Blue Ray-Bans, Really?

Kim's Birthday Video

2011-04-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

For Kim:

Or if you Prefer Vimeo( which I do!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t98EzAGuink

Love you Kim!

sampotts.com

Keeping Busy

2011-04-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

Life Thought:

I have figured out some secrets to life. But it all boils down to this one word. It is not a selfish word. Nor is it a word that you have to think about a lot.

You might have a lot to think about once you figure out this word. But then again, life is a process of trial and error.

This word...It makes you feel empowered to do anything and achieve any goals.

The mantra of this word is also attached to this phrase that is burned in to my brain "Do it NOW!" ( I can still see the B&W square not in BOLD that was taped to the computer my mother gave me).

Can you figure out the word? Let me know if you can.

Subtle Differences Photo Puzzle:

Which photograph do you like better?

Its Just a Cover letter, Sam.

2011-04-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

So I decided to take a different approach to applying to jobs. I found this on Craigslist and it inspired me to see if I get a response to something as silly as what I said below ( Ahh, my Quesedillas are burning!).

Do you think I got the job?

"Hello,

My name is Sam Potts. I do all sorts of cool stuff. Imaging a gorilla in a tree pearing down on the city skyline. Thats me! But with a video camera, Sunglasses and a six pack of cola to sip on. Scooters don't scare me. Neither do hawks. But If I wasn't so friggin heavy, i'd try to ride one. Hmmm...Maybe someday.. I'll let you know when I attempt it. Should be interesting.

Anyhoo, feel free to look at my portfolio of videos at vimeo.com/sampotts and sampotts.com where I have tons of videos and photos!

I have tons of experience and would love to work with some fun and crative people.

Ciao! "

Oh yeah, I went to monster trucks this last friday! They also threw in a demolition derby

Samuel Potts

Photography + Video

5 2 0 . 3 3 1 . 1 0 2 5

http://sampotts.com

303 Shoots

2011-01-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

This has been a blast getting jobs for 303 mag, Thank you mel for sending me these jobs my way.

Here is a link

http://303magazine.com/gallery/event-pictures/01082011-awards-issue-ceremony/

Grad!? Oh hell yes!

2010-09-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

Job hunting right now. Real work, fo' Sneezie!

More to be posted soon~

Sam Potts Website

Son of gun! I'm done! Graduated!

2010-09-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

Japan 2010, Car wash

Calendar of Events, highlights:

June 2008- Move to Denver and start school again!
December 2009- Car get broken into, Pink ipod shuffle is stolen, along with window smashed and door bent a little.
January 2010- House get burgled, Merry Chrismas! (95% of electronics and photo portfolio related things , gone. No back ups, lesson learned: Get renters ins. and backups)
February 2010- Kim breaks her Fibula and Tibia(Drop out for a quarter of school)
May 2010- Sam Breaks Collar bone (I did a superman over my bike handlebars)

A big thank you for all of the people who have been supportive, I couldn't have made it this far with out all of you. Especially my mother, my father, my Girlfriend Kim, and Drew and Andrea Burk and of course all of my Art institute buddies and instructors! As much as I wish I could spit out all of the people that have helped me, you have been placed on my links web page as people to know! Check it!

Let the real work begin!

Samuel Potts Website Link

Images For the Day

2010-09-03T01:28:00.000-07:00

Experimental 4x5 Images , take 2!, More to come!

New HD Videos

2010-09-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

A culmination of almost three months of hard work with Jack Boyd. Team work! Take a looksie. There is still one more video that i am working on but will be done by tomorrow.

Denver Urban Homesteading from Thesis Project on Vimeo.

No Holding Back

2010-08-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

The final weeks of my Bachelors of Arts Degree is here! Am I ready to graduate? You bet! I have been motivated since week one to getting this quarter over and in the books. I stumbled upon on some cd's shoved in a case that I haven't looked at in years and "Poof!" I found some of my old work! So here is! One of my all time favorites photographs (which I am very glad I didn't lose in the Great Burglary of '09) I created in Frank Varneys' Digital Photo Production class back in 2002! Crazy, right? Not so long ago, yet makes me feel like the years are just whizzing by.

Click Image to Enlarge

On another note, I was sitting in my Photo Crit class (Taught by Tom Finke) and I spaced that we were suppose to bring in a list of ten to fifteen photographers that have influenced us personally. So here it is! (they all have links) Phillippe Halsman, Olivia Parker, Jerry Halfman, and Michael Crook. Okay so that not quite 10 or fifteen, but those are my top five.

