by seeing something though someone else’s eyes your photographs can convey emotion.
Emotion is a huge aspect of photography and can ultimately
turn a “good image” into a “great image.” The emotion conveyed within an image allows you to see the character and personality of person, and personality is something that the Afghans have a lot of.
While working with the Afghans I have found two groups of people that have emotion flowing in their eyes. The children who have not had the rule of the Taliban over them and the elders who lived though the soviet occupation, civil war, Taliban occupation and Operation Enduring Freedom.
The children here live in conditions that we would consider to be primitive at best and yet they have such life in their eyes. The elders have been through so much in their life and it is worn on their faces, but they still have hope for the future of their home, their children and their country. I think of the children when we are completing a school or working on a road that will connect a village with the district capital and hope that what I am doing is going to play a part in the rebuilding of this province.
My time with the PRT is short, but the images that I produce will live for the unforeseen future. My goal is to document this history with my images so hopefully in 15 or 20 years these photos will become pages of history that the children here will be able to look at and reminisce about similarly to how we look back at photo albums created by our own families. If I can change the life of even one person over here with my photography, then my time here will have been a success.
Photography Quick Tips
One of my favorite photographers, Chase Jarvis, has coined the phrase “the best camera is the one you have on you.” The key is that you just have to get out and shoot. Here are three quick tips that will help improve your imagery.
Change your point of view — Most of the world sees things from 5’4” to 6’2” off the ground. So if you take a picture from a normal standing position, it’s how everyone normally sees it, so get high or low. Step up on a chair (one that doesn’t swivel or have wheels) or a ladder to look down on those subjects. Get to the ground and shoot with the camera at knee level or lower to provide you a unique look at the world.
Fill the frame — There are times that you should have the person in the photo be really small like your family at Mount Rushmore, but there are many time that you need to cut out all the dead space in the picture. By filling the frame you make your subject prominent and you can remove clutter and unwanted stuff in the background. This can be done in a few different ways. The first is with the camera zoom, which will allow you to appear closer without actually moving. The other way it to simply move around and that leads me into my next and final tip for today.
Move Around — One of the keys to good photography is to be flexible both physically and figuratively. Standing in one position and shooting images is possible and can sometimes be the only way to shoot depending on the situation, but you really need to get to the action. Don’t be afraid to get up and close to the subject that you are photographing.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
I am sitting here listening to one of my favorite photographers on an audio pod cast and it is really made think. I have been going about this all the wrong. And saying that, is wrong. I have been thinking that I need to go and do this to get to do that, and then it will lead to this and I will get to my end point. I have thought that is what I needed to do to be successful. I have been looking at it all wrong.
I want to be a Photographer…. Point Blank
I am going to do this, I have a great start as being a photographer here Afghanistan for the Air Force but there is so much more and other types of work that I can do that I will excel in and I need to try them. I feel that I have been holding back because I have this preconceived notion of ME and if I am going to get out and creating imagery then I need to loss my own image, use my life to its advantages and create me and most importantly Embrace who I am. Like on thing that I have hated about myself is my voice. I have never like it. It was one of those thing that I herd on a answering machine and I would cringe. It has been something that has kept me from doing a lot of things in my life already. If I can except it and embrace it I can almost trademark it. I can tell the voices of the photographers that I follow and I have to say that most of them don’t have a deep dark sexy voice or are great looking but the are still doing videos where the put out what they love. I have to be able to do that I have to be happy with what I have and embrace and use it. I also have to go out and shoot. I have said it a lot lately but haven’t really done it and one reason is missions and second isn’t is that it got cold. And you know what those excuses are… they are excuses nothing else. In the end I don’t have an image to put out. I only have excuses. Tomorrow is a full moon and it is going to rise over a snow capped mountain at dusk…… If weather holds out on me I will shoot it. I WILL go out and create imagery and work towards my dream. Thanks for listening
I have linked a short movie to the photographer that i had been listening to them interview. It is a great video and says a lot.
More to come…
http://www.zarias.com/transform-a-short-film-for-scottkelbycom/
I want to be a Photographer…. Point Blank
I am going to do this, I have a great start as being a photographer here Afghanistan for the Air Force but there is so much more and other types of work that I can do that I will excel in and I need to try them. I feel that I have been holding back because I have this preconceived notion of ME and if I am going to get out and creating imagery then I need to loss my own image, use my life to its advantages and create me and most importantly Embrace who I am. Like on thing that I have hated about myself is my voice. I have never like it. It was one of those thing that I herd on a answering machine and I would cringe. It has been something that has kept me from doing a lot of things in my life already. If I can except it and embrace it I can almost trademark it. I can tell the voices of the photographers that I follow and I have to say that most of them don’t have a deep dark sexy voice or are great looking but the are still doing videos where the put out what they love. I have to be able to do that I have to be happy with what I have and embrace and use it. I also have to go out and shoot. I have said it a lot lately but haven’t really done it and one reason is missions and second isn’t is that it got cold. And you know what those excuses are… they are excuses nothing else. In the end I don’t have an image to put out. I only have excuses. Tomorrow is a full moon and it is going to rise over a snow capped mountain at dusk…… If weather holds out on me I will shoot it. I WILL go out and create imagery and work towards my dream. Thanks for listening
I have linked a short movie to the photographer that i had been listening to them interview. It is a great video and says a lot.
More to come…
http://www.zarias.com/transform-a-short-film-for-scottkelbycom/
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Snow on faces
I have been very busy lately and I have wanted to post for a day or two but I haven’t. So I am going to start with a partial post that I wrote 2 days ago.
