Let me tell you a quick story behind this image here. When I was a kid I remember there was some occasion at my house. I don't remember if it was a birthday, a holiday, an anniversary or what, but it was some occasion. Well, as things were winding down for the night I remember looking around and not seeing my dad anywhere. For some reason I looked out the window and saw my dad standing in the driveway, kinda looking up at the house, arms crossed, by himself, at night. I didn't know if there was a problem with the roof, something in the sky, or what.
So I go outside to ask him what's going on. Without really looking at me he said he was just looking at the house and thinking about what he had and what he'd built over the years. He said he remembered how little my sister and I used to be, how the first house he and my mom had was so tiny and the new house was so much better. He was just kind of reflecting on his life and how proud he was at where things were at.
That's the kind of reflection I wanted to create for this week's image. Instead of using mirrors, water, glass, etc. I decided to use "reflection" more metaphorically.
Because not only is this challenge about "reflections" it also fits in with my annual birthday selfie composite. For the past couple of years I've taken pictures with myself interacting with other copies of myself. Well, I just turned 45 and I wanted to do something a little different this year.
For me, I never had kids. Instead, each year I've always tried to do something I hadn't done before. I've always had some goal on the horizon to reach for. And, for the most part, I've reached most of those goals in some shape or form.
At 14 I wanted to get my band signed to a record deal. At 45 I've been able to sign a couple of record deals to release two albums, and we're currently working on our third. In this image you can see some of the many guitars I've used over the years to create the music I love. I'd always wanted to be a touring musician, too. Back in the day, I auditioned for Cirque Du Soleil and ended up landing a touring gig with Cirque Dreams for two years for both a national and international tour. In this image you can see one of the signed drum heads from the first tour as well as some promotional poster art that my image was used for on the Cirque Dreams tour. As I writer I always wanted to release a book and sign a book deal. Having crafted a novel, I started writing short stories to build up credentials. In doing so, I've got a few things published in fiction as well as some things published in magazines that deal with music. You can see the first book I was ever published in above the CD rack along with the first book I'd ever had a photograph published in as well.
Which brings me to photography. I'm not sure where I'm headed with photography or what my goals are. I'm still at the stage of trying to figure things out. That's why, in the image, instead of me looking at all the stuff around me and thinking back on all the good times, I'm holding a blank notebook as I think about what to fill the empty pages with for the future. I've got my girl with me as she works on what she loves. And, of course, I've got my cat by my side as well.
This image was actually a tricky shot since I had to take three pictures to fill the frame with most of what was in the studio space (minus the studio workstation behind the camera). And I wanted it to be a fisheye shot since, to me, fisheye photography is tied to my other passion in life, planetariums. The fisheye look also reminds me of looking through a door, looking into a different world almost. I also wanted this to look like someone was able to take an image directly from my mind. If this were possible I don't think the image would look so perfect and pristine but black & white, scratchy, and warped.
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Let's take a little look at how some of the Wizards in the Harry Potter universe are absolute jerks. Of course, this is all in good fun, but I want to take a look at the behavior and piggishness that Wizards have in this Potterverse. I mean, if they existed along with us here, they'd have a lot of explaining to do.
Creative 52, Week 29: Shoot a Very High-Key Image
High-key photography, damn near blowing out your image with copious amounts of light. Make your subject look like a pretty angel coming through heaven’s gate or something.
For this image I wanted to do a slight combination of high-key with low-key elements. By that, I mean, I wanted to put some form of viking face paint on the upper part of my face so I could later overlay an image of stars, the galaxy, or something of that nature. I wasn’t quite sure what yet. My girlfriend helped me with the makeup and even did an initial splatter spray of white on my forehead for texture and added pizzazz.
I wanted to wear a suit for this because you usually don’t see vikings in suits and I wanted to be a Work Viking…Assistant to the Regional Viking.
To make the blown out effect I hung up a white sheet in a doorway. Behind that sheet I put two softboxes with two 100 watt bulbs each to the side. I put two large LED worklights down a bit lower. ...
Creative 52, Week 28: Shoot a Very Low-Key Image
10/14/2021
Low-key in photography doesn’t mean relaxed, chilled out, and soft spoken. Low-key simply means that the emphasis is on the shadows, on the darks. Whereas high-key is all bright and damn near blown out, low-key has crushed blacks and is all mysterious. Perfect for getting close to Halloween, right?
Well, Gina was shooting a video for an upcoming belly dance gathering and was dressed like a witchy crone named Cailleach, a divine hag and Queen of Winter. She had a cool twiggy head band and some matching make-up; plus, we just finished watching this movie, Censor, which had this cool lighting theme all throughout. So, we decided to shoot this low-key image and video using only colored video lights…no strobes. The lighting was inspired by Censor and another movie called Mandy. Both movies are worth checking out.
This whole thing was a challenge because I really wanted to utilize the sharpness and look that I get with my ...
Collective Isolation
I have a strip of 75mm film I use for a bookmark and recently I was admiring just how damn cool it was. And then I was walking past these windows that look out upon the Mississippi River levee. In a way, this section of windows, framed by the support poles, reminded me of that 75mm film strip.
People, for the most part, tend to mind their own business. It's why we can go out to a restaurant with a loved one and pretend that we're not in a big room with dozens of other couples also pretending that no one else is around. When I set up my camera to take these pictures I decided to capture little frames of people minding their own business. So, no, I didn't want to "Shoot a Frame Within a Frame" using shadows or doorways; I wanted to use the entire wall of windows as a frame to separate interactions, use the lower section of windows to frame individuals going about their business while ignoring others, the upper part of the windows to frame birds flying together in ...
