David Sorcher's PhotoWorld: Favorite Images of 2013

This past year has certainly been and interesting one, but then, aren't they all? It's been a year of ups and downs for me for sure, but all in all i am still measuring my water glass as more half full than empty. My greatest disappointments probably stem mostly from the falling off of teaching assignments. Seems the kids just aren't enrolling for a photography education these days so after four years of steady work as an educator i have had no classes to teach since the summer. But i've taking that extra time to gather my strength around my personal projects and believe this has not been a bad thing on the creative side of things even if the pocketbook has suffered somewhat. I got work into three different group shows this year which was a great experience for me and has fueled my desire to mount at least one solo show in the coming year (the closest i will come to a New Year's resolution ;->). I would image that 2014 will be yet another "interesting" year.
In reflection i would like to post some of my favorite images from 2013. My last blog entry was pure music photography so i will leave those out of this collection, but being the eclectic photographer that i am i will show images from a number of the different genres i work in. Please remember to click on any image for an enlarged gallery view. Enjoy!

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

Last year at this time i was in Nova Scotia. In more than a decade of yearly visits to my wife's family this was the very first time i got to experience this most beautiful place in the wintertime. It opened up an entirely new aspect of its beauty for me.

©David Sorcher 2013

I did promise you all genres of photography. Of course , this is really just a landscape done with foodstuffs instead of land, rocks and trees. I usually avoid direct sunlight when shooting food, but this strip of light created such a nice accent and a luscious color in the caramel.

©David Sorcher 2013

Speaking of landscapes, i had the pleasure of spending a morning in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs this year, a location i certainly need to return to.

©David Sorcher 2013

This young lady was the first portrait of the year that i was really happy with. It was shot for an article about the impact of student loans forcing new grads to live with their parents again in order to afford making payments. I was pleased with the symbolism of the swing tying my subject back to her childhood roots along with the home in the background with mom and dad on the porch.

©David Sorcher 2013

The past few years i have become very fond of shooting our local Rollergirl teams. This year was the start of our men's team, the Battering Rams. I look forward to shooting them more this year.

©David Sorcher 2013

As you might image, very few things are quite as unpleasant as being forced to spend an afternoon on the playing field with the Cincinnati Ben-gals. Poor, poor me! ;-)

©David Sorcher 2013

It was a slow year for protest photography, especially after spending so much time in the previous two shooting Occupy Cincinnati. So i was excited to get back in the streets for this anti-Monsanto demonstration.

©David Sorcher 2013

I just loved the light and the moment here, a timeless interaction between father and son.

©David Sorcher 2013

Here is another of my favorite portraits of the year, this one of my beautiful wife Veronica.

©David Sorcher 2013

These are a few interior still life images that i am fond of, shot in my in-law's home in Nova Scotia.

©David Sorcher 2013

Of course i do tend to spend more time outdoors when in Nova Scotia.

©David Sorcher 2013

A long exposure painting-with-light image of the island cabin is one of the few times i have experimented with this technique. Perhaps more is ahead in the coming year.

©David Sorcher 2013

And a bit of northern wildlife from the summer trip to Nova Scotia.

©David Sorcher 2013

OK, probably best we take a break from Nova Scotia at this point. Obviously it is a place that yields a lot of good images for me. You're probably all a little bit thirst right now, so let's take a look at a few of my favorite drink shots from the year.

©David Sorcher 2013

I have come to receive great satisfaction from capturing a good drink shot, something i need to do fairly frequently as i shoot a lot of bar and restaurant tour galleries for the local newspaper.

Of course, maybe you would like something a bit more solid with that beverage. So here are a few of my favorite food shots of the year.

©David Sorcher 2013

OK, lunch is over. Let's move on… :-)

I've been shooting the morning kitchen light off and on a lot this year and this is one of my most satisfying efforts on that front.

Hopefully this autumn funerary image won't upset you after all that food and drink. :-)

I love these yin/yang bees all dusted with pollen. This and the next few shots were all from a trip to the Kingston area of Canada.

The following images are from my shoot with the Governor of Ohio earlier this year. I didn't really have any one-on-one attention with him as i would have liked. He was either on the podium or engaged with the writer for the interview, but i was pretty happy with my performance as a photographer, even if i am not so fond of his performance as governor.

I added the last image because it gives reason and purpose to the event i was shooting the governor at, the opening of a new electronics recycling plant. Finding a good significant tie in shot at an event like this is always a challenge and i was pleased when the magazine i was shooting for recognized my effort by publishing one of the shots from this perspective.

I had more political opportunities this year, capturing outgoing Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory for a legacy article in Cincy Magazine. This was probably my favorite portrait session of the entire year. The best of these shots for me were taken in the clock tower at City Hall and getting up there was an awesome experience in and of itself. The final triptych was shot a couple of days earlier at the mayor's final State of the City address.

I am not sure why i am turning all my favorite portraits to black & white, but there is just something classic about them that way. I like the way the monochrome removes all distractions of color and allows the viewer to fully focus on the person in the frame.

A poised 17 year old singer/songwriter Julia Knight was another of my favorite portrait sessions of the past year. Again i lean towards the black & white, but i am also fond of the analogous relationships in the color renditions.

I'll end on this note, not to seem particularly dark or macabre, but because this body of work that i call Future Fossils is foremost on my docket for manifesting into a physical gallery show this year. In the symbolism of the tarot the death card signifies not the end, but change. Of course we all pray for that change to be a positive one, but change, like death, is inevitable, so i welcome it with the accepting passive passion of a Buddhist monk. Happy 2014 everybody! May the changes to come be positive and rewarding for all. :-)

David Sorcher's PhotoWorld

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Favorite Images of 2013

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