The Road to Cape Cod

The original plan was to leave for Cape Cod at 9:00 a.m. on September 6th, but of course, that didn't happen. We didn't end up leaving the house until at least 11:00, and we got out of Albuquerque at 12:30 or so. Gotta say, Carlin, Corey, and I are general failures when it comes to road-tripping.

It's been slow, driving in a van stuffed to the brim with heavy music equipment. We've been having a good time, making faces at passing cars, singing to country radio, etc. We've even seen a life-sized T-Rex scarecrow and a gas station chain called "Kum & Go." Unfortunately, it's been somewhat bittersweet for me. The night before we left, I'd been discussing possible reconciliation/reunion with my ex-girlfriend. It started out well, but alas, I'm still single. Safe to say, I departed the next morning with possibly the worst hangover of my life. I don't enjoy or even necessarily condone excessive alcohol consumption, but I made an exception for a pretty terrible night. Lesson learned. For now.

But it's fine, and I'm over it. She was great — hands down, the best girlfriend I've had so far — but she's not the only girl in the world. Plus, I'm on the road, seeing places I've never seen with my best friends, getting ready to rehearse new music for some huge plans. I'm literally living the life I've dreamed of since I was 12, and y'know what? She wasn't even in the dream back then. It won't be long until I forget she ever existed, anyway.

I'll admit, it's tough because I don't meet a lot of girls I have real chemistry with in this environment. The options are bountiful, but these girls are interested in me for all the wrong reasons. Finding a meaningful relationship while continually on tour is practically impossible, so I'm not really looking until we can spend more time at home, years from now. Then, maybe I'll settle down somewhere and consider something significant. Until then, I can't see anything lasting longer than whatever time I have to stick around backstage at a tour stop. But who knows. Things tend to happen when least expected.

Enough about relationships though. We're driving through Indiana as I write this. We crashed at a friend's apartment last night and hung out around Lake Michigan and downtown Chicago this morning. Now we're on the road again and hope to be to Cape Cod as early as possible on Friday.

Here's some pics from Chicago:

Hope everyone's doing well. Thanks for reading.

God bless,

Jesse

PS — I will make an exception in the relationship department for Kate Upton. Just throwing that out there.

Back To School?

Absolutely not.

But it kinda feels like it for some reason. A week from today, David, Carlin, Corey, and I embark on a ridiculous quest to Cape Cod, MA to reunite with our scream vocalist, Garrett, and rehearse for our upcoming studio date in November. Here's a screenshot of our route:

Once again, it's late August, and I'm preparing to start new things as summer comes to an end, much like the last 15 or 16 years of my life. And of course, we won't be back again until close to Christmas Break. Strange how my life continues to follow somewhat of a school calendar year, even after dropping out of college... Irony, much?

Other than that, life as a musician has been super weird, and very entertaining. I've lost pretty much all sense of time. Every day seems like Saturday — I never have any place I really need to be, I can wake up whenever I want, go to bed whenever I want, etc. I never even know what day it is. The only two dates that mean anything right now are September 6th and November 1st, since they're marked on the band's mental calendar.

It also feels strange that we're actually doing things as a band now. So far, to me, being in a band means just hanging out all the time, doing Stickam broadcasts, writing a little bit of music, saying, "Eh, we'll get it more solid in the studio," and sitting at the kitchen counter, complaining about everything until 2:00 A.M. But in a week, that all changes. It's about to get real, and I'm really excited about it.

So, that's pretty much the gist of what's going on with Send The Messenger and me. I'll leave you with one bit of inside information though:

I'm now endorsing a new drum company called Savior Custom Drums. They are currently making my new set, so watch out for it in our studio updates in a couple months!

Stay well, and God bless.

Thanks for reading,
J

It's been forever!

Okay, so I haven't posted on this in like five months, but not for lack of tons of things going on.

I've been shooting mostly professional stuff that isn't worth writing about. But in late June, things got interesting for me!

A very successful band called Send the Messenger asked me to audition for a spot playing drums in their band. I did, and they asked me to join.

So, on August 19th, I'll be moving down to Albuquerque, NM and heading out on tour shortly afterward. I've gained endorsements with Epiarch Custom Drums and TRX Cymbals.

