by martinrayvaughan on December 1, 2011
O n Thanksgiving afternoon, I was traveling through Estill County with my Wife’s family. We had dinner at a restaurant called Michael’s in a railroad town called Ravenna. Most of the workers that built the railroad yards in the early 1900′s were Italian and requested that the main station be named after their native Ravenna, Italy. Prior to this, they just called it “The Village”.
I pulled off of old Richmond Road and grabbed my 7d for this shot. Railcars loaded with coal stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. Where did they come from? Floyd County? What was their final destination?
The railroad always takes me back to Eastern Kentucky. Though not a native of Floyd County, I am certainly a product of it. I grew up admiring the rough and ready men, and following the gritty women arond the house that cooked and provided a home in those unforgiving hills. The excitement of leaving the city and entering another world as a kid was indelible. I would leave the sanitary life of Lexington and bound into a world of guns and cuss words and trash fires. My senses were filled with the aromas of tobacco, biscuits and gravy, and my Great Grandfather’s bay rum. The high lonsome sound of the banjo and fiddle were never far away and the blast of the train whistle in the distance would echo and ricochet off the mountain walls.
by martinrayvaughan on November 22, 2011
I t only took one retailer to push the envelope of Black Friday and turn it into Black Thursday. Last year Macy’s actually opened eight of their stores in larger markets at midnight. This year in our little big town of Lexington, Kentucky, several other retailers followed suit. The news broke about Old Navy opening at midnight, then Walmart, and before you could say tryptophan, most every retailer decided to call off Thanksgiving, yielding to the pressure of retail competition. As a result, thousands of retail workers across the Nation will have make the post-Turkey nap a priority, not a luxury, because they will have to get up and head to work in a few short hours.
There has been essentially two camps on this issue: the eager shoppers who, like the retailers who joined the midnight bandwagon this week, will not be outdone or out-shopped. After all, the new Justin Bieber Christmas CD (that comes with his new eau de parfum) might sell out by Friday. And then there are the old fashioned curmudgeons who think that all of this retail madness is a sign of misplaced values in a day where the material is trumping the substance of real family time.
Either way one comes out on the issue, it will do no good to blame the big bad retail machine. Martine Reardon, Macy’s Executive VP of Marketing noted, “People want to shop through the night.” In other words, build a sale and they will come. This is hardly what Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony had in mind, but it’s our reality all the same. You won’t find laughter or forgiveness or love for sale at midnight this year, but there will be some pretty nifty replacements like Angry Bird plush toys and Starbuck’s gift sets.
Whether you stay home or hit the movies or grab your shopping bags, or even if you have to go punch the clock, my prayer for you this Thanksgiving is that you connect. That you find yourself among friends or family, fully known, and fully loved.
by martinrayvaughan on November 12, 2011
Hagyard Pharmacy hires Martin Ray Vaughan Media for their latest commercial.
What a blast. I could see myself doing a lot more in the equine niche, and what better place to do it than right here in the Horse Capital of the World? I had so much fun with this project and I’m already looking for the next horse gig!
by martinrayvaughan on November 9, 2011
R ecently I was shooting a commercial for Hagyard Pharmacy, one of the oldest and largest equine pharmacies in the world. While on the shoot however I couldn’t resist my new interest in photography, and so I shot some stills while shooting video. I will upload a video shortly about my equine adventures. I could easily see equine becoming my niche.
Later in the week I went to ballet practice. My incredible partner, Ayako, humored me with a few poses in the dance studio. I am exploring the world of ballet in order to stretch myself (sometimes literally!), and to consider a short film on the life of a ballerina. It is an art form that requires such strength, perseverance, grace, and the ability to see past the pain to something beautiful.
What do these two seemingly seperate artforms have in common? They are expressions of the deepest parts of our soul. A place that is often hidden and elusive, but always recognized when they show up. I like being around when that happens, and photo and video is an excuse for me to be there. Lord knows, I have no business being in a ballet studio as a dancer (not yet anyway), and I couldn’t imagine jumping a 2,000 animal over a log and into a small pond! Both of these things take guts.
by martinrayvaughan on October 22, 2011
Adrea Laroche hires me for her new Kickstarter campaign.
I was sitting across from Adrea and Chad Laroche at my office on a Fall evening just before the pumpkin spice latte was released. We broke out our iGadgets and began to discuss Adrea’s future. Notable Nashville producer Paul Buono and Adrea have been crafting her latest EP and you could sense the excitement in Adrea’s voice – this was going to be a breakthrough project.
Such endeavors aren’t cheap, so Chad and Adrea thought Kickstarter would be a great avenue to help raise the necessary funds to complete her new album.
The barista churns out the comforting sounds of steam and milk colliding in a stainless steel pitcher when Adrea hits me with:
“I need a new video that really captures who I am.”
This project was exactly the kind of art I enjoy creating. I was not only charged with capturing Adrea’s personality on film, I had to sell her too. The viewer needed to know from watching the video that this girl has the goods. She can sing, she can carry herself with poise and confidence, and clearly, her music is coming from deep inside her. In short, she is worth the investment.
Chad and Adrea are awesome people. My Wife and I have grown closer to them through this little project and I gained much more through this experience than just another client.
Shot on the 7d in three locations: Main Street Lexington, Kentucky, and two different spots at Keeneland Racecourse. I wasn’t happy with the mise en scene in our original script which put Adrea in downtown Lexington (too busy and distracting), so we moved to a quieter, country setting. This made the entire video feel more warm and organic. I shot with an 18-135 lens, f3.5, 1/250, at 24 fps. I added the film look (contrast and grain) in post. Not bad for the cheap lens I was using.
I like this artist! How can I support her?
Head on over to Kickstarter and see what you can do to get Adrea to the next level. This album is going to be awesome, so you should become part of the story.
by martinrayvaughan on October 9, 2011
T oday I ran up to Red River Gorge to plan out some shooting in the future. I don’t know this area as well as I’d like, so this trip was really an exploratory adventure. I also took Arie, who really isn’t the best photography companion since I’m afraid to let her run wild off her leash. I came upon this scene and set up for an HDR attempt – and I was happy with the result. Aperture 4.0, bracketed three times. In post, I cleaned up some noise and boosted the color a little. Now that I’m home, I’m ready to do some research and compare notes with all the saved locations in my GPS. More to come!
by martinrayvaughan on October 6, 2011
T he World has lost one of it’s true visionaries, and in light of this historical day, I wanted to share some of the quotes from Steve Jobs that have impacted me.
“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
– BusinessWeek interview, May 1998
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
“I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. Humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list….That didn’t look so good, but then someone at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of lomotion for a man on a bicycle and a man on a bicycle blew the condor away.
That’s what a computer is to me: the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”
– Interview for the documentary “Memory and Imagination,” 1990
Thank you, Steve. Your attention to details, your ability to harness technology and weave it into the tapestry of the human experience, and your vision to propel us into the 21st Century has forever changed the landscape of our lives. My grandkids will read about you in history books, and I will talk of a bygone era when I sat in the freezing cold of night, camping out to get my hands on one of your works of art.
