I don’t remember how I happened across Jonathan Brownfield. One of those six degrees of Twitter things, probably. Jonathan is a professional sports photographer and has shot games involving “our” teams so that was probably it.
Along the way he mentioned visiting family in Missouri over the holidays so I tweeted him with an invite to stop by for lunch/tour/interview. Today was the day.
“While in high school, I started working as an assistant for Sports Illustrated photographer, David Klutho. That marked the beginning of my career as a professional photographer. This lead to having over 20 photos published in Sports Illustrated.
When I started college I began working for the University of Missouri Athletic Department and became their Head of Photography. Besides shooting, I coordinated a group of photographers to make sure every home event was covered.
During my sophomore year I was recruited by Hooters to photograph some of the local girls for the 2008 and 2009 calendars and the 2008 Miss Hooters International Beauty Pageant.
I currently shoot sports for US Presswire.
Now days my work is regularly seen in USA Today, ESPN Magazine, and in the LA Times.”
Did I mention that Jonathan is 23 years old?
I made a list of questions to ask a professional sports photographer only to discover that Jonathan has branched out from that (still a passion but now kind of a weekend thing). I rambled on with my questions so I’ve chopped the visit into two, 20-minutes chunks. The first one is mostly bio and social media. The second finally gets around to some sports stuff.
I was very impressed with Jonathan. Accomplishing what he has at 23, it would be easy to conclude one’s poop is odorless. He is what your grandmother called “a nice young man.”
I recently learned of an ambitious undertaking involving the websites of some of the divisions of state government here in Missouri. The objective is to bring some consistency of design and how the information is organized.
For example, why not put the search box in the same place on each site? Or, when deciding on names for different kinds of content areas, use the name most common to the public, rather than some acronym known only to those within the division or agency.
The man responsible for overseeing this sisyphean task is Tim Robyn, Deputy for Web Presence with the state’s IT services division. We had a cup of Rocket Fuel here at the Coffee Zone yesterday and he talked about the program.
The state of Missouri has dozens of websites but ten have been selected for this UI make-over. I forgot to ask Tim which ten but when I have that list, I’ll grab some screenshots so we can see a before-and-after.
PS: Tim has what might be the coolest title I’ve heard in a while.
UPDATE: The official State of Missouri site (below) and the MO Dept. of Agriculture were among the first to get the make-over’s. The Dept. of Insurance is up next, and offers a good “before” example. On deck: Revenue, Office of Administration, Economic Development, Labor and Industrial Relations, Mental Health, Natural Resources, Health, Social Services
I could be wrong, but the design below sure looks like a WordPress them to me.
I’ve posted several times on the topic of tattoos and the people who get them. But I’ve never had an opportunity to talk to a tattoo artist, until today.
I jammed my way into some very crowded Metro cars to make my way down to M Street where Paul Roe [Fez #30], the owner of British Ink was taking part in an art exhibition called Artomatic.
Paul was doing pre-session consultations while his colleague, Cynthia, hummed away on a guy’s right bicep. He squeezed me in for a chat and I even got to sit in the tattoo chair.
The interview ran just under 12 minutes and I couldn’t find two to trim so I could post on YouTube as a single file. So it’s a two-parter.
Clarence Lee Sherrill and Crista Meyer sell concrete lawn ornaments. Their business is called Concrete Castings and they’re located on I-55 just north of Cape Girardeau, MO. I have a strange fascination with “yard art” and decided to scratch the itch on a recent trip down south.
Clarence and Crista work in a small, cluttered room heated by a big wood stove and covered in cement dust. Gazing in a large window was a magnificent peacock. I didn’t see Miss C, the camel that’s usually in a pen out front, and Clarence explained she was “visiting her boyfriend” but would return in a few days. Gotta be touch to breed camels in this country.
On a technical note, I shot the video with the Casio Exilim FC100, but the battery went dead on me. So I recorded a few minutes of audio on the iPhone and dropped in some stills. You’ll notice the change in audio quality. [YouTube version]
Tessie Hubbard (aka Panty Mython) has produced more than 80 videos that have been viewed more than 34,000 times by a thousand YouTube subscribers. Along the way she managed to watch some 25,000 videos.
We bumped into each other online and she was kind enough to meet me at the Coffee Zone this morning to talk about her work/play/art. For someone who is so comfortable in front of the camera, she seemed a little shy but that's common with most of the people I stalk. It is my fondest desire to someday collaborate with her on a project. And for goodness sake, watch some of her videos.
PS: As part of my on-going effort to find the best way to share video, here's the YouTube version of this video, and .m4v files are in my Mobile Me gallery.