I'll be posting blogs on tour and stuff a little more regularly, so stay tuned for more of The Life of J Rogers. :D

In the meantime, check out my YouTube.

Adventures with Evan Part I.

Today, Evan and I went on an adventure. I like to think that I'm Finn, and he's Jake. If you get that reference, you're awesome. It was definitely more adventurous than going out to shoot with Rabbi E.B. David, so I had to properly document it, and of course, write a blog post about it.

A couple weeks ago, I decided to get serious about taking my photography out of my comfort zone. As much as I love street portraits, I needed a break. I also wanted to explore some different cultures, and get some more variety in my portfolio. The first monastery I talked to didn't have a single English-speaking faculty member, so that was out. Then the next few I found were just a bunch of 40-year-old white guys "finding themselves," driving to their meditation centers in their red Prius, still proudly rocking the Obama/Biden '08 sticker. Yuck.

Finally, I found Sakya. It's a good mix of tradition and modern culture. The people respond to email, and speak clear English, but they pride themselves in strong Tibetan traditions.

When I got there, I nervously recorded my final thoughts before entering the temple, muttering to the camera, "I hope the monks aren't a bunch of white guys," right as a Caucasian monk walked right past me. Haha. Yeah. Just my luck.

Evan and I sat through at least a few hours of prayer recitation and meditation, which eventually became quite torturous. One of the passages was to be repeated at least 500 TIMES. At that point, I was looking for the way out, but luckily, they just said the phrase over and over again as fast as possible, and it only took a couple minutes.

Finally, the ceremony was over, and I was allowed to take photos. His Holiness Jigdal Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche (HHJD) requested that I take a group photo of him and the rest of the monks. After that, I was allowed to take a few photos of HHJD himself. And when I say a few, I literally mean a few. I took four pictures of him before he said, "Okay," and his monks carried him away.

HHJD Sakya.

I was kinda shocked at first, that I'd sat through around three hours of a service to take four pictures, and Evan and I reluctantly started packing up the equipment. But about halfway through packing up, the rest of the monks came back out and looked disappointed. The executive assistant followed and asked, "Oh, no photos for the rest of the monks?"

Evan and I looked at each other, and I said, "Of course! I didn't know they were coming back." We pulled out the equipment, set up the strobe again, and started shooting.

It was much easier to photograph the monks because they were content to let me take as many as I need. Ironically, I still didn't take a whole lot. I took a total of 34 photos today. But I got what I needed.

Tulku Yeshi.

Tulku was super nice, and reacted very well to the photos I showed him on the LCD screen. His glasses were glaring pretty badly against the flash, and he kindly removed them for me. I think I got my favorite shots of the day with him.

Khenpo Jampal.
This guy was also very kind. He actually requested more photos than I was planning on taking. After I got this shot, I was pretty much done, but he asked for a few more, so I took more, and emailed them to the monastery for his benefit.

All in all, it was a great adventure. Sorry, I didn't write that much about the actual adventuring, but that's what the video is for! Make sure to watch it.

Being a Christian, I can't say I agree with anything taught in Buddhism, other than the core values of kindness and compassion. Buddhism is all about finding yourself, while Christianity is all about losing yourself, and finding Jesus. I felt that most of the people attending the temple were there for therapeutic purposes — to relax from their busy work lives. Though it's a beautiful place, finding a religion [as a trend] isn't exactly what I'd recommend.

However, the people at Sakya Tibetan Buddhist Monastery were extremely kind to me. Haha, well, at least the Asian people. Some of the Americans there seemed a little peeved at my presence, especially the "staff photographer." Apparently, the monks, and especially HHJD Sakya typically refuse to pose for anyone, but I was allowed to take photos for as long as I wanted to, and more. Whoops. Shrug. :)

I guess that's it for Adventures with Evan Part I. Make sure to watch the video, because I spent like half an hour putting it together. I'm going to start trying to put together the time and resources to do a big video series soon, but it's a long shot. I don't have anything else planned though, so I really want to make it happen.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and God bless.

J Rogers

PS — I wish I could say that "recommend" going to Sakya Monastery to take photos, but they don't really like to have people there for that. I'm honestly not all that sure why they allowed me to photograph there, but I'm very grateful that they did.

