Friday, July 15, 2011

Help me select my new promo photos!!

As most of you know I am also a musician, and in that capacity I need photos to help promote my business as a solo artist. I REALLY don't like being in front of the camera, but I have to do it if I want to keep my dirty little photography habit going…

SO I'll leave a link on the bottom of this post, and you can go and have a look at my facebook page to have a look at the final 19 images I've selected. I'm trying to cull it down to three or four, so 'like' the pics you like out of that set - and the most liked images out of that set will go towards my promo images!

These were all taken with my camera and set up by me, just 1 grid spot taken in the lobby of my apartment, taken by my friend Erin Crawford, you can check out her awesome photos of Antarctica here.

here is the link to the photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.170967652970621.41760.104005656333488

Thanks for playing!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Playing with light Pt. II

This is not so much playing with light, well, it is a bit…

The more I delve into this newly found passion I have the more light interests me, rather than photography. So I guess in essence, "playing with light" as I have titled REALLY just means "experimenting with light" and various light sources. Kudos to Robert Lee for his CLS skills (sorry I stole your idea mate!) and to Keren Dobia for her tuition!

So last weekend I played at the Argyle, as I do every Saturday night (come down, it's fun!) and thought I'd take a few shots of Phil Hudson, the "Godfather" (baha). SO I thought I'd try a few different things with 2 speedlights and a set of pocket wizards to see if I can make something a little more unique than your everyday run of the mill "DJ in a club" shot.

f/8.0    1/5 sec    ISO1000
LENS: 10-24mm 3.5-5.8
POST: slight increase in blacks and saturation
This is a trick Keren Dobia taught me, put your flashes on a high power, with slow shutter, then your ambient light will blur and the flash will freeze the shot! Here I twisted the camera while holding the zoom on the lens still to get a tunnel of rings.  The flashes are two SB 900's used in CLS mode. Robert Lee is the MASTER of using two sometimes three speedlights to light up DJ's - say hi to him at Ivy on Saturday night! 

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Things I suck at, part 2. Street Photography continued

So it has come to note that some people may think I'm being a bit too harsh on myself, I probably agree with you - I am a bit harsh, but I think I have mislead you all with the premise of the argument.

On a philosophical level I don't feel like I have street photography down to where I can say, yeah, "I'm good at it" I feel like there is so much to learn, and going out on my walk tonight revealed to me how much I still have to learn, so in that regard, yes, for now, I still suck at street photography. As Zach Arias so eloquently put it "Everybody sucked at one point."

So the other side of this is the stuff that I know, doing things that are not necessarily ground breaking, but abstract and/or interesting. I find that so much easier to shoot because it doesn't involve directly pointing a camera at someone.

But I still stand by my statement, street photography is something I suck at, only because I feel like there are so many questions to be asked - it such a subjective area, as is art - what interests me may be absolute shit to you, so what then? What makes what I shoot right? Is my image still a worthy image if there is no real intent behind it? What if I take a shot that I look at and someone on here says "this is the most incredible work I've ever seen!" Yes, highly unlikely I know. How can I truly be honest about my work when I don't really know what I'm doing (in terms of street photography).

How do I know if asking these questions before you see the images is going to change your view and opinion on these images?

Sometimes all I want in the world is to take photos, but it's the questions that I have aforementioned that hinder my experience - it's quite frustrating but I guess any artist goes through that type of thing, I have the same blocks as a jazz musician.

Enough questions now pictures.

So I like throwing off the perspective with my abstract stuff. Twisting it diagonal, turning it upside-down, turning it sideways... Is it wrong? I dunno, but it works in my mind:


Things I suck at, part 1. Street Photography

So I thought today I might head out for a walk, and maybe walk into the city, bring my camera, take some photos of stuff that I find interesting...

DAMN that's hard. I found myself so preoccupied in my mind of what to take that I wasn't really taking anything of real relevance. I found myself in positions where I would question the moment, then walk away thinking "I should have taken that shot - it was a moment right in front of my eyes and I didn't capture it right then and there" Case in point after the break: