It is still a work in progress, but feel free to check it out at jakesmag.com

Dudes, thanks for all of the support over the years. I have really enjoyed writing this page. It is one of those times where a lot of things are changing and I have decided to retire Jake’s New Blog. You can still keep up with my latest photography stuff at shotbyjake.com. I’m also on Twitter as shotbyjake.

I posted one of these images a while back, vaguely mentioning what it was about. Well…. One of Reagan’s friends and long-time client has worked in fashion forever. She recently left her full time gig, in order to freelance. She had this idea where she would use her apartment to style up items, photograph them and sell them online. A few weeks ago she asked me if I would like to shoot it, and help with the web stuff. It sounded fun, so of course I said yes. Anyway, The site went live today. I think that it is pretty cool, given the fact that it was all done with two days of shooting, and only about a week and a half of coding (mostly done by my friend Joe, who I enlisted to help share the load). Anyway, check it out when you get a chance. The site is Hollysapartment.com. Also, check out the write-up in Racked, today. Here are the rest of the rooms we shot, below–

When Reagan got home on Monday night, she didn’t waste any time showing me all of the video and photos that she shot while she was in Chicago. I have been working with her for the past few months trying to get her comfortable shooting the 5D in Manual. She took it with her on her trip, and didn’t have to call me once to ask me how to adjust the settings. The images came out awesome. I’m super proud of her. As I write this, she is in my office sorting everything out, in lightroom. If that wasn’t enough, check out her video skills! She shot and cut this whole thing herself.

Anyway, enough bragging about the wife. Today was one of those days where I didn’t waste one minute. I woke up at 5:30, Moved the car. Came home and changed into running gear, went for a run. After showering, I packed a messenger bag (with work clothes, camera and bike lock), took the train to Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, I stopped by M. Cuomo’s old apartment and picked up a bike that Mike left for me with his former roomie. From there, I rode across the Williamsburg Bridge, cross town, and down to the FiDi for work. I tried out the new parking area inside of the gated parking garages at my building. It was amazing. No anxiety about the bike getting ripped off, all day long. I was super busy, at the office, which made the day fly by. I know this is getting boring, but I must continue. After work, I rode to a gallery to shoot an opening. Then rode home. I have spent the rest of the evening setting up my new laptop that Reagan and Piper got me for Father’s Day. I’m writing this post from that very computer. The end.

Not too long ago, on JNB, I gave away a canvas pouch by Madewell. Last week, I received some photos of the pouch in action, with its new owner. The winner was Bethany, and as it turns out, she owns a pair of glocks (a 19 and a 26) named Elsa and Gertie. Well, here are the images. I have to say, it looks like a custom fit.

^Elsa

^Gertie

B, I’m so glad that the pouch worked out. Thanks again for the images!

Remember that shot? Yeah… that was last fall. That was also the last time that I was fit. Training was so easy last year with the Nike+ device, because I would just login every morning and my training program would tell me how far to run and how fast to go. Since I have switched over to the Garmin, I have had a much more difficult time getting motivated to train. It was much easier to stay motivated when I had a little computer program putting another notch in the spreadsheet and telling me “good job” at the end of each run.

Starting yesterday, there are only 18 weeks until the Chicago marathon, and only a handful after that until NYC. If I were to run either of those today, it would probably be the most painful experience ever. Since I have been craving structure so badly, I broke down yesterday and decided to go with a Hal Higdon training program. Reagan has trained with his programs before, and so have several of my friends. So I figure that I will give it a shot. To be completely honest, I don’t need a “training program” as much as I just need a little thing to check the boxes and keep me organized. So Hal, you’re it, buddy!

From now until November 7th, Friday’s will be my only lazy days. Actually, I will probably take a lazy week after the Chicago race, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

To keep myself accountable, I’m going to start posting a Weekly Running Evaluation again (just when you thought this blog couldn’t be anymore boring, hehe). So far, the training has not gone well. I had a very bad run yesterday and today. I am currently as sloppy and ridden with extra body-blah as I have ever been. So, it’s a good thing that I’m starting now. I’m headed out of town later this week, so I might miss a few days. But, I’m sure that they will be replaced with some high-altitude cross training.

