June (The Month) - 2019

October 20, 2019

Hey ya’ll…it’s been a while.

Even that is harder to write than I’d like it to be. But I’m hoping that in the next little bit I can get myself back into the swing of things. After getting back from The Netherlands in May, I hoped that things would have continued the way they always did. However, every time I even thought about picking up my camera…I just couldn’t.

So I forced myself to keep making work. The only way out is through. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.

I partnered up with blog regulars Sunday and Gideon for the photos below, even if it did take me 4 months to write a blog post about it.

Sunday O’Dare - 2019.

Gideon Hodge - 2019.

Now, all of that being said, I do have some interesting things in the pipeline coming soon. So please keep in touch and keep your eyes peeled.

See you soon.

The Netherlands 2019 - More Bikes (and Maybe a Few Tulips) .

May 11, 2019

So, I guess I’ve put this off long enough. Not sure why. I mean it shouldn’t be that hard to type up a few paragraphs about my process, or the things I had the chance to do or see, but for some reason I’ve had a hard time getting my thoughts together about this one.

It still boggles my mind, the obsession I have with bikes when traveling abroad. I think it stems from never really learning how to ride one as a child (long story), but at any rate I always joke with friends about how much the things I shoot change depending on where I am.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to return to The Netherlands, this time to lead a group of Photographers on a tour of the Dutch countryside. While I tend to shy away from sharing too much about my day to day job role, I’ll be sharing some of the photos I captured while facilitating the workshop.

So without further ado, please enjoy more of my “famous” photos from countries abroad.

Kampen:

Amsterdam

Everywhere Else (The Dutch Countryside)

Abby Div - 2019.

March 30, 2019

I’m honestly not sure how Abby found me. But I do know we have been trying to work together for at least a year now by my count. After several instances of being in the same place at the same time I’m happy that we finally made plans to work together.

Abby and I captured so many great images in our short time together, far too many to share all of them in this post. Maybe a little down the line after these have time to marinate a little bit more I’ll share a few more.

Until then, give these a look:

If you can’t get enough of Abby, or want to book her yourself, make sure you visit her website. And of course because I’m not ashamed to share projects I am fond of, you can also see Abby (and so many others) in Nikola Tamindzic’s book Fucking New York.

The Fandom Nerdlesque: Infinitease Promo Photos - 2019

February 11, 2019

The time is finally here! For anyone who has been following me on Social Media the last few weeks you have probably heard me teasing these series of images. For you and those who may not have known alike you are all in for a treat.

I was contacted by my friends over at The Fandom Nerdlesque (who if you don’t know are an Atlanta based collective of nerd-themed burlesque performers from all across the country) asking if I wanted to be a part of the marketing push for their upcoming Marvel Themed Show (being performed at the time of this blog post on Friday and Saturday THIS WEEK..HINT HINT…TICKET LINK AT THE END OF THE POST…HINT HINT).

After some very brief talk of concept, we decided that the end goal was to emulate the famous Marvel MCU posters that have been coming out regularly. It wasn’t until we were on set going through photos that I thought about using some various forms of compositing to create artificial backdrops for each character.

**Jet Spiegl - Matt “Daredevil” Murdock**

Final poster design by Evin from Apologue Media. He did a FANTASTIC job of throwing everything together into an amazing final product. Be sure to throw him some love as well!

Additional poster design by Kali Fornication (You can see her link above under her Thanos photo).

Get your tickets here!

For a peek behind the curtain as to how the sausage was actually made, keep reading below.

I’ve done some experimenting with various forms of compositing over the last few years. For more of an expert’s view I would make sure to check out the work of Renee Robyn or Clinton Lofthouse. Anything I have learned was very much learned by watching both of these amazing artists at work.

The first part of the recipe was making sure that the subject of the photo was lit properly. In the case of these Marvel photos I needed 4 lights. A Key in a 3’ Octabox, a fill in the form of a 12” beauty dish, and two 3x5 softboxes as rear kickers.

That setup lent itself to a photo like the below.

by using content aware fill you get one of the following photos below.
One worked better than another:

Screen Shot 2019-01-21 at 10.19.28 PM.png

Spoiler alert, it was this one that worked much better.

Afterwards I roughly followed this tutorial from DIY Photography to mask the image

Click the photo above to read an in depth article that I assure you is WAY less scary that it looks.

After masking its then just a matter of sourcing an appropriate background, and then adding any needed tweaks to it to fit the image at hand, and then several hours of refinements…the process of which I don’t have photos of because I didn’t think to take them.

If you would like to see a more in-depth step by step, let me know. I’d be happy to work something together!

Andie - 2019

February 05, 2019

A lot of the same things that were said about my previous post can be echoed here. I met Andie last year while being introduced to Julie, and we were supposed to shoot then.

I’m super happy that we were able to meet up this year, and I’m glad we had some extra time to talk day jobs and other interesting activities. I don’t want to share too much info to you internet strangers, but let’s just say this, this lady is doing some fantastic work and has really found her calling.

I’ve been trying to get this up for over a week now, but have just been crazy busy. So without any further ado, ANDIE!