Tennison Photography

I-75

2011-02-22T10:32:00.004-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I was standing on a cold and windy bridge downtown waiting for the sunlight to land on a building out of frame to the left. I watched rush hour and sunset in the meantime.

Grassfight @ Trees

2011-02-11T22:48:00.001-06:00

The Un-Moment

2011-01-31T22:32:00.002-06:00

I've meandered in and out of lots of construction sites the last couple of years. I'm usually busy documenting roofing and grouting and caulking in progress, but the grabbed frames hold more interest for me.

I admire Chase Jarvis for a lot of reasons, and this concept he shared from his Seattle 100 project makes a whole lot of sense to me:

"It was always my goal to catch the 'un-moment' -- that instant just before and just after such photographic moments that have been so historically revered in our culture. Even if the subject isn't moving, the image is just a millisecond 'off,' a sliver of time that captures the spontaneous..."

Snow Day Feb. 2010

2011-01-24T07:30:00.001-06:00

I came across these while consolidating my Aperture library... It's always easier to be less critical after letting photos sit and simmer a little while, I think. It's tough having to immediately sit down and spend several hours with recently shot stuff.

This fun snow day ("Snowball fight on the square at 3! Tell a friend!") fairly quickly turned into punk kids throwing snow at passing cars, pedestrians, police officers, passing squad cars, parked squad cars with police officers getting out, etc. Had I felt more photojournalistic I might have documented the downward spiral into chaos, but I think we decided to just go home and have some tea or something instead. It was pretty fun for a while though.

Tree Farm II

2011-01-23T13:33:00.000-06:00

Our friends Ryan and Laura invited us along to a Christmas tree farm last month. Lots of trees and concession stands and hayrides and gift shopping and happy, sweaty, pink-faced kids. Ryan and I (as heads of our households) wandered around and hunted down the correct trees, used the super sharp saws provided to cut down our trees, tied our trees to our cars and put them in our living rooms. I think it might be a new tradition. (It was both couples' first Christmas.)

Tree Farm

2011-01-04T15:52:00.001-06:00

The Jones Family

2011-01-04T15:47:00.001-06:00

The Joneses are great. My instructions were "you guys be silly and hang out and I'll follow you around with a big camera." Couldn't have gone better. I think none of us were big fans of posing.

Contrast

2010-11-08T07:00:00.001-06:00

I work for the city, so I see council members, the mayor, important business folks, etc., pretty often. The most frequent mash-up of these groups is at the "Mayor's Breakfast." Usually this fancy, early-in-the-AM deal is at a country club or event hall or something, but this fall it was near the food court at the front of Sam's Club a few days before it opened to the public.

People stand in line to get an 87 cent Coke or a dollar fifty hot dog combo where lots and lots of wealthy business owners and city leadership sat and clapped and ate a catered breakfast on white table cloths.

Which reminds me, I've been thinking a lot lately about the role juxtaposition plays in photogaphy.

For one, at the most basic level it makes photography possible. That is, nothing would be visible (or photographable) without light and dark standing in contrast.

Also, seeing two things that really don't belong together, or that beg to be reconciled, or make you consider how they work in relation to one another...crammed into a 700px by 500px space is a marvel, I think.

This breakfast photo certainly isn't a drastic example, but it made me think.

Grassfight @ Trees

2010-11-04T23:05:00.002-05:00

My good friends who make up the band Grassfight (myspace.com/grassfight) put on a really, really great show in Deep Ellum a couple of weeks ago. I'll post more photos from it and words about it in the near future.

Jason and Maycee

2010-08-19T15:20:00.004-05:00

Jason and I have been friends since 8th grade. Our activities in the last 12ish years include (and are not limited to) playing Gameboy Color at high school football games, exploring in the woods, making thoroughly scripted absurd videos, cooking giant vats of mac 'n wieners on the weekends, slipping hilarious misinformation into our senior yearbook before it went to press, surviving private school, counseling each other through various troubles during college, keeping up during the post college years, and sharing in engagement and wedding time this year. He and Maycee were great sports on this sweltering photo shoot.

35mm

2010-06-05T07:25:00.001-05:00

This is from one of the first photo assignments I ever shot. I think it was in '05. Shot it on film and developed in the darkroom, which is now in a box in my garage. Trying to think of an excuse to set it up again...

Puppeteering

2010-06-05T07:24:00.000-05:00

We just shot episode 6 of the kids' show the library and Denton TV do together. Lots of silliness. This is from episode 2. So far the puppets have visited the fire station, police station, airport, landfill, an elementary school and a library.

Outtakes

2010-06-05T07:16:00.003-05:00

Last summer I considered these the outtakes from a couple of impromptu portrait sessions with these guys in downtown Dallas. Just came across them.

Golden

2010-05-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

Canada

2010-05-05T12:18:00.001-05:00

(Click to scroll through...)

May 5

2010-05-05T11:47:00.002-05:00

Had a hard day so we goofed around with sombreros. I think the one Kelsey took turned out way better, but it's too silly to post here.

Energy

2010-05-05T11:45:00.001-05:00

Pause

2010-04-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

(At a coffee shop in Banff, AB.)

