Imagine More Film - Now Online

This summer, Bill and Laura created a short film, "Imagine More," as part of a world-wide campaign for Manfrotto. To help define imagination and what inspires us, thousands of people submitted their photos and tweets to the International Imagine More Contest. The winning images and tweets were voted for online and then given to us for use in the film. Combined with our own original images and video, we created a this film to bring to life the passion and emotion of imagination. The music in the film was exclusively created for the project by Jim Fairchild.

Click here to watch it now. We hope you enjoy it!

Register Now for Camera Store Workshop

Bill and Laura are heading to Calgary for a two day multimedia workshop August 6 and 7. Sign up now to receive hands on training for shooting videos, stills and capturing audio. Learn how to gather, prepare and distribute high quality multimedia presentations. The official workshop schedule is now available Check out the a preview of the workshop now:

Behind the Scenes on Anya Marina Music Video

The Cinevate team captured Bill and Laura on set filming Felony Flats, the latest music video by Anya Marina.

Learn more about the equipment used in the video at Cinevate.com

Lisa Miskovsky's Got A Friend Music Video

Check out our latest music video, Got a Friend, that we did in partnership with Nikon and Sony Music.

Lisa's Email to Her Fans About the Video

View the backstage video here.

First Look at the Lisa Miskovsky Music Video

This past January, Bill spent a few weeks in Sweden working with Nikon and Sony Music on a music video for up and coming Swedish musical artist Lisa Miskovsky.

The official music video doesn't launch until next week, but we want to give you a behind the scene look at the video and the song "Got a Friend." Check out how Bill used our Nikon cameras in the freezing weather.

South by Southwest

Laura and I are in Austin, Texas, this week presenting and shooting at South by Southwest. Austin is always a high energy city, but with the influx of creativity from this conference the city is booming. There is inspiration everywhere you look.

The beginning of this year has kept me and the rest of the Straw Hat Visuals team busy. We’ve shot four music videos, one documentary pieces, taught four workshops, and we’ve flown thousands of miles from Georgia to Sweden to Canada and now Texas.

Among the videos we've shown here is Austin on the Nikon panel, one of our fan favorites is our Backyard Babies music video.

Watching this video makes me even more excited about the videos we will be launching in the next few weeks.

Zurich by Morning

August brought home what I really love about working in the USA. The simple, sweet and almost naive. Nothing fancy, just good solid old photojournalism and storytelling.

A frog jumping competition in Valley City for Sports Illustrated. It was featured on SI.com and in the iPad edition of the magazine as a leading off and a multimedia.

A week teaching multimedia and hanging with friends like Seth Gitner on Minnesota's Border Lakes for Apple.

The NFL Hall of Fame game in Canton, OH for Sports Illustrated.

Shooting a music video of Bluegrass Legend Ricky Skaggs from the Grand Ole Opry with our friends from Nikon--Bill Pekala, Mark Suban and Bill Fortney

The Tom Watson Watermelon Festival in Thomson, GA which got wonderful display on the iPad edition of Sports Illustrated, and also on SI.com. Again an iPad leading off and a multimedia in the magazine.

Sports Illustrated sent us to Georgetown, KY to spend some time with Cincinatti Bengals defensive lineman Tank Johnson. Incredible access and cooperation. It was an epic shoot. You can see it on SI.com, and in the iPad edition of the magazine.

We closed out August with time in Los Angeles and Dallas teaching and making multimedias.

In Dallas, we shot a BMX race that SI.com and SIKids.com both posted.

After five weeks enjoying part of an American summer, we are back in Europe. Watching the sun roll up over the Alps, the river valleys thick with fog, knowing that very shortly I would be enjoying a delicious continental breakfast filled my entire being with goodness.

Laura and I are in Switzerland shooting and teaching this week.

Palio-di-Siena

Last week we were in Italy. We spent time in Florence, Bassano del Grappa and Siena. One of the world's greatest sporting events takes place in Siena - Il Palio. Il Palio takes place twice each year, once in July and once in August, and its origins date back to Medieval times.

The show is incredible. The post parade is two and one half hours of traditional medieval uniform and song. It is truly a site to behold in the 21st century.

It was my third trip to the Palio, so I had a pretty good idea going in about what I wanted to do. We were each able to secure a position -I took the head on position by the start and finish line, Laura was i a balcony position. But neither of our positions could capture the chaos that is the Palio. For that, we knew we were going to need some remote cameras.

With the help of some Italian speaking friends of ours, I was able to secure an overall of the Piazza del Campo on top of a bank, and two overheads of the winner's parade to the Basilica after the race.

The overhead camera of the Piazza del Campo had to be in six hours before the race. We weren't sure exactly what the light was going to be like for the 8pm race, so we set the aperture and shutter speed we wanted and put the camera on auto-ISO. The auto-ISO capabilities of the D3s are extremely helpful in situations such as these.

That camera took over 1,300 photos. It captured a very nice angle of the race incorporating the scene into the image. That is the picture Sports Illustrated chose to run in their Leading Off section of the magazine.

We also set up two cameras on Athenas, the new Gitzo remote control heads. They are really incredible to work with. We also set these cameras up 6 hours before the race and gave each 3 positions to shoot. Through the head's software and Nikon's Camera Control Pro, we could change the settings and the positions of the cameras remotely. This head expands the way we can make images. With planning and foresight we have the opporunity to make photographs from places we otherwise couldn't be.

When the race was done and we were able to start editing back at the hotel, we realized that we had more than a couple really nice images. We quickly sent a gallery to Sports Illustrated and put together a 3 and a half minute multi media for the web and another 2 minute piece for the iPad.

NCAA LAX Championship

Bill and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Baltimore covering the Men's Division 1 Lacrosse Championship tournament. The weekend ended with a leading off in this week's magazine and a multimedia that was posted the morning after the championship game between Notre Dame and Duke.