Shooting Promos with SHYforSHY

Okay, so a few weeks ago, I was walking to my microeconomics class, and my phone goes off. I get a text that reads, "Hey Jesse, I'm Steven from ShyforShy, and we'd like to talk to you about your photography work." or something along those lines.

And I'm like O: !! I've been listening to this band since 11th grade. Hold up. Is this real? Where's Ashton? Sure enough, it was ShyforShy, and they wanted me to do their promos for their upcoming shows — posters, fliers, online, etc. Pretty sweet gig, if I do say so myself.

ShyforShy invited me to their show at El Corazon on January 28th to hang out and shoot some live photos. Here's a couple of my favorites from the night:

So, on Sunday, February 6th, we did the promo shoot in Suzallo Library at The University of Washington.

And of course, things went wrong. As soon as I set up my lighting equipment, I was approached by Suzallo Library staff, asking who I'd gained permission to shoot from. My first instinct was to say, "WHAT? I need permission to shoot in this library, which is public property, built by taxpayer dollars? HELLO. We're all taxpayers. I think we should be able to shoot in OUR library."

And of course, I didn't say that. I was nice, respectful, and harmless, so they granted me about an hour to shoot, as long as I tried to stay out of everyone else's way. Except for totally blocking the Grand Staircase and even setting up my own signs directing foot traffic away from my "set," I think I complied. :P

I shot SHYforSHY's promos as a composite, in order to gain more control over the lighting, since the set wasn't exactly cooperative, and I only had two lights.

Check it:

Yeah, that's basically how I shot that. Then with some ridiculous photoshop magic, I layered them all over each other, and did my best to make it convincing. I also did some cool texture stuff, and then my basic, signature J. Rogers editing tricks to give it an edgy feel.

In the end, I came up with this:

So, after being surprised and honored to have been chosen to do SHYforSHY's promo shoots, and almost getting kicked out of my one and only location idea, I'm calling it a success.

SHYforSHY is five really awesome guys who actually write amazing music. Seriously, I don't always like the music my clients play, so this was a big plus for me. For real, go check them out. Fan them right HERE.

Special thanks to Sang Cho for letting me borrow his strobe for rim lighting. I'm going to invest in some Alien Bees in a couple months. Pretty excited about that.

Thanks for reading, everyone! I'm heading off on an adventure to a Buddhist Monastery next Sunday, and after that, I'm starting some... *drumroll*... video work. O:

Until next time.

Stay well, and God bless.
J Rogers

Adventure?

It was kind of an adventure. Not the craziest expedition ever, but Evan (roommate/best lighting assistant ever) and I at least left the campus of UW, off to Westlake Center in search of a street drummer named Mike Day. I promised Mike I'd bring him some prints of the photos I took of him, but he wasn't even there!

On the upside, I ran into a past photo-subject named Rabbi E.B. David. I'd done photos with him before, but... that was before I knew how to take pictures. Of course, I'll probably be saying that again in about 6 months, but hey — I'm happy with what I got today.

I'd been wanting to try a combination of golden hour and actual lighting for a while, but never really had a good subject or location for it. I get kind of annoyed when photographers shoot at golden hour and use it as backlighting with no frontal light. It's kind of cliche, and the photo never pops, except for the golden highlights. I'm pleased with the way this looks though.

Here's one of the main shots of today:

Overall, it was a fun day, yielding good results. I tried to run up a down-going escalator at Westlake Station, and I almost made it! I tripped at the very top, and landed on safe ground, but I still ate it pretty hard. :P

Special thanks to Evan for accompanying me and helping me out moving the light around.

Mike Day, I'm going to find you, and I'm going to give you your prints. And you're going to like them.

Just Getting Started.

So, this is my new blog. Welcome! Umm... My website is actually somewhat a blog of itself because it's not just my portfolio, and it's also powered by Tumblr. However, this summer, I'm doing a whole new website, much more professional, and only my portfolio shots.

So that's what this is for! On this blog, I'll post stories about photo shoots, or even other things happening in my life, behind-the-scenes photos and videos from big shoots and periodic adventures with my roommate.

I'm so impersonal on my website, so I'm trying to get out there to the people that are interested in what I do. In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how to use Blogger.

Anyway, stay tuned. I'll try to update this fairly regularly. Hope I'm not too boring.

God bless.

J. Rogers