And by “his” I mean Lucas. My buddy, Tim and his wife Jessica just recently had this little bundle of joy and well before Lucas’ arrival, Tim asked if I’d be his second shooter on a final excursion with his wife.
I wasn’t sure I’d gotten anything but when I looked back at this shot and the couple of others near it from the shoot, I realized poor Lucas is gonna have his picture taken all the time. For the rest of his life. His dad is a photographer and is never gonna let him go.
It’s a rare treat for me to watch someone else shoot pictures so when the opportunity arose, I took it. Carlos Funn (You may recall that there was a bit of a to-do over him last week on this blog, no?) sent me a quick note to see if I was free to come down and shoot with him last week. I was finishing up a shoot so I had time and I figured mostly there’d be a lot of schlepping lights and swapping lenses.
When Norma met us, she was a tanned six foot tall vision. An ex-volleyball player, she had a physique that made me think of Amazons. Which is interesting, ’cause she’s from Alaska. Which also begins with “A.” You might’ve noticed. But I digress.
Carlos had meant for me to be a “second shooter” for him that day, which is, in photographer-speak, the assistant. It would be my job to move lights and hold reflectors. I only did a little of that. Instead, Carlos set himself up to teach me a master-class on lighting for glamour photography, and I shot a lot of images that were in the vein, but none of them held up as well as these five. This progression is more about behind the scenes and less about doing the actual glam work that he did. Some of his shots can be found here and here.
And finally, here’s a shot of the master at work:
This is Patricia Lyons.
She is an amazing photographer here in Richmond.
Her website: www.patricialyonsphotography.com and her blog: www.patricialyonsphotography.blogspot.com
When I first shot these, I was told (by the model) that the images were terrible. I listened and never did anything with the negs. Upon reflection some three years later, I find that I really like several of them and that I’d almost be interested in trying to do a little series of local photographers.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that she usually has a camera in her grip (at least when she’s working – I’ve also seen her schlepping her kids) but this time, for the purposes of the shot, I gave her my copy of Rodney Smith’s The Hat Book. ‘Member him?
Joe over at Brainchild Collective shot these images while I was shooting one of the surfers in the series. Since I was shooting film, he picked my digital camera up while I was working and grabbed these two, among others. If I may say so myself, I look like I know what I’m doing — which is probably and indication of what a great actor I’d make. I don’t even look as fat as I am in real life. Whoa.
There’s something cool about having “behind the scenes” shots of stuff, despite the fact that nothing really amazing happens behind the scenes. Thanks, Joe.
In keeping with a trend I hope to maintain, I’m gonna show you another person whose work I like and I’ve “spoken” with via a few messages on flickr.
This time it’s Luciano Noble, but he’s better known as Lou O’Bedlam. Mister O’Bedlam started off working with Polaroids but has come over to the Dark Side of film given the ultimate demise of that medium. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t ever use a digital camera. I’m jealous that his kung-fu is that good.
His stuff (he told me himself, so I know it’s true) is almost always shot with natural light. In itself, that’s a feat. In fact, that’s the main reason I toyed with digital in the first place: to be able to light places that would otherwise be dark is a lot harder than one might hope. Lou (I suppose I can call him that) says he does it with reflectors and a lot of patience.
It’s because of his work and that of Alicia J. Rose that I’ve been working so much with Polaroids myself recently.
His blog is here. I’d suggest giving it a go because he links to a lot of other people whose work he digs and tends toward the very cool. I added several folks as contacts on flickr after going all the way through his archives. And if anyone wants to buy me that book up there for Christmas, I’m an equal opportunity receiver of gifts. (grin)
photographic ramblings of thomas scott 