Happy New Year

Happy New Year from DSP! 2010 was hard to let go of - thanks to some great fans and creative clients it was DSP's most successful year yet! For those of you laughing, yes it was the second full year but the business has planted some serious roots here in Colorado and the future promises to be brighter than ever.

I finished out 2010 in Michigan with some much needed time off visiting family and friends in the town I grew up in. Santa still found me though, and brought me an iPad under the condition that I use it for good and not just old YouTube reruns of South Park. So far so good - its a great way to quick view my images when I'm in the field and makes it even more difficult to avoid writing about myself for my friends to chew on. So, like a good Apple slave I'm sitting in the living room drooling over the latest toy instead of typing on one of the other three computers in the studio...

Back in the "Mitten" I had the opportunity to photograph Ghosts of August, an up-and-coming hard rock band getting serious airplay on Detroit radio. The group took me to the Lafayette Grand, an old Masonic Temple turned banquet facility in Pontiac. The building is huge, one of the tallest in the city - with at least one floor haunted part-time by some spirits reluctant to leave now that the party is getting good. No spooks in the martini lounge where we started, but the basement had me checking my back on more than one occasion.

There was an old cement coal chamber filled to about 15 feet with rust stains dripping from high above. The guys were pretty comfortable in front of the lens though and climbed right up for a great group shot. The old blast furnace in the next room had burned out long ago and the nail boards strewn about threatened tetanus but no one listened, the scene was too perfect.

It's sessions like this that make a photographer grow and inspired me to push my creative boundaries in 2011. I hope to focus more on the commercial music industry rising in Denver - starting with another hard rock outfit that came close to winning "Best Band in Denver" in 2010. More on that later, but thanks again to all my supporters for making the last year such a pleasure to live. Do me a favor and subscribe to the blog, I can use the encouragement to keep writing - even if it's just to keep me off YouTube.