Lexy's Birthday!

11.11.11 - Pretty soon you're going to think that I only shoot birthday parties. This was special though. A Freep reunion of sorts in Pilsen. Lexy invited us to the Skylark, a spectacular dive bar with great food (or heaven as I like to call it). The key though was that it had a photo booth (or at least it did until it broke while we were using it) and we were supposed to give her photo booth photos as presents. That didn't quite work out, but we still had fun hanging out.

-Will

Halloween

10.29.11 - Atlanta, Georgia - Readers meet Drunken Debauchery, adult Halloween's favorite bedfellow. It's cousin, Spectacularly Irreverent also made an appearance (see: dead Quaddafi costumes that beg equal parts applause and the question, "too soon?").

Anyway, I went out to shoot a Halloween party for Spiral Entertainment at the Park Tavern just east of Midtown. The building quickly filled up, packed with people competing for the $1000 top costume prize. The music was hoping and the booz was flowing.

Below are the highlights.

-Will

Dancing sumo.
Peeping Tom and James Van der Beek?
I believe my exact words were, "Bite her! It'll be great!"
Yep.

Chicago

10.25.11 - Chicago, Illinois - If you haven't heard it yet, Eunice and I are moving to Chicago. We went up apartment hunting last week and even managed to see a few sights (read: Millennium Park, the Marilyn Monroe Statue and the John Hancock Tower). We had a couple of great meals in Logan Square at Lula Cafe and Longman and Eagle.

We'll be moving up in a few days, so more on that as it develops.

-Will

That beany thing in Millennium Park.
Antique shop in Andersonville.
Dad at Longman and Eagle. I had the chicken and waffles.
Careful out there kids.
Thought this was a better view. Haha.
A bit o' Lake Michigan.
L stop in Logan Square.
Dog in Andersonville.

Coming out of the L downtown.

Magic Village Video

09.06.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - For my last trick, I will be submitting the Magic Village video (no pun intended). It is in a beautiful spot in the Sierra de Grazalema at the bottom of a little town called Benaocaz. Campers learn English through media by playing the Wii and watching the Simpsons and speak only English most of the day. It works as a feeder camp for Little Village.

There I followed Lyan, who was great and spoke excellent English. Highlights were watching (didn't have my camera, long story) the dragon on the zip line, Mr. Muscle cross dressing and seeing them win Intercamp.

Let me know what you think.

-Will

Here it is:

Winning Intercamp.
Mr. Muscle. Rory, SMH man, SMH.

Get to know your monitor.

Star Camp Video

09.05.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - This is the video for Star Camp, where TECS runs a "Guided Independence" program for older (13-18 year old) campers. It's famous for for being in a four star hotel in Sotogrande and offers campers off-site activities taught in English. I hung out with Javi from Madrid who learned padel his first week of camp.

It was one of the more difficult videos simply because the kids have a lot of free time and independence outside of the class. "Independence" is a difficult concept to visualize. However, difficult the filming, the hotel room and buffet made up for it. If I close my eyes, I can almost smell the breakfast spread. . . .

Let me know what you think.

-Will

Here it is:

Javi in class.
Padel practice.

An evening fashion show.

Little Village Video

09.04.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - Little Village is TECS's Total English camp where the campers come and only speak English for two weeks. The camp sits on a pretty site just on top of the white-washed town of Grazalema in the mountains of Cadiz. TECS converts the campsite into it's own slice of the UK (or America) where everything is done in English. Campers work a lot on conversation and speaking English as their native speaking monitors and teachers do.

Here I profiled Amalia (yes the same name as the girl from Go Camp) who in addition to having excellent English, participated in the camp exchanges, worked as a monitor for a day, was on the debate team for intercamp and generally worked at being awesome. Kudos to Amalia.

For anyone who has ever taught English abroad, and especially in Spain, I can tell you that it actually works and is an amazing camp environment.

Let me know what you think.

-Will

Here's the video:

Amalia.
Nacho, who sadly didn't get to make a cameo in the video (Sorry Nacho). He definitely provided some laughs over the two weeks, especially with his routine as the Australian painter who was raised with an Italian accent so he could be more artistic.
Yoga. That's right. They do yoga at Little Village. And it's awesome.

Amalia, as part of the monitor for a day exchange.

