The cover of the December 2010 issue of PDN which features an image by Todd Spoth.

Back in October, I was browsing through my issue of PDN (Photo District News) magazine and came across an ad that was promoting one of their contests. I have never really paid much attention to contests, the few that I have entered in the past have been in the photojournalism realm and most of the contests that are advertised in PDN are more on the commercial side. This one was interesting though. The Ultimate Music Moment photo contest sponsored by Billboard Magazine sounded right up my alley.

I have been involved in the music scene in some way ever since high school, whether that meant playing in bands, touring with bands, reviewing or photographing live music or just being a passionate lover of all things musical.

The Billboard/PDN Ultimate Music Moment photo contest consisted of professional and amateur divisions, and had three categories; artist portraits, performances, and crowd. Not only did the contest appeal to my interests, but it sounded familiar. I pondered for a few moments before it hit me. Just a few weeks prior I was working with former Life Magazine photographer, Joe McNally here in Houston. During a break, his first assistant, Drew Gurian, and I got to talking about music, as we are both musicians and love photographing live music, and he had told me that he was a winner of this same contest the year prior.

I knew it sounded familiar!

Weeks passed and the deadline for entry loomed. During mid-October I found myself on a trip to Europe. It was during that trip that friend and colleague Eric Kayne reminded me that the deadline for entry was that same night. Eric was eager to enter his own images of indie band, Arcade Fire, and here I was, in Europe, about to miss the deadline.

I was away from my image archive and on the road with my Mac Book Pro. Thankfully I was able to find high-resolution versions of the images I wanted to enter in my Photoshelter online archive. Phew. I went to the contest’s website, entered my 2 images (seen below), begrudgingly paid my entry fee and hit submit.

"Warped Tour Hands" by Todd Spoth, winner in the "crowd" category of the 2010 Billboard Ultimate Music Moment photo contest.

Image of The Flaming Lips at Summerfest 2010 in Houston, Texas taken by Todd Spoth.

After a few more weeks had passed, I had all but forgotten about the entered images, until I received an email from an editor at PDN magazine informing me that my image was a finalist and that I needed to submit a higher resolution version of the image that made the cut. I excitedly submitted the image and eagerly waited for the December/January issue of PDN, where the winner’s gallery for the contest would be published.

About a week or two ago, I finally received my copy of that issue, opened it up, and was excited to see one of my submitted images, an image I captured at a local Warped Tour music festival, published in the winner’s gallery. My black and white image of the hands of a crowd of Warped Tour spectators has always been a favorite of mine and now it had won in the crowd category of this contest.

Each winning photo was accompanied by a short blurb that the photographer wrote about his or her particular image, detailing how the image was captured and although I too submitted details for my image, it seems they pulled the generic caption information from the file’s IPTC data and printed that. Regardless, my image is there, and my name is with it, and that’s all that matters.

Maybe now I’ll actually get around to updating my website with more live music images.

Below are the scans of the title page of the contest’s winner’s gallery section in the December/January issue of PDN, as well as the page where my image is featured. They are scans so apologizes for the ghosting as PDN’s pages are pretty thin.

Please let me know what you think!

The title page for the Ultimate Music Moment photo contest winner's gallery.

The Ultimate Music Moment photo contest winner's gallery page featuring a photo by Todd Spoth.

The cover of the Photoshop User magazine Jan/Feb 2011 issue featuring an image by Todd Spoth.

About a month and a half ago I got an email from Mike Mackenzie, Associate Publisher of Photoshop User and Layers magazines, letting me know that they wanted me to be featured in Photoshop User magazine. I was thrilled to be featured in a magazine that I receive and read every month, especially after getting a personal tour of the NAPP/Kelby group headquarters just a few months ago. (see that post here)

I have been a NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) member for years now and have enjoyed the benefits greatly. The guys over @ NAPP work hard at creating the most thorough training content for creative professionals using Adobe software. If you need to know how to do something in Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Bridge, et al, they know how to get it done. Like many of the professional organizations I belong to, I probably only use a fraction of the member benefits, but my favorite is the free 3-day shipping on every order from B&H photo. If you’re anything like me, you are frequently placing orders for this or that with B&H (one of the largest and best photo/video/audio retailers in the country). Being a NAPP member not only gives you complimentary shipping on every order, but upgrades it to 3-day rather than UPS ground. This benefit alone has made my membership worthwhile. Check out the NAPP website at http://photoshopuser.com.

