Week 36 – Nikki Nuke'm – Kodak Portra 400

December 04, 2015

You know, when I first sat down to scan these images my first thought was "You know, just copy and paste what you wrote from the other photos of Nikki Nuke'm that you shot. Nobody will ever know". Except once I started the retouching process, I knew I just couldn't do that.

If you don't know what I am talking about, please make sure to view the digital photos taken during this series here.

There are few things I can say about this entire series more than "I LOVE THIS". Not every shot was a winner, they never are, but I was able to create a solid series of images and for that I am pretty excited. This is a great example of what a year of constant practice will do for a skill set. I can only hope that I can continue to see things improving, and that my follow up sets with Nikki turn out as great as this one did.

Development Notes:
Standard Development Unicolor C41
Levels adjust and retouching performed in Lightroom

Week 35 – Murphy's Law – Fujicolor Super HQ 100 (+1 Stop accidentally)

November 27, 2015

So you know what they say. If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. And sometimes you just have to make the best of it.

I was invited to a meetup with other Atlanta Film Photographers. Members Steven and Neil put on a great showing of skill and knowledge, and after a real world lesson in lighting it was off to the races. Almost immediately I was more than a little intimidated, not by my gracious hosts mind you, but at my own skills (or perceived lack there of).

If you follow me on Twitter you may remember that I was struggling with my wireless trigger system after starting the move to Sony FE mount cameras. Long story short, old doesn't like to work with new so much. So my usual trigger set was out of my bag. I remembered sync cables though, so I figured I would be ok. As I lined up for the first shot, I pulled out my light meter...and the battery was dead. Rendering my metering useless. Luckily both Neil and Steven allowed me to use some of their kit and I was able to snap a few shots. Including my first photo taken with a medium format camera, and a single shot with a Leica to see if I could make it work with my lights...I'm only a little jealous.

So I had a great time, even if I did feel super intimidated by all of the great talent who showed up. Got home to develop the roll, and realized I had grabbed a 100 speed roll of film instead of 200. So the shots that I was able to grab, all were underexposed. After a little frantic googling and instruction reading I was able to compensate with development and below are the photos I was able to capture of Models Diya and Uh...another whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry).

Development Notes:
Unicolor C41 Kit 4:40 (as per directions)

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.

Week 34 – Mystery Roll? – Exchange Select Color Print Film 800

November 20, 2015

"Hey dude, I picked up this camera at the thrift shop and it still has film in it. Wanna shoot it and see what happens?"

Stories that start this way, end either really well or really poorly. I'll let you know how it ends when it happens. This is not quite that story.

A friend of mine, Nik, from Super Awesome Laser Media is an avid thrift shop shopper. At least once a week I get an update as to where all the fun photographic toys are. He tagged me in a Facebook post the other day saying that he had come across an old Minolta 35mm camera with a pretty decent lens. He said that I needed to shoot the rest of the film, develop it, and see what happens. I was super excited to see what would come.

When the day came to deliver the camera, he was unable to bring it...but did have a surprise for me none the less. Another roll that was in a random camera.

"Usually if the battery is good enough to rewind it I will pop out what is inside" he told me. Followed up by "this one took a while, so there is bound to be something on it". And there was. A grainy mess taken sometime within the last 10 years or so based on the uniform of the service member. Below is what was on that roll.

Nikki Nuke'm – 2015

November 19, 2015

I really had a lot of fun shooting this set of images with Nikki Nuke'm. If you follow the 52 rolls blog you may remember seeing a few photos of her during the DragonCon entries. She is a burlesque performer here in Atlanta, and it was by sheer luck that we happened across each other.

While I was building the flash diffusion panel (see the extra blog) I was also looking for new people to shoot in new ways. Luckily I was able to peel Nikki away from playing Fallout 4 for a spell and shoot something interesting and fun.

I had a REALLY hard time selecting images to show you all. And there is a pretty good chance I will be revisiting these photos in the near future. There were a couple that I had to re-construct in Lightroom/Photoshop because the backdrop was a little small. Also this was my first attempt at medium-heavy retouching. As my skills improve, hopefully my final delivered images will too.