This is a bonus paragraph for those who made it all of the way through this post– Tomorrow morning I’m posting the biggest giveaway so far, on JNB. If you are into photography, or know someone who is, you might be interested in this round.

I have had this idea for a little while now, that I wanted to try to do a portrait of me, together with the City. It sounds really corny, I know. What better time to do portraits, than when we are both having an “ugly” day, right? Ok, in honesty we have both been having a lot of ugly days lately. I need to get a haircut and some sun, like nobody’s biz. Thank goodness that the vacay is right around the corner. As for the City having ugly days, it’s not really her fault. It is spring. Rain happens a lot in the spring. Despite all of that, it is kind of hot the way that the unfinished 1 WTC disappears into the clouds.

So, NYC and I went into kiddie candids together and asked for some portraits. This is how they came out.

For the most part I’m pretty happy with them. But I want to try it again some time with a different setup. I’ll keep you posted.

Part II of le post–

Linda wins the Rag & Bone x Timberland notebook. Congratulations! This actually makes things very easy for me, since I can just pass it off to Zack tomorrow night.

I’m going to put the giveaways on hiatus for the next few weeks, while I’m out and about. But, I’ll be coming back with a banger. For those who love Italian made photography gear, you might want to get in on this one.

So, yeah. The photo of my torn up comp about sums up the state of things lately. One step forward… you know the rest. When Reagan was out of town, I decided to surprise her by installing a power outlet in the bathroom (this was partially self-dealing, since I was tired of her blowdrying her hair in the bedroom). Anyway, I had the power switched on and off about 20 times that night. One of the hard drives in my Linux tower (backup comp) did not like that. I broke down yesterday and decided to try to recover the data, since everything that I have shot this year was backed up on there. I was pretty stoked that when I hooked the drive (the one hanging out of the side of the case above) up to a windows machine all of the data showed up and was uncorrupted. As a safety precaution, I copied it all to an external HD. And blah blah blah. In the process I unhooked one of the other Hard Drives in my main Windows tower, and had to totally redo my itunes and lightroom when I reconnected it. It was a bit painful.

All of that energy sucking boring crap is just getting me primed for the craziness that the next several weeks entail. Tomorrow, one of Reagan’s friends is coming to stay with us through the weekend. The following week, Reagan’s parents, aunt and brother are coming out for Piper’s birthday. Three days later, we depart for Europe. Upon arriving back in NYC, I have 3 days to catch up on work before shoving off for a “man” trip out west (backpacking, shooting guns, fishing, riding quads, etc..). Then, wedding season.

I’m sure all of that will be some seriously good times. But, I’m not going to lie, my armpits got a little bit sweaty just typing it all out. I didn’t even mention the interspersed races and photo gigs. Deep breath and positive thoughts. Happy Wednesday.

As you may have heard, some big stuff has been happening in the news, lately. It has made it super fun for me to get to and from the building I work in. Apparently every network on the planet had the idea to do at least one broadcast per day, live from WTC. This evening I snapped a shot of one of my favorite setups. That is a CNN camera set up so that the 7 World Trade Center Jeff Koons sculpture is the backdrop. Very clever. Although, if Mr. Koons catches wind of it, he may try to collect some royalties. I guess that Mr. President himself is going to be onsite Thursday. With what a zoo the FiDi has been on the non-presidentvisitdays, I may have to work from home that day in an attempt to maintain sanity.

In equally mundane news, JNB giveaways return this week. Tomorrow morning, to be precise. Spoiler: it is Madewell swag. So, check in if you are interested. I’m also going to do my best to have a Tommy Hilfiger photo hunt lined up for Thurs. Oh, the excitement. Buenos Noches.

I haven’t really been shooting much, for the past couple of days. So, I thought I would post a leftover from Sunday (above). Reagan is headed out of town today, to attend her grandmother’s funeral. I only met her grandma a couple of times, but I really liked her. She was a really sweet lady. I wish that I could have gone along, but it was more than we could really arrange on such short notice. So, Piper and I will be holding down the fort for the next few days.

In other news, I have been busily working on redesigning my photog site for the last few days. The old version had some flash elements that I wanted to get rid of. Plus, I just felt like the whole look was a bit outmoded. I’m still working on polishing things up, image selection, etc. But, check it out and give me some feed back if you have a sec.