Flight

2010-03-18T21:19:00.001-05:00

Production Assistant

2010-03-08T09:00:00.000-06:00

And I use the term fairly loosely.

Two Second Portraits

2010-02-11T20:01:00.002-06:00

I always want to get my camera out when we get these (increasingly more common) fluke winter storms, but never really know what to shoot. This was today's experiment.

Puppetry

2010-01-30T18:27:00.002-06:00

Lately work has involved more puppets than usual.

My Girls

2009-12-29T21:59:00.002-06:00

Not much blogging lately. Lots of living, though...

Grassfight Part II

2009-11-11T19:39:00.003-06:00

Grassfight!

Grassfight

2009-11-06T17:23:00.000-06:00

Mr. Mayor

2009-11-05T09:36:00.001-06:00

The Rest

2009-10-16T17:40:00.001-05:00

Pat

2009-10-15T23:41:00.001-05:00

Apparently Pat Green is a big deal in Texas. I had no idea...

Tourist

2009-10-11T22:25:00.000-05:00

(Except he actually lives there).

FM360

2009-10-03T17:23:00.000-05:00

Prayer Part II

2009-09-28T12:01:00.001-05:00

Building

2009-09-26T17:34:00.001-05:00

Habitat for Humanity first thing in the morning.

Prayer

2009-09-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

Climb

2009-09-23T17:05:00.001-05:00

Climbing 5 stories of slippery rungs with a camera bag after being sick for two weeks was a bit of a challenge.

Watching

2009-09-22T19:50:00.001-05:00

Uptown

2009-09-19T18:21:00.003-05:00

Spent last night at a pretty swanky party. Naturally, as the out-of-place looking guy with a camera on each shoulder, I had the following conversation with a huge and scary bouncer:

"Hey buddy, you can't go in there without ID."

"What? I was just in there. I'm the photographer."

"No one gets in without ID."

"You mean like a driver's license?"

"Ok, man, you don't need to be here."

"What? I've been taking photos. I just walked out and need to get back in..."

"No one gets in without ID."

And round and round we went until an important looking girl walked by and realized what was happening.

"Oh, he's ok! He was just in there. He took my photo."

Here's to you, important looking girl who remembered me taking your photo!

Eleanor Rigby

2009-09-17T19:45:00.001-05:00

Drive

2009-09-15T20:21:00.001-05:00

This weather's been a beat down.

Dad

2009-09-14T20:43:00.000-05:00

Birthday

2009-09-13T23:01:00.001-05:00

Spent the day with my favorite people, who wish to remain anonymous.

The Roof

2009-08-18T14:49:00.004-05:00

Photographed some pretty fancy roofs this week.

The Lake II

2009-07-31T10:04:00.001-05:00

The Lake

2009-07-29T15:26:00.000-05:00

Patience

2009-07-19T15:37:00.000-05:00

Party

2009-07-13T22:38:00.000-05:00

Reggie

2009-06-24T19:20:00.001-05:00

Reggie stopped me while I was downtown and asked me to take his photo.

"Hey, man, you a photographer? You'll get a lot of girls that way!"

Downtown

2009-06-22T21:03:00.002-05:00

Exploring downtown Dallas on foot is fun. Shot these for Chamberlin Roofing and Waterproofing

Ron

2009-06-19T10:30:00.004-05:00

I walked back and forth past Ron for a couple of hours while I was doing a shoot downtown. Finally, on the third or fourth pass, we made eye contact and then shared a five or ten minute conversation. Ron doesn't own shoes and seemed happy to be resting his swollen feet. He cheerfully engaged me and asked about my life and I asked about his.

At one point, there was a lull and then he broke the silence by saying, almost in a groan:

"Will you help me..?"

"How can I help you, Ron?"

"I'm hungry."

"I can give you five bucks. That should get you something around here."

"No one lets me in. Could you just get me something from that corner store? The guy just yells at me when I go in there.'Get out! Get out! You smell!'"

"I'm sorry, Ron."

"You're not sorry."

So after receiving careful instructions, I bought Ron a can of Diet Coke, a cherry Little Debbie fruit pie and some sour cherry gummies.

"Hey Ron, do you mind if I make a portrait of you?"

"Why? You never seen anything like me before, huh?"

I told Ron his story is worth telling and I'd like to tell a really small part of it, if I could. He agreed.

"I guess I shoulda shaved before I got my picture taken, huh?"

7am, 7pm

2009-06-18T22:15:00.003-05:00

Way too early this morning I met the mayor of Denton at a swanky country club, and a long 12 hours of photographing later I met a man who doesn't own shoes sitting in the 95 degree shade in downtown Dallas. I'd forgotten how much the camera takes you places.

Streets Department

2009-06-16T19:37:00.000-05:00

These guys were so cool.

Transform

2009-06-13T16:45:00.003-05:00

I think I got more sun than water today.

Skateboard Camp

2009-06-12T14:13:00.005-05:00

Spent some time at the Denton skate park during a kids' skateboarding camp this morning. Really cool kids. It was fun seeing how much the younger ones looked up to the older kids. You can click the photo to scroll through the slideshow.

End of the Semester Webcast

2009-04-29T16:42:00.001-05:00