I was working with Joe last week on some concepts for headshots for a local branding company. One of the ones we played with was how to make a receptionist’s image more interesting than the standard boring company headshot.
This was one of the ideas.
We’re still waiting to hear back from the client if our concepts worked, but the idea of blowing the dust off old standbys is appealing.
I was playing around with some new film I got to shoot a wedding later this year ’cause I hadn’t used it before (and ’cause I’d gotten burned with this stuff) and the easiest models I had accessible were my wife’s shoes.
I wanted to see what the light requirements would be with the Holga ’cause that’s what the wedding will be shot with. When I got my first look at the negs for these two images I was worried, but once I did a few scans, the worry went away.
I’ve gotta set up one more session with a real-live person to feel really comfortable, but I’m pretty sure the kids are gonna be alright.
Working with some stuff for the Small.
She didn’t really spill this but was okay to stand there and take the blame. Special thanks to Joe & Coleen over at Brainchild Collective for the use of their kitchen.
I’m not thrilled with the lighting here but I think I know how I want it to change before I have another go. We shot this entire roll in about 40 minutes, so it was quick and dirty (no pun intended).
Chalk it up to another sketch.
I don’t actually drink coffee. It’ll stunt my growth.
I should come clean on that point before I tell you that I spent some four hours the other day in this particular coffee shop. It belongs to an old student of mine and, I’m told, has some of the best coffee in town. According to him, this is largely attributable to the fact that he roasts his own beans. Whatever the case, the place tends to be quiet enough that I could set up a light for some test shots.
I also know a pretty Estonian girl who hadn’t yet left town to go home at the semester’s end the day I was in the aforementioned coffee shop. She was kind enough to let me buy her some joe and sit still for a some tinkering on my part.
This image is what I came up with, and I think what I discerned about the way the light worked this time will help me in future shoots there. I’m not sure that this isn’t too bright on one side, but the more I look, the more I like it.
How incredibly comforting film can be.
After looking at Alicia J. Rose‘s images for a while, I dug out a roll of 400 ISO film I had and loaded up the camera. I had originally intended to shoot at the Richmond Highland Games and Celtic Festival but my plans were stymied by my daughter who had no desire to go.
A willing colleague of mine stepped in and allowed me to use the roll during lunch one afternoon earlier this week. I didn’t have anything special in mind, but I really liked the feel of this and wanted to see if I could replicate it.
Eventually, this shot should be redone with a bigger influence of cycling in the background, but for the moment it and the icon shot that accompany it are pleasant to me.
I really love film and the instant gratification of digital is sometimes so inviting that I forget how the film feels. It’s nice to get back to my first love.
Sculptors create drawings before they ever touch chisel to stone. Animators create extensive storyboards long before they begin the process of bringing things to life. So it is sometimes with photography.
All I had was time and a pair of shoes belonging to my wife. Eventually, this will be a much cleaner image, but it’ll need a person first. I was aiming for a kind of Gothic look reminiscent of the way that Frank Miller imagined backgrounds for Sin City and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In both of those pieces, there’s a sort of despair that hangs over the city, a kind of shadow that at the same time seems like it’s relatively new, like it wasn’t always there, and is inescapable and suffocating.
I’ll eventually add a woman to go with the shoes. She’ll be smaller in the frame than I usually make people. I’m toying with the notion of putting someone else, or the hint of someone else, in the very near foreground, mostly obscured. Clearly the woman will be the focus of the image.
I’m thinking that I’ll try a variety of ideas to see which ones I think come off the best. I’d planned on making her defiant in the face of this nameless horror but the more I think about the way the image is situated, there’s also the possibility that she could just be running away, or in an even more evocative image, cowering in fear.
At any rate, this image is just a sketch. I took those shoes to a variety of other places and I think I can make the image work in more than just this venue. One of the fun things about film is that I’ll have to wait until I’ve done it and had the film processed before I can know how successful I’ll be.
Inspiration for images like this comes from interestingly disparate places.
photographic ramblings of thomas scott 