I have been an Adobe Lightroom user since its beta release in 2006. Back then I was trying out Apple’s counterpart, Aperture, as well as Lightroom and ultimately decided on Lightroom. It was just a lot easier to use. The most recent release, Lightroom 3, has made my life a whole lot easier. The things you can do with the software is amazing.

Mike interviewed me about my usage of Lightroom and some of my basic theories concerning my approach to photography. The resulting interview, bio, and image gallery can be seen in a multi-page feature in the January/February issue of Photoshop User magazine. The issue should arrive to NAPP members this week, and hitting the shelves around January 4th according to the NAPP team. I always see the magazine front and center at places like Barnes & Noble, Borders and other places magazines are sold, so pick one up if you can! To read the actual bio and interview text simply click on the image of the spread below or click here.

The cover to the special Lightroom section featuring images by Todd Spoth.

Photoshop User magazine has a special Lightroom section, which is where my feature can be found. A selection of my images are on the Lightroom section’s title page (seen above) and the actual feature is comprised of a two page spread which includes a short bio, the short interview, another batch of images, as well as an additional page featuring a few more images (seen below) The actual design of the spread is meant to look like the layout of Lightroom itself, complete with basic camera settings for each of the highlighted images.

The main, two-page spread featuring a bio, interview and photos by Todd Spoth.

An additional page featuring more photos by Todd Spoth.

In addition to being featured in the issue, I was surprised when just a few days ago, when I received my own physical copy in the mail, that they had chosen one of my images for the cover as well. The interesting part is that the cover image was actually not taken with one of my expensive SLR bodies, but my point-and-shoot Canon G9, which has since been sold. Oh the irony! Regardless of the tools that captured the moment, I think the image looks great.

I initially sent Mike and the guys over at NAPP about 30 or so images to choose from, so the final selection of images was ultimately left up to their team. Below is a short digest of the images they chose for the issue and links to their respective blog posts. There were several other, smaller, images the guys chose to fill out the thumbnail bar towards the bottom of each page, but the main images are all detailed below.

COVER

1. Portrait of Libby Johnston taken with the Canon G9. See “THE RED CURTAIN”.

LIGHTROOM TITLE PAGE

1. Portrait of Kingwood High School swimmer, Matt Barber. See “FUTURE OLYMPIAN?”.

2. Portrait of MLB pitching prospect, Jameson Taillon. See “JAMESON TAILLON”.

3. “Summer Solstice” image created to illustrate the hot Houston Summers. (no blog)

MAIN SPREAD

1. Portrait of my buddy Rob, who is a teacher. (no blog)

2. Matt Barber again. (see above)

3. “Favela Boys” from my 2008/2009 essay on Rio de Janeiro. See “BRAZIL”.

4. Portrait of “The Dog Whisperer”, Cesar Millan. See “THE DOG WHISPERER”.

ADDITIONAL PAGE

1. Portrait of Shawn Welling, filmmaker, dancer, choreographer and painter. See “MORE PORTRAITS”.

2. Portrait from the deserts of Qatar. See “DESTINATION: QATAR”.

3. Jameson Taillon again. (see above)

4. Portrait of friend and fellow photographer, Adrienne Byard. See “ADRIENNE & ELIZABETH”.

The images of the spread above were from PDF’s, I did manage to scan a few more of the pages of the issue, where my images are shown. Since the images below are direct scans as opposed to the PDF’s seen above, I used Photoshop to clean the scans up and make them look presentable for the blog! Go Photoshop! Ha.