This photograph will become a part of my ongoing series called: Nature and Technology. The strongest influences for this photograph was Frank Varney and Olivia Parker.

More to come~

Sam Potts

4X5 Leaf Back Test

2010-08-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Mr. Newman

This is a compilation of test shots for a series that I will be doing for the next couple of weeks with ha 4X5 and a Digital leaf back.

"Damn! That's a lot of lights!" Said my friend Ann-Michele. My first thought was,"Really?" I didn't even think twice about it when I was doing the research for this piece. On any normal shoot, I would be using one, maybe two lights. But because I saw a lighting set-up that I really admired in the Pro-Lighting book, I just did it. The set-up called for two "John Wayne" edge lights, (Strips) and two soft boxes right in front of the subject with the camera placed in between , ever so slightly peeking out of the soft boxes sliver.(like a snipers gun in the bushes).

Omar

Why 4 X 5? Well...To tell you the truth, its been about 7 to 8 years since I have touched a 4 X 5 and the last time I did was with film and polaroids. I love the feeling of portraits with selective focus, fall off points and detail. So I decided to take the initiative and just play. I really would like to have fun, period. I don't take pleasure in photography if it feels like a chore. When photography becomes something I have to do, just to do it, that s when it loses that "special" feeling.

Sam Day

Ever since I went to Japan this last May, my approach to photography has been different. It is hard to explain over a computer, but if I could explain it in one word, it would be: Intent. I have found that I must go in to taking pictures with the intention of what the outcome may be or potentially will be.

More to come~

Sam Potts

Color or Colour ::: Chromogenic development

2010-07-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

Japan School Yard, Kobe

Run with it.

When it comes to developing film, there is a moment that no one can take away from me. This picture is one of those moments that I look forward to. When light leaks decides to seep in to negatives and spread its permanent disease of beautiful proportions. Colors change, colors reappear and become pastel.

I wish all of you could see the high resolution of this negative because the things that go on from a molecular level is truly a beautiful phenomena. If you look very closely at the children in the school yard, you can see that their shorts are red! Their faces become merely a block formation of tan! These chemical reactions to me was the most amazing part. The fact that even from this distance, being so far away and using a plastic camera (with a plastic lens) that this color decided to shine through. Even with damage like this done to a negative, it survives a near death with all of the light leaks!

The Process - Part two: Quibbles

2010-04-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

The machines are winning. In the race for utter chaos, the dependency of technology is an enslavement.

Beautiful landscapes of the world given to the viewer becomes just eye-candy and not an event.

Two dimensional futures are worth billions of dollars now and for some reason, have mental worth. Two-dimensional tangibility lack two thing : Longevity and Durability.

Worry not about petty thoughts and words you stumble over, or even other anthropomorphic beings that like to referee. Movement is the upper-hand. All will pass. Time, gravity and oxygen break down the crass anomaly of fragile animations and all that will be left is spirits.

Sam Potts

The Process:Part One

2009-10-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

Serendipity. This is the word that I feel resonates with me. Thoughts flow through me and all I can think is in moments. Again, dramatic lighting is gives me that "Ooooh!" factor. I take a mental note and think of instantly how can I apply these things or events to my works in progress. It's all a matter of filtering the constant barrage of messages that flood my brain. Making sense of all this communication, information and random antiquities. I seem to have a big problem with this. But I feel every time I write, every time I see a movie, watch something of thought provoking natures(such as Carl Sagan), and read books(such as Ishmael by Daniel Quinn) I feel my senses get a really small step closer to making my work make sense. After all, It's on now! It's a race to graduation from Art school.

On one hand, I feel thrown back in to the creative field of visual stimuli. It is all overwhelming sometimes. Two jobs, a loving girlfriend that I don't pay enough attention to. On the another side, I feel that my work after almost 9 months of being back in school, is actually feeling the best it has ever been. I have been sitting on tons of undeveloped 120mm film rolls and have been slowly getting them processed and finding images that I took almost three to five years ago. It made me smile to see images of people, places, moments that resemble something completely different to me now and create a new emotion. Some of solemness, some of "wow, Really?" As if it was just yesterday that I was in Arizona working at a school with all of my closest friends.

