Father Dan
Last Friday despite the non-existent snow event, I ventured out of the house to photograph Fr. Dan McLellan at Immaculate Conception Church in Durham, NC. Cyndy Falgout is one of Father Dan’s parishioners and she happened to go onto the church’s Web site recently and saw a photo of him there. Unlike his actual warm, friendly demeanor, his head shot looks cold and imposing. She hired me to change that. A good portrait is something almost everyone could use.
On the left is a good old, clean backdrop image for various uses. Then I got to take Father Dan around to some of the most photogenic spots in the church. This is the part that I love! For the photo of the right we had originally placed him in front of another part of the stained glass window but after shooting it we all realized that Jesus was getting beaten with clubs in the background and we can’t have that. So we moved him over to the right where Jesus looks much happier.
These two work well, I think. The one on the left was kind of tricky because we wanted to include the beautiful wooden cross but it is suspended high in the air. So I got down low which can usually be a bad angle for the human beings to be photographed. But Father Dan looks great. On the right we just had to include Mary since this is an Immaculate Conception church after all.
Finally, I shot a couple of more backdrops just so they would have plenty to choose from. You just have to love the beautiful pipe organ on the left. Cyndy really wanted to include the altar and I am glad we did. The whole shoot lasted maybe 30 minutes and now he will have photographs to use for many different things for years to come. Thanks Father Dan and Cyndy!
Entrepreneurial Cereal
Hajo Engelke is an entrepreneur started a great company called of Custom Choice Cereal. Customers can create their individual cereal from a variety of entirely gluten-free ingredients. I had the good fortune of photographing him today on behalf of the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative.
The Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative (CEI) is all about entrepreneurial spirit. It is an $11 million program funded in part by The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, managed by the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and led by faculty and staff across the university from an array of disciplines.
This program gives birth to new entrepreneurs all the time. It takes business students and pairs them with successful entrepreneurs, many of them Carolina alumni. They serve as advisors to the students, lending their real–world expertise. I love watching this program as I too, am an entrepreneur and know what kind of resolve and ingenuity it takes to choose the path less traveled.
I have been fortunate to work with Cyndy Falgout on a series of ads about C.E.I. that have been appearing in The Carolina Alumni Review. Below are photos of Hajo at his new company that I am sure is destined for greatness. Be sure to check out Custom Choice Cereal.
Here is what Cyndy Falgout had to say about Hajo:
Hajo Engelke is a numbers guy. That and a degree in finance landed him in mergers and acquisitions at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt.
That’s where Engelke discovered he was also an entrepreneur. Surrounded by high-powered CEOs who’d risked a lot and made it big, Engelke says, “I knew then that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the decision-maker, the one who makes it happen.”
German-born Engelke looked to the U.S. East Coast to find a leading school of entrepreneurship. He found one at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, enrolled in its MBA Program, and pursued concentrations in entrepreneurship and investment finance.
At Kenan-Flagler, Engelke found “lots of professors who are also successful entrepreneurs, who know what to do from experience not just from their research.” He found much more.
Thanks to the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative (CEI), Engelke found cross-campus venture-creation programs and a network of people engaged in helping aspiring entrepreneurs hone their ideas for new businesses and nonprofits into viable action plans to create them.
Two of them, Launching the Venture and Carolina Challenge, took Engelke step-by-step to define his niche and develop his business plan.
“This is what I want to,” says Engelke, smiling, from the Research Triangle Park office of his new venture, Custom Choice Cereal. “Without the networks I’ve built through UNC’s entrepreneurship programs, this business would not be possible.”
Here are the past ads for Caroline Entrepreneurial Initiative. They are all designed by the talented Linda Noble.
Does the S.A.T. make you nervous?
If the answer is yes, then Leslie Babinski has a solution for you. She has developed a computer mouse that contains a biosensor that measures stress levels. By measuring indicators of stress, the mouse helps students identify and manage anxiety that can hinder their performance. But any great tool is useless in isolation. She needed business acumen to bring this valuable tool to help more students. Launching the Venture, a signature Carolina Entrepeneurial Initiative (CEI) program was just what she needed to fill the gap. “Launching the Venture pushed me to think more clearly about the viability of my concept. Then it gave me the framework to turn the concept into a viable business.”
Have you ever been on a helicopter ride?
Well, I hadn’t, up until this past Wednesday that is. It was so much fun! On Wednesday I was working with a great client, Triangle North. They are a network of business and industrial parks who are working hard to bring business and great job opportunities to rural areas of North Carolina. Basically, four counties got together to drive some business to Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties. These are beautiful areas that are easily accessible to the Triangle by highway, train and air. They are led by Bud Cohoon, who was kind enough to accompany Cyndy Falgout and I to all the sites on Wednesday. They needed some great photos of the sites for an upcoming launch. I brought along my ladder and thought that would be as high as I would get. Lucky for me, the last site in Franklin county was right across the street from the airport. Ronnie Goswick, the Franklin County Economic Development Director, offered to have me go up in a helicopter to get some even better shots. I am so thankful for the opportunity! 
After I made sure I got my needed shots I just really enjoyed the ride. I am holding my camera out in mid-air to take a self portrait. Do you think I was having fun?