Table of contents page featuring photos from Todd Spoth.

About page featuring photos from Todd Spoth.

Masthead page where I am listed as a contributing writer.

PUBLICATION OR LOCATION: Highways Magazine
PUBLICATION DATE: January 2010
LINK: http://www.goodsamclub.com
NOTES: I was assigned to photograph Susan and Monty Scales back in October. The assignment was to get some images of them next to their RV which was in San Leon, a town near the coast of Southeast Texas. When I first arrived I was a bit disappointed given the rather drab environment. The day was rather hot and working without an assistant made things pretty challenging. After a few frames with their RV (per direction from the Magazine) I followed the Scales to the site of their home that was currently in construction. My eyes widened when we drove up as the bold yellow paint of the facade really popped against the beautiful blue sky. I knew I couldn’t pass this opportunity up so I worked a few scenarios here and even had the couple sit inside the house and lit them with a strobe from the inside. During the few frames of the couple in front of the house, Monty leaned over and kissed Susan without any direction at all. The photo of their kiss is definitely my favorite of the take. The cover of the issue is above and a few of the selects are below. I will try and add more images of the actual layout as I receive them.

*updated on January 21, 2010: added photo of actual layout

During my visit to Africa in July of last year, I spent a couple of days with Joeseph Ramakokovhu and Ruben Mhiangu of the Marula Lodge. The pair of native South Africans from the Venda and Sotho tribes, respectively, work as trackers for the big game lodge that caters to foreigners. The owner of the Marula Lodge, Gerard and his girlfriend and partner, Linda are experts in their field. Gerard knows just about every species of wildlife, flora and fauna in Africa and Linda, being the director over Africa for SCI, an organization devoted to hunters rights and conservation, is no slouch either. Collectively the couple is a powerhouse of knowledge on not only the region, but wildlife and hunting all over the globe.

Being from Texas, I was raised in a culture of hunting, I used to spend nearly every weekend with my father hunting geese and duck, but over the years I’ve grown a bit disgusted with the thought of killing an animal. I’m no PETA member, nor am I even vegetarian, but the only thing I shoot these days is my camera.

The few days I spent with Gerard and Linda made me appreciate the act of conservation and hunting as long as the hunters are actually honest and educated rather than just out for a cool-looking trophy for their wall. They helped us realize that sometimes we have to hunt elephant because uncontrolled, their species, as destructive as they are, can systematically wipe out hundreds of other, lower, species.

I still don’t intend on picking up a rifle and heading out to the bush, but I did learn, and had a great experience while doing it. This short photo essay entitled “Killing to Conserve” is the result of my time on the Marula Lodge. The first 18 images of the slideshow is how the essay appeared in my most recent portfolio book. The sequencing might change periodically. The rest of the images are outtakes.

Intro: Alldays, a remote village in the Limpopo province of South Africa, is known for its abundance of Mopane tree bush, arid climate and diamond mines. Situated near one of the largest active diamond mines in South Africa is the Marula Lodge, a private game reserve devoted to the preservation of the sport of big game hunting for conservation rather than poaching.

PUBLICATION OR LOCATION: Pet Talk Magazine
PUBLICATION DATE: April 2009
LINK: http://s49388.gridserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/09_pettalk_04.pdf
NOTES: The image above is of Grover and Shawn. Shawn is a collector of rare birds and Grover is a rare hyacinth macaw native to the central Brazilian Amazon region. Hyacinths are majestic creatures, the largest flying parrot species in the world. Shawn has trained Grover to perform in several of his dance company’s live theatrical shows. The two were great to work with and we all had a fun time capturing the duo’s playful nature. This image and more appear in a nice spread in the magazine.

This image also won 1st place in the “illustration” category in the National Press Photographers’ Association’s (NPPA) monthly clip content for the month of March. Click HERE to see more!