Go Camp Video

09.03.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - Go Camp is TECS's camp for first time campers. They focus a great deal on the welfare of the campers and exposing them to adventure activities for the first time. It's in a very typical Andalusian farm in central Cadiz and it comes complete with donkeys and other various forms of livestock. I profiled Amalia here, who at eight years old, is the youngest camper I worked with.

-Will

Here's the video:

We had a beach day out and I took some great photos that I wound up not using for this. I thought this one summed it up though.
Adam during Cluedo (Clue for Americans). He recorded several of the songs for these videos. If I had to choose, this would be his first album solo cover

Didn't get to use this but it remains one of my favorites from the summer. Very Go Camp.

Family Camp Gredos Video

09.02.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - This is the Family Camp Gredos video I produced for TECS. The camp runs a similar program to Family Camp in El Puerto, but in the center of the country, specifically the Sierra de Gredos about an hour and a half west of Madrid. It's a beautiful area and I focused on projecting that and the wide range of activities the campers can do in that environment. If you ever get a chance to get over that way, I recommend it. It is truly spectacular.

Let me know what you think.

-Will

Luis and Ali sharing a laugh.
Golf.

By far one of my favorite images from the summer. Just says it all.

Family Camp Video

09.01.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - This is the Family Camp video which was the most extensive of the seven projects. I profiled four campers: Valentina, Pablo, Luis and Salma. I tried to focus on the Big Brother mentoring program and tried to give the sense of campers being in the largest TECS camp in downtown El Puerto.

Let me know what you think.

-Will

Here's the video:

Luis.
Valentina and Salma in the Big Brother program.
It's a Knockout, an Evening Entertainment

TECS Summer Recap

08.27.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - I finished my TECS Summer Redux project and over the next few posts I'll post the videos and a few snapshots from each camp. To start, I thought it best to go with the general trailer/short/advert for TECS. It covers the best of all the camps and is a good intro for the whole project.

I want to say thanks again to everyone involved from the subjects and their families to TECS who put it all together to the drivers who got me from A to B. It was truly an awesome summer.

FYI, this one is the Spanish version, but I doubt you'll notice given that there is only one 3 second quote in Spanish. The rest of the videos will be the English version.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Will

TECS Redux

07.17.11 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - Don't worry, your RSS feed isn't broken. I haven't been updating the blog recently because I started another summer working for TECS Summer Camps. This year, I'm producing a video project documenting their 6 summer camps. It keeps me busy enough (and far enough from wifi), that keeping this blog going is proving more difficult than merely overcoming my procrastination. Fear not dear readers! I will hopefully have some good updates in August on how the project is going. I know you're all waiting with baited breath.

Until then,

Will

Final Show

06.22.11 - Robledo de Chavela, Spain - We finished the school year at CEIP Nuestra Señora de la Navahonda with a morning of performances from each of the grade levels. The pre-schoolers of course stole the show with a version of Beauty and the Beast.

-Will

15-M in Madrid

06.19.11 - Madrid, Spain - On the way back from Toledo, we caught the end a big 15-M organized march on the city. People entered from four or five directions and converged on the Plaza Neptuno, right across from the Prado. People were strewn all over the Paseo del Prado and the area around the parliament building eating packed lunches and napping with their signs and dogs (there are always dogs) in the shade. Per usual everything seemed incredibly peaceful and well organized.

-Will

Indeed.

The scene in Puerta del Sol.

Lunch

06.17.11 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain - For the second year, Eunice and I's last two weeks of work were filled with great lunches to say goodbye. We passed countless hours at the table swapping stories, laughing and eating great food.

We're fortunate to have made great friends and even more so, fortunate to have friends who like to eat as much as we do. The highlight was Maribel's melon salmorejo.

-Will

Carmen and Ana.
Melon salmorejo.
Carlos and Maribel.

Carol, Paco and Marivi.

A concert in the park

06.07.11 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain - The music conservatory held its final concert in one of the small plazas in San Lorenzo. The finished with by playing the 1812 Overture which is a lot to bite off for 14-18 year olds. It wasn't like seeing the Pops, but still they did a great job and the conductor provided some great moments. Do you think he grew out his hair just for this moment?

-Will

Reflections 1.
Bum bum bum bummmm...

Keeping time.
Reflections 2.