Between Frames - May 2024
Hi there!
(from 29,000ft over the Midwest)
It’s the end of May and boy has this month been a wild one.
First big update: I quit my job at Liberty University. The Lord made it clear to Paloma and me that my time at LU was over. There were a few reasons that led to this decision, but in the end, it was simply time to move on. *Side note: if you have any connections in the Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, SEO, etc. field, please let me know as I am still searching for a new role.
Second big update: Paloma and I moved out of Lynchburg and are currently traveling the country (& world) as I seek a new role. Similarly to my time at LU, things in Lynchburg felt like they were coming to an end. Not a bad end, just an end. Prayers are appreciated as we seek a new place to put roots down.
Okay, that’s all the updates. I’ve got some housekeeping notes at the bottom of this email, but let’s talk about pictures first.
Peace & blessings.
-Chase
Documentary & Film
We spent a week in Avignon, France, then another week in Cagnés-Sur-Mer (right outside of Nicé), where we then went to Monaco and Italy on day trips. These two “home bases” could not have been more different. Avignon is a smaller city with a walled-off old town, full of buildings from the 14th century through modern day. Inversely, Cagnés-Sur-Mer is a small suburban beach town full of condos and apartments all built in the late 1900’s right outside of bustling Nicé.
I believe that I might do a mid-month newsletter soon that covers the entirety of our Europe travels. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of some work that I made of the life that we saw and experienced while in the South of France, Monaco, and Italy.
Left: Monte-Carlo, Monaco - May, 2024 - Fujifilm X100F w/ WCL II
This season of my life greatly lacks security. I don’t have a job, Paloma and I don’t have a home, and we are traveling the US without much certainty. I think that the lack of certainty in my life is making me seek out images that show what I am lacking, whether childhood innocence, peaceful nature, or something else in between.
Another note… with being out of the country, I haven’t gotten the chance to send off any of my “shot-but-not-developed film stockpile.” (Andrew, sorry in advance for the big bag o’ film that is coming your way.)
If you want to see some more photos from France, check out this link below!
Landscapes
Many of the photos that I have taken over the past month fall into this category. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I feel so peaceful and safe creating images surrounded by both nature and manmade infrastructure, especially when I am alone. Europe, in the manner that I experienced it, was different. I was almost always surrounded by people, leading to a lot more images that featured humans in them. I believe that this brought life to otherwise sterile and almost “ghostly” images, but I do think it challenged the way I shot.
Despite being surrounded by people nonstop, places like Avignon, Gordes, Cagnés-Sur-Mer, and more all offered me the space that I needed to create art well. As I mentioned last month, massive cities like New York, make me feel too stifled to create the images I want to make. I hope that these images show the space, but also the quaintness that we found so comforting in France.
Side note: the bird in the left photmy favorite detail by far. It just adds so much beauty
Check out the link below to see some more photos of both this trip and previous trips!
Athletics
Unlike last month, I did actually shoot some athletics, plus I can finally share some images from a shoot in March now that the entire project is out in the wild.
Left:Kaidon Salter - March, 2024 - Canon R3 w/0-200mm f/2.8
Right: First up are some frames from this year’s Liberty University football promotional shoot that Marketing did. These were shot a few months back, but now that most of the promotional content is out, I am able to share them. These photos take a massive team to create. From designers to digital techs to art directors to photo assistants, a wide range of people of varying skillsets are needed to prep these shoots and also make them happen.
The above images are some of my favorites from the shoot as I felt that I was really able to build a strong & versatile lighting setup to give our designers a strong starting point.
Left: Liberty Baseball vs. FIU - May, 2024 - Canon R3 w/ EF 400mm f/2.8 II
Right: These next two frames couldn’t be more different: one is a fast shutter speed shot freezing a baseball mid-pitch, while the other is slow shutter speed pan of a GT car zooming around the famous Circuit de Monte-Carlo. Here’s how I made these two images…
The baseball frame was captured by setting my focus to be manual and locking it on a zone of grass between the pitcher’s mound and homeplate. From there, I fired off a series of shots while the pitch was being thrown, so that I could get the exact moment a ball came through that zone.
The GT racing image came by setting my shutter speed low enough to get motion blur from moving my camera left-to-right as I tracked the car. By moving at the same rate as the car, the car stayed sharp, while the background moved.
I feel like these two images gave a good contrast between the things that I have shot athletically at my time at LU (& in life), but also gave a good contrast to one another. If you want to check out some more of my Athletics portfolio, check out the link below!
University Marketing
For University photographers, May is Commencement. That’s basically all that happens. Considering this was my last May at LU, it was also my last Commencement, both of which are so very bittersweet. Let’s go out on a bang.
The frames that I got from this year’s Commencement felt like some of my best. They very much felt like they were frames I am so proud and I really felt “in my bag” (as the kids say lol).
This first frame was literally the definition of “going out with a bang.” I was hoping for an image like this and thankfully I had five friends who were so down to be a part of it (thanks Dean, Tommy, and the rest of y’all). This image made it to be the university’s homepage header image and was all over social media. Truly, it’s an honor to create work that I wanted to create and then see such a positive reception.
Left: Liberty University’s 51st Commencement - May, 2024 - Canon R5 w/ RF 24-105mm f/2.8
There were so many moments from this year’s Commencement where I cried. Here are two more of them (the first frame was one of them too). The light was simply stunning for the whole evening, it’s like God was shining down on us and saying “well done, child.” The right frame is of Chase Reed, one of our student workers and a good friend of mine. He graduated this year (obviously, he has a gown on haha) and was such an important member of the team.
I encourage you to hit the Instagram post below to see more of what I made, then head on over to either @libertyuniversity or @libertyu_bts to see more of our team’s work as well!
Portraits
Last section, best section. This month, as part of us leaving Lynchburg, I decided take portraits of all our people whenever we saw them last. I carried my cameras around for a few weeks, just snapping these and reminiscing on all that we’ve been able to experience in LYH.
Compressing these 50 megapixel files into a GIF and then putting that in this email really nuked the file quality, but I don’t think that matters. These photos carry bits and pieces of these people in them and that makes them perfect.
To each and every person who impacted us in LYH: thank you, you mean the world to us <3
If you want to see more of the frames that I made of the people around us in Lynchburg (& elsewhere), check out the link below to go to my Portraits portfolio.
Copyright (C) 2024 Chase M. O. Gyles. All rights reserved.
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