Things I am coming to realize about my art work:

My work needs to have raw human emotions

These could be suggestive movements of natural object
Actions of a present moment

such as a dance or a splash of water
throwing or breaking something
Crying,body motions of interpretation

Short tid bits of the actions that creates a lucid and detailed imagery for people. The reaction that makes you think and instantly realize that the underlying concept (whether complex or not). Realizing not eveyone is going to get what I am making in my work of short films, but making them so I can talk about them with a solid idea behind the work. Other wise, all is lost if I can't even support my own works.

So I will leave this post with one of my new works in progress. If you would like, please refference this post to my new video and se what formulates.

The Stranger: Part One from Sam Potts on Vimeo.

Sam Potts
Photographer

The Escape: Part Two.

2009-10-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

As a photographer, I am always interested in unique lighting, reflections or light refracting that catches my eye. I don't try to analyze it too much, but is this heightened awareness coming from me being in school and in a learning atmosphere ? Or have I always been like this, looking for angles converging, leading lines, colors that are naturally fitting, meshing in to each other, form that has no sense to it but looks intriguing. As I may have stated in the past, I "zone out" a lot. This includes, but not limited to, staring at objects for a long period of time.  Sometimes it's the way a bug is struggling to walk through blades of grass. Sometimes its even how the wind is blowing things about.  I could be observing the way someone walks with a limp and sometimes a story elopes out out of my thoughts on possible story lines of their life. Why the limp? Why do I stare? I have eyes after all, why is is wrong that I stare at an obese man wiggle across the sidewalk coming out of Chili's? Reverse the roll.  Is it wrong in the opposite perspective?  After all, I don't want to harm anyone with my eyes, I just like to analyze. It's a simple concept of people watching. At some point I feel like my eyes are appropriating what they project. Rods and cones in the eye send thousands of messages in syncopation to to a much bigger biological mechanism. 
 
 I am finding this whole blog thing to be a great vessel for me.  It is helping me record things that I wouldn't have necessarily recorded or even talked about to anyone.  Not even a pen or a piece of paper for that matter to be used. What a concept, right? Telling people your thoughts and feelings. At times, sharing feelings can be the hardest things to do.

More to Come~
SamPottsDotCom

The Escape: Part One.

2009-10-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

Being able to catch rare moments on camera is positively a unique feeling. There are times where giddiness succumbs me and child like feelings tantalize my senses for a brief period. I somehow know instantly (whether from formal education of line form and content or pure instinctive feeling) when I have captured that "moment". I have caught a window in to my life that is now still. A record of history.

Present moment. That's all there really is! Once you have experienced your notable moments, with in Milli-second they are gone. A photograph for me becomes that something to grasp, a tangible visual that holds true to what i was trying to capture, but better. It gives my moment that I had some feelings of emotion. that last longer. And like a file cabinet, I might be able to draw from this moment again , and again. Does this hold true for every photograph that I take? I can only wish that it was so. Most of photography for me is trial and error, staring at things with squinted eyes, messing with aperture and shutter speed and thinking of the perfect composition. A process. A process that I will never get sick of until I self destruct.

My image is now a collection, something to be collected. A piece of history. And there is something special about is this whole making of history business and i don't think that there is one right answer. But just as a kid knows from his inherited and taught instincts, everyone can feel the good and the bad, "evil" doers and "Heaven" sent people. I feel that thoughts passes through the same neuron that we call life. The pictures that stick with you are the ones that form memories, create physical pain, changes your rate of blood pumping, scars arteries, creates involuntary muscle movements and thoughts of smell.

Waking up

2009-10-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

Wow! I just woke up about an hour and a half ago from my coma sleep. if anything positive came out of this, it was that I feel well rested and ready for things to happen.

I just read my post from yesterday and was contemplating taking it down for all of the typo's that I placed in it. This just goes to show how much I need this English two class that I will be taking this current quarter. part of me wanted to even become a creative writer major after photo school, based on how famous I am for typos. Well, for now until I get better at grammar, enjoy all of my random idiot comments, misspelled words and thoughts that don't make any sense. Well, thery sorta do.

I really don't know how this whole blog thing works, really. Some people are very articulate and can make clear points. Me, I feel that it should me more random if anything. Wikipedia states" Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject;others function as more personal online diaries " All Blog stands for is Weblog anyways.

