Come to the Light.

Sometimes you shoot something with a digital camera and look at the display and think, “Nope, but I’ll keep it anyway.” It’s a luxury film doesn’t give. This was one of those shots.

It looked blown out and I dialed the exposure back a little — I’d been thinking of this when I was doing it — and kept on shooting. It wasn’t until I uploaded the images to my hard drive to look at them that I realized that I really dug the shot. I toned it a little in Lightroom and cropped it some before I put it here.

It’s funny how that happens.
*shrug*

Shades.

Workin’ on some other stuff, but I figured I was on a roll.

A buddy of mine was interested in a new twitter icon. I thought we’d try badass for one version.

When There Was Film.

This is ancient. And it’s a scan from a print, not the neg.
It was cold and Katie understood how silly she looked and was therefore doing her level best not to giggle for this exposure. Right after this instant, she doubled over with laughter.

Go figure.

Follow the Leader. He Rides a Honda.

On the way back from spending Thanksgiving with my parents , I got an email from Richard Upshur, a local (and really good, I might add) photographer I’d “met” through flickr. He said he was doing a “bike shoot” and wanted to know if I was interested in coming to snap a few.

I was thrilled. I thought it’d be fun to meet someone in real life (IRL, in internet parlance) whose work I admired.

What I wasn’t expecting was that Richard would be a lighting virtuoso. He had a million speedlights in his bag — they sorta kept coming out like a clown car at the circus. He was was lightning fast at setting them up, too. His placements and light balance were so perfect that it made more sense just to ask how to set my camera than to try to figure anything out on my own.

The model we worked with is a buddy of his and can be found on Model Mayhem, should you be interested.

I’m looking forward to shooting some more with these guys!

We Now Rejoin Bullitt, Already in Progress…

That’s actually a line from this movie, but it’s fitting here.
‘Cause this post is about a different movie.

My buddy Jai Jamison is working on a new film with some of his classmates and buddies from American University where they’re in the graduate film program. They were doing some of their principal photography here in Richmond near the Lee Monument and asked me to swing by to shoot a few frames so they’d have some behind the scenes images.

I came down for a bit and hung out. It’s interesting to see the similarities between still and motion photography. They think about light so much more than the causal observer of a motion picture might think. Moreover, it was kinda cool to stand around during a movie shoot. Folks slow their cars down, they walk by a little slower. They’re curious. They wonder if someone famous is around all that fancy looking equipment.

Anyway, these are a couple of what I got. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

An Experiment.

A long time ago, a stock photographer put to me and a friend a hypothetical question: “How would you make a picture that sold washing machines but wasn’t the standard image?” Immediately, I thought about using a machine out in a field and just standing people on it.

Fast forward a few years (and a couple of children for me) and I find that one of my neighbors is actually throwing away an old washer. Now at this point, I don’t have time to borrow a truck and schlep the thing out to a field. Moreover, I don’t have any models immediately available.

But I do have my daughter. And the house next door to ours is vacant.

This was one of a couple dozen I shot very quickly, without extra light, reflected or otherwise, but it reminds me of how I want to frame this as a serious shot later. Who knows? Maybe the little girl here will even be in the final shot.

I Could Go On and On.

Awhile back, I ran across an old friend in cyberspace and conspired to have lunch with her. It wasn’t until later on that I realized that she writes a local blog here in Richmond. Then, I figured she had to let me shoot her picture. It might make a good series later on, now that I think about it.

Anyway, she’s quite clever and given that she used to have insider information about the food business, she frequently talks about restaurants. Give her a read.

She Was a Skater Girl.

I was looking to do a series like this a while back but couldn’t find any girls who rode skateboards. Then I ran into this young lady. These aren’t exactly the shots I was hoping to make, but they’re good sketches.

Zephyrus.

There are things that working in a studio makes easier: controlling the light, simplicity of background, even people on the set. Shooting on location often takes all of these variables from me, but the one I never think about until it’s happening is wind.

This image is an example of my good fortune when the god of the west wind gave the model a little kiss. And the light is straight from the bosom of Apollo.

All She Wore.

Not so far on the heels of shooting glamour photos with Carlos Funn and Tim Wood, a friend of mine asked if I’d help her create some racy photos for her boyfriend. I agreed and we went round and round as to how best to stage them. We finally settled on finding a motel in town and came up with some amazing results.

There were several that looked a little like this that I really liked, the contrast of the reflection along with her petulant glare I thought worked well