I’m one of a few hundred (but growing fast) “followers” of Tony Mesenger’s Twitter feed. Tony’s a reporter and columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and covers the Missouri Legislature and state government. He clearly gets Twitter and blogging and makes great use of both.
Tony joined me at the Coffee Zone for an el grande mocha latte doodah where I got him to put down his cell phone for half an hour to talk about his life as a Twitter junkie.
Before going to work for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony was a metro columnist and city editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune and the editorial page editor at the Springfield News-Leader.
Matt Howard is a talented photographer in Kennett, MO (my home town). Matt’s day job is personal trainer so I guess he’s technically an amateur but certainly in the best sense of that word.
I stumbled onto Matt’s flickr page recently and was immediately taken with his haunting (for me) images of the flat, empty fields I remember growing up.
I got him on the phone for a brief (15 min) chat this afternoon during which he explained his passion for photography started with a book rather than a camera.
Remember that kid that sat behind you grade school that was always drawing? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, if he (or she) was as talented as Michael Spooner, he did okay.
Michael (we knew him as Mike back then) and I were classmates 45 years ago in Kennett, MO. Michael and I ran in different crowds but Kennett was a small place and everybody knew everybody.
In a previous post I mentioned that Michael stumbled across smays.com a few days ago and pinged me. He included some old snapshots and his resume, to let me know what he’s been up to.
He got into animation as a Layout Artist with Ralph Bakshi’s feature production of Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings. He spent some years at Disney where he worked on –just to name a few– Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch. He also assisted on early development design of Dreamworks’ Shrek. And he Co-Art Directed Warner Brothers first full-length animated feature, Quest for Camelot. If you have kids or an appreciation for animation, check out his bio. He was also kind enough to share a dozen or so examples of his work.
I called Michael up this morning and asked him to share some of his adventures and we wound up talking for an hour. I’ve cut the interview into three segments about about 20 minutes each.
Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip.
Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.
With one of his custom designed fezzes sitting comfortably on my head, I got Jason Rogers on the Skype horn today to find out the story behind the fezmonger and Fez-o-rama.
Some are born to the fez, others are called. I believe Jason falls into the latter group. I was surprised –don’t ask me why– to learn that Jason is trained in fashion design and might have written a text book or two.
I asked him about celebrity clients, his favorite designs, The Cult of the Eye, his fictional partner, “Joe,” and ukuleles.
There are a couple of places where the audio got weird because a) the Skype connection was iffy or b) Jason walked into his cavernous, marble-floored Hall of the Fez.
Jason is the newest member of The Royal and Exalted Order of the Fez.
Fifty years ago, Jerrell Shepherd mastered a form of broadcasting alchemy that turned small town radio lead into gold. It wasn’t much of a secret, however, since he readily shared it with countless radio station owners and managers who made the pilgrimage to Moberly, Missouri, in hopes of bringing some of Shepherd’s sales and programming magic back to their stations.
While most small market broadcasters were content to get “their fair share” of local advertising budgets (the bulk went to the local newspaper), Shepherd’s sales reps were trained to ask for it all and believed in their hearts they deserved it.
Mr. Shepherd’s approach to programming his stations was deceptively simple: report anything and everything that happened in each of the communities covered by his stations’ signals. The KWIX and KRES “Red Rovers” showed up just about every high school football game, junior high choral concert and chamber of commerce ribbon-cutting. And the Shepherd stations put it all on the air. Always with local sponsors. Lots of local sponsors.
Dave Shepherd grew up in the radio business and built on his father’s success, growing The Shepherd Group to 16 stations before selling them to a Florida-based company called GoodRadio.TV, for $30 million earlier this year.
I got Dave on the phone for a little chat and he talked about where small market radio has been… and where it’s going. He shared some thoughts on the Internet, iPods, HD, satellite and Google Radio.
He says he decided to sell because it just wasn’t as much fun as it used to be. And, in the next breath, he wondered if some of his father’s small town magic might work in The Big City.
I don’t remember how I happened across Jonathan Brownfield. One of those six degrees of Twitter things, probably. Jonathan is a professional sports photographer and has shot games involving “our” teams so that was probably it.
Remember that kid that sat behind you grade school that was always drawing? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, if he (or she) was as talented as Michael Spooner, he did okay.
With one of his custom designed fezzes sitting comfortably on my head, I got Jason Rogers on the Skype horn today to find out the story behind the fezmonger and 
Fifty years ago, Jerrell Shepherd mastered a form of broadcasting alchemy that turned small town radio lead into gold. It wasn’t much of a secret, however, since he readily shared it with countless radio station owners and managers who made the pilgrimage to Moberly, Missouri, in hopes of bringing some of Shepherd’s sales and programming magic back to their stations.