What's Happening?

It's feast or famine on the Hayward Photo Blog. I'll go a while without any posts and then BAM! I'll do multiple blogs at once...you just never know. Be sure to scroll down to see some more photo's from Greg and Lauren's engagement session....

So what's happening? I've been calling the Zoo once a week to see if they'll let me in to take some photo's of the new Tiger Cub but alas...they are being very cautious with her to avoid too much contact with humans to reduce the risk of her losing track of her Tiger identity and associating with humans more than tigers. My friend Ryan has been the only one they've allowed in there to video and photograph her and if you check out the web page www.zoo.org you'll see he's done a great job. She is a cutie to say the least.

Last week during my regular call to bug him about her I got great news! Jeff Corwin from the Animal Planet show http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/jeffcorwin/jeffcorwin.html
is going to be giving a presentation to the children of donors to the zoo and I've been asked to photograph the event! I absolutely can't wait. It should be a lot of fun.

In addition to that I have been planning and coordinating an event to take place in a couple of weeks. Some of the top photographers in Portland, Washington and Canada will be travelling to the Pike Place Market for some friendly competition. We will be allowed only one camera body with a 50mm fixed lens only (85mm for those with a full frame sensor in their camera). We'll have 90 minutes to wander around the area and shoot what we see. Afterwards everyone will edit their favorite 5 photos and send them to me where I will post them on my web page to be judged by members of a photography forum we belong to. Everyone will pay a small entry fee to go towards a prize. So far it appears there will be a decent sized turnout of photographers. I've had big plans for this and even gone so far as to invite famous photographers like David Beckstead and Annie Liebowitz! Sadly, David can't make it but was polite enough to thank me for the invite. I haven't heard back from Annie, but hey...you never know if you don't ask right? :) I was also feeling spunky and motivated about the whole event so I wrote to Popular Photography Magazine and told them about it. They almost immediately wrote back with a lot of enthusiasm about the idea and given the caliber of the photographers entering the competition I am more than confident that the magazine will be interested in publishing some photos from the day! I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Don't forget to check out Greg and Lauren's pics below. If you are interested in viewing a slideshow you can see it here... http://www.mathaywardphoto.com/alki.htm

Take care,

Mat