Arizona Workshop – Day 2

It's probably the timezone, but this is one of the few times in recent memory that I was awake before the sun was. So, naturally, I decided to do something about it. 

The morning light was something to see. Even though I didn't get the shot I wanted, I was still pretty happy with what I was able to capture. I'm probably going to try again tomorrow and capture something great. Especially since I know now generally where the sun will rise from. 

The rest of the day was mostly filled with class work. Re-learning the basics of Photography. Even though I already have a pretty strong grasp on the concepts that were presented, I walked away with some great notes. If you follow my twitter account, you may have seen some of these. Maybe before the end of the week, I'll transcribe them. 

After the classroom, all of us attendees broke off into groups based on our camera brand of choice (I guess you could say that anyway). We were further introduced to our mentors for the week, and given our task:

Every night shoot and deliver 10 final photographs based on the theme chosen for the night. Tonight it was "Shadow and Texture". That was it. No real other set of goals. We then were let loose on the resort. I fumbled around for an hour or so, snapping. I had a bit of a tough time at first because I primarily shoot people (Hell, my business cards said this for years). But as they say "The best things from come outside of your comfort zone". 

At dinner, I had a chance to sit down with one of my mentors for the week and had a very emotional conversation about life and my feelings regarding the work I do. He gave me a homework assignment to complete, watch Sue Bryce's video on fear. As we talked about the business of photography and our lives he re-assured me that sometimes it's natural to question yourself. But the trick to overcoming is not to listen. Later he helped me "kill some babies" and get down to my final 10 images. I felt a rush as we went through my first pass. I had missed having someone to go through and receive feedback from. 

Below are the 10 submissions for the day. I have probably another hundred other images that I took today, I'm going to sit on them for a while and let them marinate in my mind. Keep your eyes out for those in the future.

I'll end this post as well with a "bonus image" of sorts of the sunset tonight. It's only day two, but I already think that this week will be on my mind for a while to come. 

–Blake


Arizona Workshop – Day 1

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



Dani Deetté - 2016

Happy 2016 everyone! Things have been a little quiet here around the UNDEREXPOSED camp. But rest assured I am still here and ready to keep rocking on new content for everyone. Expect a state of the union post coming soon explaining everything in more detail. For now, I'll just say that I've been moving and am in the process of finding a new "studio" to work from. Also, you may have noticed that I have consolidated the blogs into a single "News" blog now. I liked the idea of maintaining 3 different pages, each with their own content. But I don't think the concept worked so well in practice. So for now, at least, everything will just be funneled here. 

But enough housekeeping. I wanted to share with all of you some photos I took of a great person, and up-and-coming actress Dani Deetté (I didn't forget the accent Dani). Dani contacted me via social media and asked if I was interested in having a shoot with her. She recently has moved to Atlanta to live her dream as an actress. You all know me, I'm always happy to help out a fellow creative. So almost immediately I said, "let's do it".

We met at one of my favorite spots in my local area in which to shoot. And then moved to a more rustic location for a few more shots. It wasn't until we were almost finishing up for the day that we discovered a hiking trail, and by sheer luck hit beautiful golden hour light. We probably hiked around for a mile or so talking, laughing, and shooting great photos. 

I really look forward to doing more with her in the future. 

–Blake

2015: A Year in Review

So here we are, Another year in the books. And like every year I just want to take a few minutes and share with everyone my favorite 5 images I have taken this year. This list will probably have more than a few "runners up" as well. 

2015 was a year in which I decided to get back to the basics and start fresh. At the end of last year I was a little burned out with my lack of creativity, and my goal for this last year was simply to "shoot more" which I did in spades. See the 52 rolls blog for more information. My original goal was to not pick up a digital camera at all, which I failed, but instead of counting it as a failure...I'm going to instead call the work that came from a digital medium a huge success. Re-shooting on film has caused me to slow down (as I hoped it would) and I ended up with a few great shots!

So without further ado, and in no particular order. Here are my favorite 5 shots from 2015.

I met Bri through another model I worked with this year. After seeing what Morgan and I were able to create she jumped at the chance for us to work together. This shot was taken very quickly as the sun was going down. And the effect that the lighting had, combined with her posing worked out very well to create the image that I had in my mind. 

Hada Pixie is no stranger to this blog. After meeting her around 2011 while working with a lot of other talented photographers and models during "Beautiful Darkness" we have off and on worked together in many projects for Zivity. A trend that I hope continues on into the future. This was shot as a bonus to one of our Zivity sets, and in all honesty I liked it better than some of the other images that came out of that shoot. 

I shot like a madman at DragonCon this year. But most importantly I had the lovely chance to work with Atlanta's own "team tank" (which also were my gracious roommates during the long weekend). My third Con and probably my favorite so far. These folks provided me a lot of great opportunities to shoot, laugh, and enjoy myself to such an extreme level. 

Along with Team Tank, another one of my Con roommates was Nikki Nuke'm. Shortly after the release of Fallout 4 this year Nikki decided to let her inner vault dweller out into the world, and we captured this image among many. My only regret was not snapping a horizontal image of this one, but even the image I was able to capture I am in love with. 

My final official favorite image from the year comes from working with Finite Automata. They saw my work and wanted some new photos for their press kit. After taking time to decorate a basement into a working set, we were able to snap a few great photos, including this one which ended up being one of my favorites for the year. 

But of course I can't stop there, 2015 also brought on many great opportunities and even more wonderful people that I worked with. There are so many that I can't name or post from everyone here. But don't fret, I want to let everyone I shot this year know that I appreciate the time you spent with me, and I hope that we were able to create something awesome in the process!

"Titan Addams" was the first set I ever shot on a digital full frame camera (surprise I know). I loved how the tones came out, and that bokeh. Hope to see more come from Titan and I in 2016.

Stan, Justin, and Cody all helped me back to back while I was working the kinks out of my DIY black background. You can find more of that in an earlier Extra blog post.

Blix, Stevhan, and K all stepped up to the challenge when I needed to keep the 52 rolls project alive. Also a big thank you to Clockwork Calamity and Caprica Song. Clockwork and I did some great work for Zivity this year (hopefully more to come), and Caprica worked very hard for a spot in Poisonous Pinups magazine! So be sure to keep your eyes open for that very soon. 

I definitely can't forget Ilker and the rest of the team at REGen Magazine. Thank you for allowing me to cover a few great shows this year, and an even bigger thank you for publishing my photos in the mag. So happy to have been a part of your culture in 2015.

And finally, as much as I hate to end this year on a down note. I wanted to share a photo of my fluffy cat. Although she is no longer in my life, she was a big part of keeping me together in 2015. She may have only been in my life for about three years, but I miss her dearly. I'm happy to know she is in a better place and no longer in pain. <3

Sorry if I missed anyone. I've been trying to put this blog post together for the last month or so, but couldn't decide which images I wanted to show. Thank you again to everyone I worked with, and everyone I have yet to work with. Here's to 2016!

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