Rhett Canipe
01.8.2010
Rhett Canipe was the first person who ever paid me to take pictures.
I met Rhett in July at my buddy, Seth’s, place. We were helping Seth move across town. Rhett and I showed up to help and became good friends. As I often do, I brought my camera that day and was snapping random pictures of the moving process. At one point, not too long after meeting me, he said, “Bro, I’m working on an EP and I need someone to shoot some photos of me. I can’t pay you a ton, but I could give you something.” Talk about having faith in someone! WHAT AN IDIOT!!!! No, seriously, Rhett did me a HUGE favor that day. About a week later, we got together and these are a few of the photos from that shoot, some of which are now on his site. Amazingly, his EP WAS completed (produced by the guy we helped move – and my top dog here in Cashville – Seth Jones). One of these photos is part of his album art.
- The day before this shoot, I went scouting for locations. I wandered down to Marathon Village and drove up and down the streets, praying like crazy I’d find something. I finally parked the car and got out to walk around. Most of these photos were shot behind Marathon Village. If you wander around back there, you’ll see all this stuff.
- These photos were shot with a Canon 5DMKII.
- When I was out scouting, I was so nervous. Weird, right? I’m 29 years old, and I’m nervous walking around by myself. Some of the places kind of look like you shouldn’t be there. I thought someone might see me and think I was weird for walking around there by myself. I thought someone would come tell me to leave. But I kept telling myself, “Stop being a LOSER! If someone tells you that you can’t be there, it’s no big deal. You’ll just leave. If you want good photos, you’re eventually going to have to go places that are out-of-the-way.” Plus, I had my camera with me for test shots. Whenever you see someone with a camera in a strange place, you always think, “Oh, a photographer. I bet he’s doing something rad. I wish I was rad.” So here’s my encouragement: if you’re ever out and feel fearful about scouting a location, PUSH THROUGH IT! DO NOT let fear run your life!
- Rhett’s new album is available at his website. The song “Hold Me Now” on his MySpace is incredible! His wife, April, did the album art! You can see how she used one of the photos.
Throughout 2009, I shot a crazy number of photos but never posted them. For 40 consecutive days, I'm going to post these shoots. Something new every day!
[...] Just playing around with some photo effects tonight and thought I should share them with you. I love photoshop! It does miracles to photos.. You like? Not to mention my hubby was the subject of the photos so he is naturally gorgeous.. Oh and Andy Merrick was the photographer. He did an amazing job! These are just a few. The photo on the back of Rhett’s album art was also taken by Andy also. You can check out his work here. [...]