Classmate portrait!

I decided to go with my original image for the select... I just liked the tones on it a bit better than my retakes.



Valerie Mosley holds a locally-grown green pepper to her face. Mosley, described as a "food nerd" by her younger brother, worked at Wild Oats, a natural food store in Tulsa, Okla, for five years before attending the University of Missouri to study photojournalism.

Slides

I went to the Heritage Festival and the Pinnacles with some friends last weekend and brought some of my film cameras. The Pinnacles were crazy; I almost fell of the side of this huge cliff. So, all-in-all, it was a good trip.

Photos? Of course.



This is Chelsea. Chris and I asked her to pose, and she just randomly did this.



It's fall! This photo looks way better before it was converted for the web... the color just isn't as vibrant.



There was a bunch of people at the Heritage Festival just making their products as people watched. It was cool stuff. I love the skin tones on this photo... Kodachrome is just great for that.



My exposure was a bit dark here, but I love the old-timey feel of this.

Opine me!

Valerie is currently at the Missouri Photo Workshop, so I had to shoot my classmate portrait project for Advanced Techniques a bit early... Since I have so much time, I'd really like your help. This goes for all of you, those who are in the class and those who aren't. I have to submit one photo for the select. First of all, I want to know which one you think I should pick. Second, if a picture would be better with a reshoot, I have a limited amount of time next Monday in the studio to redo it, but only if it's absolutely necessary.

Also, for those of you who aren't familiar with Advanced, the photos are all .jpgs, straight out of camera with cropping as the only edit. I can't (A) shoot raw or (B) edit levels or anything like that. So, keep that in mind.




Lighting: Softbox on the right, reflector high left.

I'm leaning towards this one as my select, but the right side of the face is a bit hot. There's still detail there though, so it shouldn't be TOO big of a deal. I was also thinking of shooting this again on a white background. Thoughts?




Lighting: Softbox right, reflector left, red-gelled light in the background (even though you can't see it).



Lighting: Same as previous.

Please, tell me what you think.

Happy Schwag

NOTE! If you hear random dialogue when you open this page, this is where it's coming from. Just hit pause. kthnks!

Just catching up

Okay, so I recognize how long it's been since I've updated this with any of my work other than that last copy test thing. So, here's a collection of stuff I've done recently.

I got a 30D about a month ago, and one of the first things I did, naturally, was take photos of Caitlin. She found my fedora and we did a portrait shoot using a reflector and natural light from my window.



Kinda looks like "A Clockwork Orange".

I keep saying that I'm working on a photo essay over Hissom, a center for the treatment of the mentally disabled that was abandoned 20 or so years ago, but I really can't find the time to conduct the interviews. Until then, here are two photos from the shoot.





I used a D3 last weekend to shoot some stuff for my meter calibration/copy test assignment. Here's one of the photos I used... it's in black and white here, but it was shot (and turned in) as tungsten-balanced.



This was shot with a 70's Vivitar 70-210 f/3.5 Series 1 lens... I am just totally blown away by this thing. It's very unique... it almost feels like it's designed to be a soft-focus lens when wide open, as it's mostly sharp but has this kind of soft distortion that makes portraits really, really nice. The lens was Caitlin's, but I own one in OM mount (and I bought an adaptor for my EOS after using hers for maybe 3 shots).

I do a lot of messing around with astrophotography, and that weekend was no exception. This is somewhere around a 20 second exposure.



I included parts of my house for perspective.

Finally, I went out yesterday to shoot the sunset at a lake on the MKT trail. It had just been pretty cloudy, so the light was doing some cool things coming through the clouds.


(That photo's definitely best viewed larger on flickr)



I rarely get landscapes I'm happy with, so it was a pretty nice day, overall.

Welcome to Advanced Techniques

For all of you who read this that aren't MU Photo-J kids, I'm in a class this semester which focuses largely on lighting. It's called Advanced Techniques in Photojournalism, and posting images on my blog is requirement for the class. Which means, you're going to be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing.

Mood lighting

Credit: Dorothea Lange

Stump-the-chump

Credit: National Geographic (photographer not listed).

We decided that the lighting on the second one was likely a single strobe with some surgery lights, accounting for the blown-out hand and directional shadows.

Expect a post with more of my work soon. Adios!