This shoot was inspired by Film Noir, negatives, test strips, and all the other things I used to do in a dark room.







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Sometimes sad feelings make for the most artistic photos.

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When Feelings Begin to Die

Pretty maybe?

Hit the jump for a few thoughts of mine.


This shoot started out as a practice secession for my upcoming Medea photo shoot where the portraits are supposed to capture the essence of Film Noir and German Expressionism. I'll post those test shots later but I was more proud of the head shots we took. Sometimes unwanted feelings make the best art.

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It's been 2.5 months...

since I've stopped blogging.

I got sort of discouraged with all of the talented photographers and writers out there, with a good majority of concentration in NYC. But, I'm over being silly about it and I figure I would never get anywhere if I just ran away from it all.


I did continue to take photos throughout the months of November, December, and January though. Mostly food related, and some recreational, a handful of portraits. And of course! How could I forget my gorgeous 12th Night set!?

I will post those as soon as I get a chance.

:)




ps - I've missed blogging.

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Keira : Another Photoshoot Through MM

I had a brief photo shoot with a girl named Keira who I met through MM. When she got out of the car, I was disappointed that she was wearing a white coat and plain jeans. It was just too casual. I don't like jeans in general either. But when I was explaining the premise of the shoot, she told me how she brought few other articles of clothing, including this lovely purple dress.

Concept: The idea of this shoot was to use graffiti and rugged apartments to create a dark mood, and yet have a brightly standing model and outfit.

I love the pose, and the way the arms bend outwards. Maybe I should have zoomed out a tad more so I could see the beginning of her legs, and then her body wouldn't look as long.


Continue reading for more photos and more explanations.

The knees look big and weird. I'm sorry :( Otherwise, I love the full body. It reminds me of soome antique puppet theater in a broken down urban environment. Because I know what that is. I mean, how often do you see those around? Near none probably.

Vertical on the staircase is nice, though somewhat overdone with the book.

And lastly, another book shot, but this one is more emotional and real. So I like it.

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Yes Mayhem!

I semi-recently found out about a site called Model Mayhem (MM) where models, photographers, makeup artists try to network with one another via myspace style website. Of course, since most of them are amatures and looking to expand their portfolios, they are willing to TF*. That means Trade For... in case you were hoping for some inappropriate acronym action.

So about a week or so ago, I got a few TF* gigs through the site with some people. This girl Sarah was the first one, and I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous; I mean, I've never worked with anyone 'professionally' before (not that I was getting paid or anything but...) luckily, it turned out decently as my very first experience.

We had a hard time picking an outfit for this one. Sarah was just visiting NYC for a week, and she didn't have that many items in her portable wardrobe (as it seemed) because she wore something blatantly casual to the shoot. There's nothing wrong with casual portraits but I think it just isn't my preferred style. I decided that since I didn't have a bright eye-catchy outfit, I would keep the same tone in the photos to create a balanced image.

Hit the jump for more variations, headshot-ish photo, etc.



This is a more traditional 'portrait' taken with my 85mm lens. It's ok, a little generic, but her natural personality seems to come through well. I describe this kind of shots as sincere.


This one had insane highlights because I didn't have a fill card to bounce light into the shadow to balance out the harshness. I ultra-gradiented the photo with pink to utilize the shiny contrast spots to my advantage. It's highlighter all over the photo.

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Day Dreaming

Sometimes I take pictures that I really fall in love with, even if I would be like, "this sucks!" when someone takes something exactly the same. This is one of those pictures. I especially love the colors; how it is so vivid and yet, there is a hint of subtlety and a longing for something like a dream. (or a girlfriend) I kept the composition something plain, but elegant and sincere. No drastic angles, just something real.

The framed photo of the sky was taken by me and the whereabouts are currently unknown. It used to be hung up at my work, but was recently replaced by paintings. Yuck. Click below to read about the touch up techniques on Photoshop that this photo went through.
The most important thing during touch-ups was getting rid of a giant glare that reflected in the photo of the sky. Even if I removed the non-glare acrylic glass from the frame, it would have washed out part of the photo. I think. I didn't really care to try because I knew I could get rid of it later.


So what I did was, I resized the original digital print of the sky photo and stuck it right over the copy that appears in this photo. A tad confusing, but I hope you are following. I used color balance to match the hues and then erased away the original print, so that the only part remaining was covering up the glare. The rest was just about using the clone stamp tool in a zig-zag shape to blend the new sky photo and the original picture in the photo.

Dang. This is confusing.

If I didn't have the original photo, it would have been really hard to get rid of the glare because you would probably have to draw the clouds yourself, using the clone stamp and various brushes. But we all know that's too much work.

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Roses are Red and Viola is Hot

I had an Amanda Bynes movie marathon with my roomie this weekend. It was rad as hell. (I just stole that quote from my newest friend). She's the Man was so awkwardly funny: Unbelievable!

So I decided that I could do a clean, feminine-esque picture if I really wanted to. Because so many people have been interested in something like this. I mean I'm a boy. And boys don't like girly things like Power Puff Girls and Barbie and Ashley Tisdale. ... melt down, its not a crush! in a hot hot.... oh wait. ehm. I freakin <3 Headstrong. Ok?

I really like backlighting the entire image. Click to below to read why... because its definitely a mystery.

Backlighting makes thing moody. End of story. We'll, if I may be permitted to type further, it's especially effective with translucent objects (like the glasses in this case) because it shines light thorough, and creates a pretty pattern of light in the big shadow that is guaranteed with back lighting. If you use a reflector, you can fill in some of the shadow in the subject... or you can be lazy like me and just angle the light so it spots a few rays of sunshine between the petals.

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