2016: A Year in Review

December 28, 2016

Oh hey there! Yes, I know it's been a while. But fear not, I'm still around. Just unintentionally took the last two months of the year off. I guess I just needed to take a bit of a break. Right now I'm lying in bed, getting over the last little bit of some flu or some other sickness. I figured if I can't be good for much else, I may as well get my yearly review post out of the way.

Much like last year, I had a very hard time getting things narrowed down to just 5 images. But since this is my blog I guess I'll do what I damn-well please.

On a rainy Easter Sunday, Sara and I took an afternoon just doing whatever we could. Just being cool. Some great photos walking around Atlanta and getting caught out in the weather.

Cody, Damien, and Coco from Ecto Proxy asked me to shoot some promo photos for them this year. We had planned on a few different shoots, but this one was the only one that materialized. Not that I am complaining. We had fun with a simple white background set up in the practice space.

I actually don't think this photo of Hada Pixie ever got shown in its full resolution this year. Long story short, we were trying to save it for publication, but it never did get chosen. None the less, I still like what we were able to do with such a simple setup.

Sig and Nikki. So glad to get the chance to shoot them both together. After having individual shoots with both of them over the course of the year, October came and with it came Halloween photos. I was extremely happy with a lot of the photos we captured that day, but this one still stands out as one of the best of the year.

Unintentionally 2016 became the year of the cosplay. Shooting with Sig (also mentioned above) with his Red Hood costume, got me tied in with Hysteria Machines (and with it Risky Sour, Persephone Phoenix, and Jesse), as well as Estella Zorn and her great gender swapped Tuxedo Mask. I never really fancied myself a cosplay photographer, but if the shoe fits...I'm not opposed to wearing it.

Honorable Mentions:

Arizona Workshop – Day 3

March 02, 2016

I'm tired. Today has probably been the most taxing day so far. Not really in a bad way, but after three days of humping 50+ pounds of camera gear on your back, eventually exhaustion begins to take hold.

At breakfast I was given a chance to get my hands on a newly released camera, I didn't get a chance to shoot it...but I was told to share my thoughts with my Instagram followers. And believe me, I did.

After a very brief classroom meeting, we broke off into our teams and began some more specific one on one training sessions.

I've never really shot models with a bunch of other photographers all trying to get their own version of the same shot before. And although I felt very excited to finally be shooting something that really appealed to me, I also was frustrated because it seemed like everyone was struggling to get the attention of each of the models. I could tell it wasn't easy for them as well trying to give to multiple sources at the same time.

Shortly after our lunch break, the exhaustion set in. I've been running on such an adrenaline high so far all week that my body didn't exactly have a chance to catch up. I started to ache. My muscles were at their breaking point. And we still had 4 hours to go.

We ended up having an opportunity to do some optional night shoots involving light painting and longer exposures that was supposed to start at 7:00 pm. Once we broke at 5:30, I intended completely to attend, however, the hotel staff didn't exactly give us all of the details about where our dinner arrangements were. "Right down the street" must mean something completely different here. So after a 20-minute hike to the local Walmart, and then another 20 minute hike (and almost getting lost in the "desert" later), I finally was fed and only slightly delerious.

I got back to the resort around 8:00. Final images for the day were due by 9. I realized quite quickly that I DRASTICALLY over-shot for the day. All of that time fighting to find the right image caused me to shoot much more than I anticipated. I very quickly culled almost 800 photos down to 72, and then finally down to my final 10. I'm not unhappy with the work I did today, but I am far from satisfied.

Once I have more time I will be going through and re-visiting some of these shots, as I feel many of them have a lot of potential and didn't get the time they deserved. Tomorrow is our big shooting day. 8 hours in the Arizona sun. If I don't burst into flames, I think I will have fun.

Arizona Workshop – Day 1

February 29, 2016

Hello everyone, so this next week I hope to post an update each day for an event that I was given the opportunity to attend. I'm hoping over the next 5 days to get some great shots. Thanks in advance for coming along for the ride!

So some of you may already know that when I am not playing photographer on the internet that I am also both a camera salesman, and a diehard Sony lover. I was offered a chance to leave Atlanta for a week and take a workshop with some pretty huge names in the Sony community. I'm going to be a little tight-lipped about the specifics but let's just say this is a pretty big deal.

If you have been following my goals for 2016 you may remember that one of them is "learn more" and when I was told I was selected to travel to Arizona and have the chance to re-learn some old techniques, as well as discover new ones, I was floored!

This morning started off around 4:00 am when I arrived early (very early) to the airport. I needed to drop off a rental car (long story) and wanted to make sure I got through security ok.

Having some time to kill, I chose just to relax and try my best not to fall asleep.

I did, however, end up catching a pretty killer sunrise at the airport.

Two flights later I landed in Arizona and made my way to the resort where the workshop will be held. After checking in I met up with an old friend of mine, Justin Briggs, of JBriggs Photography. Side note, be sure to check out his work. Great guy, and an amazing photographer. Justin drove 2 hours from Phoenix to meet me at the resort, buy a camera from me, and ultimately play driver and just kill a few hours until the welcome meeting. He also let me snap a few shots with his medium format setup, which I am entirely too jealous of (I'm sure he can say the same thing about what I am doing for the next few days).

At the meeting, I was introduced to some of the other attendees, as well as a few of my "coaches" for the next few days. Said coaches have a combined 90+ years of experience in Photography, and I fully intend on picking their brains as much as possible. I didn't do much shooting as I was pretty tired after a long day of travel, but I'll share some of the images I happened to snap while walking around. Today was long, and the next few days will be even longer. But I am confident that I will be able to learn a few new tricks, hopefully anyway.

But for now, I have a case of the sleepies. It's time to call it a night. See you all tomorrow.

-Blake

Stevhan Hand – 2015

November 25, 2015

I put out my weekly call to action through social media late last week. With the holiday season starting, well, tomorrow. I wasn't expecting to have anyone able to shoot this week. And in came Stevhan. He said that he was getting more and more interest in one of his many talents, stage performing, and that he wanted something to show potential clients inquiring about his very unique act.

If you follow everything here at UNEX you probably remember the photos I took for Finite Automata a few months ago. The location we used was actually the basement of Stevhan's house here in Atlanta.

We sat down and discussed something that was a little outside of the "norm" here of what I generally do. However outside of the comfort zone is where things really come together. Below are a few photos from our time together last night.

I also took a chance and shot a roll for my 52 rolls project. As I am posting this blog entry it is currently developing. If you liked these photos be sure to check back in December to see a few more images.