This is a shot of my buddy Ron O’Hare, who runs a publishing company, Rockit Werks. One day we were shooting some photos for a series of black and white fine art postcards we’ll be coming out with soon, and I asked Ron to sit in for a few impromptu portraits. (After all, the models can’t have all the fun!)
The post-production was intended to be reminiscent of one of my favorite pre-digital darkroom techniques, involving bleaching and toning the print as it comes out of the fixer, giving it a gritty, high-contrast look. The end result reminds me a little bit of that famous Albert Watson shot of Keith Richards.
I just entered this image into PDN’s new photo contest: “The Look – Where Fashion Meets Art” and I’d love your help.
The judges are all big cheeses in the photo industry…and I have to impress them on the merits of my work alone to win the Grand Prize: an expense-paid shoot at prestigious Milk Studios in New York City.
But if I get enough votes, I can win People’s Choice! And then I get…um….I dunno…a gold star or something.
Click this link NOW! It’ll just take you a few seconds, and the deadline is a few days away…
Thanks!
A handbag company, Grey Sunshine, asked me to shoot a bunch of photos for their new marketing materials. Our location was the scenic Sylvan Dale Ranch in Estes Park, Colorado.
Along with photos of the bags by themselves, and toted by the model, I shot a bunch of atmospheric “place studies” that featured nothing but the environment and the light that pervaded it. These are some of my favorites.
It’s not until just this very moment, as I see these three images together in this post, that I recognize—besides the light—another commonality they share: an almost (but how could it be?) haphazard division of the frame by chaotic diagonal lines, that gives these images a dynamic quality alongside the tranquil feeling they convey.
And no, not quite haphazard. I see with such automatic deliberateness that composition is second nature to me, even when it’s intentionally done in an off-the-cuff manner. And that’s exactly how I wanted these shots to look…unaffected…offering up for the viewer a chance to fall in love with a beautiful place, one casual glimpse at a time.
Take a look at these excerpts from a shoot I did for a jewelry designer.
These shots were done in the lobby of the Jet Hotel in downtown Denver, using nothing but the lush natural light that flows through the sheer white drapes over the giant windows…the kind of light you just can’t get out of a can.
I’d actually brought a slew of lights, reflectors, the whole kit and caboodle…and I didn’t use any of it. The light in that big room was so amazing…why mess with perfection?
The models were pretty good, too. All amateurs, they were friends of the client, roped in for the day just to help out. Sometimes (well…frequently) I like shooting non-models…they can bring a fresh and authentic look that paradoxically comes from not knowing what they are doing.
Here are a few shots from my recent shoot for Autumn Teneyl, a Colorado designer based in the little mountain town of Pagosa Springs. This was my second shoot for them.
We were fortunate to have at our disposal the awesomely appointed space at Cluster Studios, which happens to be quite conveniently owned by my roommate. Their cyclorama was painted chroma-key green and it wasn’t feasible to repaint it in time for the shoot…so even though I was using a seamless paper background, I had to block off all the green with white flats to prevent any zombie-tone color casts appearing on the models’ skin or clothes.
One cool amenity we had on the shoot was a 52-inch high-definition television surrounded by couches, which I could plug my laptop directly into, so we could all review the images right away and in comfort.
While I tweaked the lighting, I pulled Nicole (in the pink dress on the right) away from the makeup chair to stand in for test shots, and I gotta tell you, she loved seeing herself so large in a rumpled sweatshirt and her hair in curlers.
Oh, and I can’t forget the other cool amenity, which was the blasting PA speaker setup…which again, I plugged directly into my laptop with my 40,000-song iTunes collection. I love being able to play whatever a model likes to shoot to! And it’s all my music, so I’m cool with whatever she chooses….
Today I received an e-mail from a photography student at the Art Institute of Colorado…as a class assignment, he was to ask three simple questions of a working professional photographer.
I love answering these kinds of things, since (although I’ve never held a formal teaching position) I’ve always believed I learn the most by sharing what I’ve already learned with others. Continue reading →
A swimwear company in Barcelona sent me some bikinis to shoot, and perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at how small the package was…the three swimsuits inside were barely more substantial than postage stamps and dental floss. Obviously, I’d need to find a model less on the, shall we say, zaftig end of the spectrum…
Petite redhead princess Michelle Irene was just what I needed…like all of my favorite models, she has multiple personas rolled into one. I first photographed Michelle last summer, shooting a wonderful series of nudes (which I should post, shouldn’t I?). With not an inhibited bone in her body, her attitude morphs continually from coquettish to bitchy to vulnerable to seductive, like a Swiss-army knife of feminine charms.
This is in fact, the first shoot to happen in my new studio! My able assistant, model/photographer/painter Sara Ford, did the hair and makeup. We took full opportunity to stretch creatively, especially towards the end, when we 
got crazy with lighting and props.
One of my favorite lighting techniques is to mix various types of light sources…continuous with strobe, tungsten with daylight, etc. Some of the images in the black bikini use this mixed lighting idea. Check the shot here, where she’s standing and grabbing her head…there’s a strobe in a large soft box coming in from the left, and a fluorescent bulb in a 12″ reflector on the other side.
I did a photo shoot for fashion designer Brooks last week… This image is of one of her debutante ball gown clients wearing her new dress for the first time, and humoring me by trying not to get it dirty in a freight elevator. And humoring me further by wearing an incorrigibly furry Russian hat along with it.
In my fridge here at the studio, I have a box and a half left of Type 55 Polaroid 4×5 film. It sits, unused…replaced by a fast-moving industry that depends on digital technology to produce everything “on screen” on quick turn-around. It’s funny that it’s only a few months old, and I’m probably one of the last photographers around who ever used the stuff. In fact, on a recent trip to the equipment rental shop the counterman half-jokingly tried to sell me the Polaroid 4×5 back on a more permanent basis. Sadly, Type 55 Polaroid isn’t being made any more. Continue reading →