Sometimes I like to talk in third person. Sometimes I like to talk like I am talking to myself, and even to the one reader I have right now. I even like to give hints that I am talking in another accent. But it's not always crystal clear. I like to leave things out to see if one can fill in the void of that sensation I left out I, I guess. ...It's kinda like when you know what some one means but they just forgot to put it on there or can't think of the word. that's what my writing is like. Random thoughts of crazy things, idiosyncracies and life. Because life is short and I shouldn't be careful on what I say, when I see it(manners abiding of course).

Well, that's it for now,

on with the show!

~Sam~

Video? A photography student?

2009-10-01T09:57:00.001-07:00

Is there anything wrong with making this entry short and sweet? I am sleep deprived from last night. I stayed up until 5:45 a.m. Why? Because I have a life to live, right? I jump and leap at every moment of opportunity! Yess! Thats the spirit ! Nope , I am a complete photo addict and was determined to get the photos edited from earlier. No matter how suck the actually came out. Quality didn't matter at this time of night.

Last night at work, I had the honor of being the Denver JetBlue tour guide for the man known as Terminal-Man(Freelance Awesome man for Wired Magazine). I just said to myself that I am not going to write anything about the even, but hey, I need to write more anyways, it's good practice.

I met him at the plane and greeted him as he came off the plane. Not knowing much about him besides faintly reading his blogs and hearing about him on the JetBlue Corporate Intranet, my general feeling was, "Man , I hope I don't talk this guys ear off while he is here, he's probably tired." So I put on my Jettitude and went with it! (did I really just say that?)

This is the sequence of events one way or another. Admittedly so, i'm getting kinda droopy-eyed right now so I'm going to give it my best shot :

So I shook his hand, he was pleasantly surprised with a smile, he asked politely and grabbed a snooze kit from our cart on the jet bridge while waiting for his gate checked bag. I told him that I was his personal tour guide for Denver International Airport if he was up for it. Little did I know that he's from Denver, which made an easy talking point. He also turned out to be an aviation geek like me!(Double Awesome! Except he had to 1-up me with a private pilots license,doh! Jealousy !)

We walked to the ticket counter for what turned out to be a great photo op. with his Terminal Man cape, made by your truly. Yes, thats right! I made the strange suggestion to make a cape for a complete stranger who looked cool in pictures, based on facial expressions. I looked at is this way, I had a 50/50 chance. Either he's the type of person to be super polite and likes it at first , then throws it away, or will be the type to just completely say nay and giving me an awkward Seinfeld face.

After walking around and pointing out some quirky things about the airport, like its on an Indian burial ground, the blue devil horse statue that glows bright with is red eyes and how it killed its creator with its pelvis( I so badly want to be a kid and say killed with a pelvic thrust, oomph!), how the height of the east concourse departures passenger unloading area looking down the staircase makes my knees get cold and lock up, and the one strange picture of a girl from India as you walk out of the A concourse bridge( Right as you exit security) and how I first took a double take and said to myself, "tha's it ?" then you walk a little further and that"ohh" moment hits you and you figure out that it's a series. I need to find out who did it. I must add that the James Balog exhibit through out the whole airport is really well done.

We exchanged emails, he 's said thank you and JetBlue is a great airline to fly on, yaadah, yaadah, yaadah, ( can't think anymore, too tires and slouched in a chair) here's a link to his better blog that inspired me to write something. Anything, Jesus sam. What were you thinking!, trying to act all cool. No! I used to hacky sack on the river bay bridge? At least Terminal man has an editor to figure all his posts out , but then again, he might be that good that he doesn't get edited, eaht do you think about that! Ooooh!

Oh yeah, gotta shove this in there, my new video! Yes, A photographer doing a video.

More to Come~

Sam Potts
Photographer

Photography Works

2009-05-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

So here I am. I have decided to start an ongoing blog for my photography. I would normally draw, or write in a journal but I have decided to share my life with the digital age. I feel that this may help me think about the photographic process more logically, Maybe?

As you can see, I have taken a picture of a lemon dropping in to water. To be honest and up front about it, I was bored and needed photos for my portfolio class and this is what I had around the house that I thought was worth dropping in to water 300 times.

I can't seem to grasp what it is about photography that makes me feel so lost right now. I feel stuck in a rut of UN-creativness. My feelings of frustrations come and go. I tend to think about lighting and concepts a lot. What job will I get when I apply myself for ACTUAL photo jobs after graduation? Sometimes way too much do I think about photography and the endless things that are possible with creativity !

That's all I have right now.