Let it snow
I am going to start off today’s post with a weather update. IT’S SNOWING! Ok so that is all that impressive as it is more impressive when the ugly brown mountain next to us (we have like 5) appears out of the clouds a majestic snow covered mountain. It brings a new beauty to this country where I live. I have had a love for the landscape since I have been here and now it has been renewed
I have been spending the past two day writing an article. For the newsletter and I have to say, I suck at writing or at least thinking that my writing is good. I will get done writing or rewriting it and my lt. will go though and make it bloody and it is just very very frustrating. I thought that I have been clear and concise. Lucky for you, you get to read my un-edited ramblings.
I am still not sure where my life is going. I have talked to a few times this week about going to school and I have been trying to be better at seeing the “patterns” or “signs”. So I am starting to look at schools and trying to marry up a school in area that has a job and program that I want to be in. and if I want to take a coarse or two while I am here. Choices, choices…….
….. And now I will continue from that one.
Faces
I have been really busy the past two day with going on missions. I had an 11 hour mission the other day and about a three hour mission today and I have to say I am pooped. It was great though on the 11 hour mission because we went up into the mountains after the snow and it was beautiful. We got up to about 7600 feet and I could feel how thin the air was when we had to climb up a 50 foot or so hill to a site and I was done about 25 feet in or so. Overall the day was a success. I came out with some great imagery that I will be putting on my website but I have to process it so expect to see it in a day or two.
I have been thinking lately about what I want to do when I get home and where home will be. I have been thinking that I wanting to stay somewhere warm… (It has been cold here lately) but I mean I do think that I want to work somewhere I can expand my photography career. I know that I could probably get a loan and buy all my gear and get a space for a studio, but I think that if I go that route that I will be ending my career before I can kind of get it started. I am thinking that in a year of getting home I hope to be making 75% of my income off of photography and at that point I will be able to quit whatever job I have and focus on photography. I have come up with a couple names for my studio “On-Fire Photography” “Unique Image Photography” “Kyle Brasier Photography”. I would love feedback on these ideas.
Well I think that I am going to call it quits for this blog. I still have to write one for my website that is photography based. I will post it here but I will have a different feel. Thanks for listening.
More to come
Let it snow
I am going to start off today’s post with a weather update. IT’S SNOWING! Ok so that is all that impressive as it is more impressive when the ugly brown mountain next to us (we have like 5) appears out of the clouds a majestic snow covered mountain. It brings a new beauty to this country where I live. I have had a love for the landscape since I have been here and now it has been renewed
I have been spending the past two day writing an article. For the newsletter and I have to say, I suck at writing or at least thinking that my writing is good. I will get done writing or rewriting it and my lt. will go though and make it bloody and it is just very very frustrating. I thought that I have been clear and concise. Lucky for you, you get to read my un-edited ramblings.
I am still not sure where my life is going. I have talked to a few times this week about going to school and I have been trying to be better at seeing the “patterns” or “signs”. So I am starting to look at schools and trying to marry up a school in area that has a job and program that I want to be in. and if I want to take a coarse or two while I am here. Choices, choices…….
….. And now I will continue from that one.
Faces
I have been really busy the past two day with going on missions. I had an 11 hour mission the other day and about a three hour mission today and I have to say I am pooped. It was great though on the 11 hour mission because we went up into the mountains after the snow and it was beautiful. We got up to about 7600 feet and I could feel how thin the air was when we had to climb up a 50 foot or so hill to a site and I was done about 25 feet in or so. Overall the day was a success. I came out with some great imagery that I will be putting on my website but I have to process it so expect to see it in a day or two.
I have been thinking lately about what I want to do when I get home and where home will be. I have been thinking that I wanting to stay somewhere warm… (It has been cold here lately) but I mean I do think that I want to work somewhere I can expand my photography career. I know that I could probably get a loan and buy all my gear and get a space for a studio, but I think that if I go that route that I will be ending my career before I can kind of get it started. I am thinking that in a year of getting home I hope to be making 75% of my income off of photography and at that point I will be able to quit whatever job I have and focus on photography. I have come up with a couple names for my studio “On-Fire Photography” “Unique Image Photography” “Kyle Brasier Photography”. I would love feedback on these ideas.
Well I think that I am going to call it quits for this blog. I still have to write one for my website that is photography based. I will post it here but I will have a different feel. Thanks for listening.
More to come
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
It Starts
It starts-
I have been thinking about doing this for a while and I have finally done it, I have decided that I need to keep a current blog to allow the people that I don’t get to talk to all the time. I plan on letting you know what is going on over here and by doing this though three different medium……. Text, photo, and video, yes video. So here is to a new me,
Part of this comes because I am here and I need to work on myself while I am here. There are things that I have wanted to do for a while and now I am going to finally start to do them. One of the first things that I want to do is to be in better contact with friends and family. I have never been good at emails or Facebook posts and this is a thing that I have known for years and have never did anything about it and I feel that if I can get into blogging I can at least tell what I am seeing, feeling and experiencing during my time here. For the next week or two I will be posting a lot of things that I have experienced over the past six months, I will try to keep to about the past 3 months (time I have been here) and only have a few flash backs to Camp Atterbury.
Another part of what I have wanted to do for a long time is to start my photography business and with me being over I am able to focus a little more energy on it and I have set a website for it and I will have a blog on there too but that will focus mainly on photography related subjects but I will post those blogs on here for you all to read. I will post that websites address once I get it fully up and running. I have a lot of work to do on it.
The last thing that I am really hoping for in this blog is to get me back into writing…… I guess it is something that I have always loved, I hate grammar but I love to write. Back in high school (I can’t believe that I am about to say this but) I wrote many a poem and a short story or two. I have stopped writing for many years and it feels good to start again. This is getting long enough for now.
more to come- (i stole that from Joe McNally one of my fravoit photographers)
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