I’m currently home for Memorial Day weekend. I peaked into my little brother’s room and saw him in some really interesting light…so I, of course, grabbed my camera. Mike continued to browse 4chan and graciously let me photograph him under the promise that I was making him look “badass”. I love my little brother….and dramatic short lighting.
So giggly and upbeat, Erin was a fantastic subject for a portrait. We had a lot of fun shooting these a few days ago. The class assignment was to shoot a portrait using some kind of alternative process, some technique we wouldn’t normally use. I started looking into interesting, d.i.y. lens filters and came across this idea. I experimented with rubbing a bit of vaseline on my lens (well, actually on my UV filter). After some trial and error, I really came to love it. It works great! So cheap and simple. I love the blurring and distorting effect it gives.
Yet again I say, everyone you meet is a valuable connection. This is Professor O’Brien, a fantastic teacher and friendly person who taught me Introduction to Sign Language in the fall. That class has been one of my favorite in my time at Ohio University so far, partly because Prof. O’Brien made signing so fun. Plus, a class where I’m encouraged to talk during lectures? C’mon. I’m there!
Anyways, so this shoot was a bit of a mess because I was trying to use my sb-900 to light it. And well, the experience made me realize that I need to put much more practice into using it. So…I’m not in love with these photos, but it was a good learning experience. Spending an hour with Prof. O’Brien was a lot of fun, too.
Cinemagraphs! I’ve been fascinated with them since I first saw one a few months ago, but it wasn’t until recently that a class assignment pushed me to try one of my own. I discovered that the basic post-processing work isn’t very difficult. It’s really just a matter of taking a video file in, masking to create a window in your selected still frame to reveal video, and making the animation into a smooth loop. I realized, in this first attempt, however, that you have to be very careful when filming to make sure that your moving part of the frame will be easily masked. Next time, I won’t choose a laundry line because it was a serious pain. The results…I feel “eh” about. Next time, I’ll definitely do it better, and there will definitely be a next time!
Here are three photos of Gabby for “The Closet Project,” a personal multimedia project that collects and illustrates the “coming out” stories of members of the LGBT community. I’ve just begun to collect stories. So far I’m interviewed three lovely people about their experiences and photographed two. I’m hoping to get Gabby’s story all put together (audio and stills) by Tuesday so that I can use it for an assignment in my audio/video class.
The April issue of Thread Magazine just released! You can check out the full issue on outhreadmag.com. I shot the story about the hi-low trend in shirts and dresses. Of course, the week leading up to my shoot was bright and sunny. The day of my shoot: rain and general gray-ness. Ah, but we made do. My models, Sarah and Jessica, were a lot of fun to work with, even if they thought I was a crazy person by the end. I do what I gotta do to get the shot. That includes bad accents, bad jokes, and general self-depraving humor. Hey, it works!
Oh, and I haven’t mentioned it on this blog, but I will be the Chief of Photography for Thread next year. Actually, I’m currently working as Chief-in-Training for the current issue, which should be out in a month. I can already tell that it is a lot of work. Rewarding work. Probably. But, right now, it’s just a lot of something. And it means that I probably won’t have any of my own work in the next issue (or issues next year) because I’ll be running things instead. Scary!
This week’s assignment for my portraiture class was a “non-facial” portrait. I wasn’t really thinking about that when I contacted Dan Williams, the now-retired professor who taught my introduction to the darkroom course last winter. I was just thinking about what a character he is. He taught in the Fine Arts School at Ohio University for over 40 years, loves to talk, and hails originally from Brooklyn. He just recently retired and is now living closer to his grandchildren in Massachusetts. It was dumb luck that led me to contact him for a portrait the day before he came back to Athens for a visit.
Because he was just in town for a few days, he hadn’t brought his camera, film, prints, etc., so taking a non-facial portrait of him, while communicating that he is a photographer and long-time educator, seemed impossible. Ah, but I forgot the great rule of commercial photography: if you can’t get the real thing, fake it. Robert Capa did it with the falling soldier. I did it with Professor Williams. That film? Students’ scraps from the trash bin. Whatever works, right?
Prof. Williams (or Dan, as he told me to call him) was a treat to photograph. It can be difficult to photograph photographers sometimes. Too many cooks in the kitchen. But Dan was easygoing and did pretty much whatever I told him to do. I hope he likes these photos as much as I do, even if they’re faked a bit.
Another photo from my shoot of Dan Williams.
I photographed Dan Williams today for this week’s assignment. Here are some other photos from the shoot that I’m not using for the assignment but still love. More to come!
Work begets work. A few months ago I photographed the Ohio University Improv troupes, and then the women involved in this comedy show came to me for their promotional photos. These ladies were so easy and fun to work with. The shoot went quick and easy. Here are some posters I created for the event with the photos I took of them. I have no idea what the official posters look like, but I figured I’d make up some for fun…and yes, I think spending an hour making these is fun.
