Greater Kind

When I tell y’all that I have some extremely talented friends, I really mean it.  This past Thursday at the Holocene in Southeast Portland, my friends Charlie Brown, Cory Limuaco and Samuel Eisen-Meyers headlined a show.  Their band is called Greater Kind for anyone curious or wanting to check them out when you visit Portland (highly recommend). 

I met Charlie and Cory at Thy Kingdom Come International Church my very first Sunday in Portland.  At one point, we were playing together every week at church and it was such a blast being around a group of musicians who played at such a high caliber.  I met Samuel at another music event and ended up photographing one of his shows at Mississippi Studios back in June!  Samuel is one of the best guitarists I’ve ever met and I have sense gone to a few other shows where he’s played at to support him! 

Anyway, I saw that the fellas were playing at the Holocene and I was going to go anyway to support them.  So, I told Cory that I’ll be there, camera strapped.  The venue was one that I had never been to before.  The sound was superb, the vibes were even better.  I even saw Charlie sing for the first time! That was an experience all in itself.  We’re going to have to give Charlie a mic at church from now on! 

I’m extremely pleased with how well these photos turned out.  The way the photos looked had me shook!  The back lighting was literally what that made this shoot so nice.  There was little to almost no lighting coming from the front of the stage so it added to this super moody look.   

Also, I'm available to answer any questions you all have about how I do this, what my settings are, how I edit, and even making connections to get you into venues like this.  I feel like I'm starting to really get a grasp on my networking and would love to spread that knowledge to anybody looking to do what I do!

Lastly, please do me a favor and follow these guys on Instagram (the images below are clickable)! Keep up with the latest gigs, see their posts, find out what they’re doing! These guys go on tour in Europe, they play all around the country, the play locally, they play everywhere! Support musicians any chance you get! It means a lot to them and it means a lot me when you share my posts and engage with me!

Portland Timbers

I totally got to photograph my first professional sports game ever, y’all!!!! I couldn’t wait to finally cross that off of the list of things for me to accomplish as a photographer!  It was such a good time and with Portland being a city where they love their soccer, it made the experience that much better!  The crowd was rowdy, the teams played hard and I met a bunch of really cool people too. 

What really put the cherry on top was that the game was against FC Dallas!  It was like watching old home versus new home so that felt pretty good.  A couple months ago, I reached out to FC Dallas and asked if I could shoot a game or two but they denied my request because I don’t shoot for any publications.  After two months of being in Portland, I emailed the Timbers and asked if I could photograph their game against FC Dallas.  They happily accepted and allowed me to come and shoot. 

When I got there, I do what I also do!  Get there early, walk around and network.  I ended up meeting Craig, the Timbers’ team photographer.  He was a pleasure to talk to and it was a true honor to meet him as I’ve been keeping my eye on his photos for years!  It was nice to finally put a face to the photos. 

A challenge that I faced was not having a 300mm lens to shoot the game (if anybody has $6k to spot me, that would be great!).  It was rough trying to shoot a soccer game with just a 70-200 because you miss a lot of the action because everything is just so far away.  Another challenge was missing a lot of the action because the ball would be played on the other side of the field and moving back and forth would’ve been way too much work.  It was almost like I was fishing.  Just waiting for the right moment to get a shot.  Occasionally I would move around but would still feel restricted by a 70-200 lens. 

The next professional game I want to photograph is a Portland Timbers game so maybe I’ll test the waters when basketball season rolls back around! 

Swatkins & The Positive Agenda

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A post shared by Swatkins (@swattykins) on May 27, 2019 at 3:32pm PDT

For the first time in my life, I photographed a live concert!  Can y’all believe it?  I’m finally branching out of sports and portraits to try something completely out of my comfort zone.  This specific event was a special one because it was the EP release show for Swatkins and The Positive Agenda.  Since moving to Portland, I’ve been attending a bunch of live music shows and meeting a ton of amazing musicians.  One day last week, I figured I would reach out to Swatkins and ask if I could photograph his EP release show.  He agreed to let me come by and take some photos of the concert and I tell you what, it was an amazing time for me, both as a photographer and a musician!  Swatkins played nothing but funkalicious original hits and at one point in the concert, we were taken to church! 

As someone who has never photographed a concert, I have to humbly pat myself on the back because I was very pleased with how they turned out.  As always, I’m looking to learn more and perfect my craft as a photographer so if anybody knows of any bands who need a concert photographer, let me know!  I need more practice so that I can start taking this more seriously and also use this to meet a bunch of other really cool people!

See the Youtube link below to hear one of Swakins and The Positive Agenda’s songs. He is crazy good on that talk box and it is really hard for me to not go and buy one when I know I don’t need it!

In the meantime, give Swatkins (@swattykins) a follow on Instagram and as always, be sure to follow me (@londensbridge) to see the latest and greatest things that I’m doing and posting! I really appreciate everyone for the continued love and support since moving up to Portland! Y’all can expect a blog post about my move to come soon. I just have a few things to get squared away and that will finally be ready to post! Peace, love and funk to y’all!

Click here to listen to Swatkins & The Positive Agenda’s latest EP!

A Day in Fort Worth

Wow! This is the first post of 2019! At least this January blew by pretty quickly because last year, January took FOREVER to end! Last week I ended up in Colorado for an unexpected work trip and I must say, Colorado is a beautiful place! My coworker and I flew out last Monday and arrived in Denver pretty late in the evening. After arriving in Denver, we had to drive an hour south to Colorado Springs and as soon as we got to the hotel, it started snowing. And I mean heavy snow and high winds! It was the first time I had been in any snow since I moved to Texas over two years ago. Texas has me pretty spoiled so I was not feeling too excited about the snow or the super cold weather! I will say that I would love to take another trip to Colorado but I would need it to be Spring or Summer before I go. I feel like they would have some amazing hiking spots there. So if you live in Colorado and/or have been there before, let me know of all the hot spots to hike!

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Another day, another donut. 📸: @wanderbabexo

A post shared by Londen Wheeler (@londensbridge) on Jan 28, 2019 at 10:42am PST

Well, enough of that! Back to my life in the “Great State of Texas!” My good friend Letty (@Fashionablylateboymom) and I planned to spend a day in Fort Worth to attend the Snap151 Pop Up Shop. Kayleigh (@wanderbabexo), Letty’s best friend tagged along with us for the day and helped to bring more fun to the party. Our day of just planning to go to Snap151 ended up turning into going to eat at this awesome restaurant called BarTaco and then over to the Lumen Room for their open house. Letty and I took a few photos there but it was PACKED with people wanting to create as much as they could with the beautiful space that was available. I was even able to create a beautiful shot of a model that was there.

If anybody has been wondering why I haven’t been posting much to Instagram, it’s because I’ve been crazy busy and really not feeling very creative lately. Spending the day in Fort Worth this past weekend was refreshing. I felt energized and charged up after being around creatives, meeting new people, networking and creating beautiful images. I’m ready to start the new year off right with more traveling through the country and it’s definitely one of my resolutions to shoot more. Last year was a super slow year for me even though I had some really nice opportunities come my way. Time to focus more energy into going out to shoot and not being afraid to ask people to work with me. It’s even been hard asking people to shoot with me because we would schedule a day to shoot and then they would cancel on me day of. So that’s frustrating. I’m hoping that I can start meeting people who would actually want to do a shoot and would feel the enjoyment that I feel when I’m in front of or behind a camera. Pray for me on that, guys!

On a positive note! Let’s kick butt this year, y’all!

Fashionablylateboymom

I’ve been wanting to create a post and introduce you all to a pretty awesome person.  She is the founder of the incredible FashionablyLateBoyMom blog.  I first met Letty back in August when she reached out to me to do a photo shoot for her fall look blog post.  We recently just took photos for her winter styles, so be on the lookout for her post with those new looks!  Also, for some reason I’ve noticed that whenever we shoot, it’s either 110 degrees or in the low 40s.  Both were certainly not great times to be outside shooting but we did and we rocked it!

Over the past couple of months, Letty and I have been connecting on events, running ideas past each other on future plans, and she’s even become an amazing friend.  I can hit up Letty anytime and I can always count on her to be there and to give her honest opinion!  Two weeks ago, I reached out to her and asked if she’d be willing to help give my wardrobe a boost.  Without hesitation, she said, “yes!”  So, we scheduled a day to head over to the Northpark Mall in Dallas, where you spend over 20 minutes trying to find parking and another 20 minutes running from one side of the mall to the other.  

We met up at H&M and started looking around to see what we could find.  After about two hours in there and trying on several different outfits, we finally agreed that the wardrobe was officially boosted.  My family came along too because they didn’t have anything to do.  Everyone collectively made fun of me because I’m so skinny and even the small clothes didn’t quite fit right.  Don’t worry y’all, I eat literally everything in sight!  It’s just that my metabolism is working overtime.

I don’t think I’ve said thank you enough to Letty for taking time out of her schedule to help me out. So, Letty, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU!!!

Oh! One last thing, y’all! I received a text from Letty today and it was a pleasant surprise! It was a link to an article with Voyage Dallas. They did a feature on Letty and her fashion blog. Letty even plugged my photos in there so that was super awesome to have some photos in one of Dallas’ most popular magazines. Check out the article here.

Be sure to follow her on Instagram (@fashionablylateboymom), read her blog, and show her some love! YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED WITH HER CONTENT!!!  It has been such an honor getting to know and work with her and even to see her growth as a fashion blogger/influencer.  I am very excited to see where she goes next as I know that God has a ton in store for her!

Also, I have some big things coming along with my Instagram and a big trip planned! I’ll keep you guys posted with what goes on!