internship two, day eight

my first engagement session with eric - we drove up to burgaw, about 30 minutes north of town, to meet marianne and daniel on the farm where marianne keeps her horse. it was a beautiful location with huge open fields and stables for the horses... however there were plenty of bugs AND a snake - not fun!

i didn't do too much shooting for this session because it was my first with eric and i wanted to spend some time observing how he operates as a photographer and interacts with his clients. it's definitely interesting to see the difference when switching from one photographer to the next for these internships.

so far in the new internship i've been doing a lot of design work for eric in the office - hopefully i'll be able to post some of it up here. while i've always thought i just wanted to shoot and avoid the business side of...well, the business... i have to say i am starting to enjoy those tasks, as well. it never ceases to amaze me just how much i love doing this on a daily basis, even if it isn't taking pictures all the time.

matthew brady

matthew brady is a comedic writer and actor who lives in LA. i met him through a mutual friend who was looking to help both of us out: i am always looking for more shooting practice, matt was in need of some new headshots. i had a blast running around town with him for this and, as someone who used to live in LA attempting to get into the film industry, it was interesting to get his take on it since he just moved out only a few months ago.

 good luck with everything, matt!

solomon family

rich, my old co-worker, has been such a huge supporter of my work since day one that i first decided to pursue photography as more than just a hobby. we've been trying to set up a shoot for what feels like forever and during my most recent visit to LA, we finally got one together! rich and his wife, faye, just had their second child a few months ago, so family portraits were more than fitting for this photo session. i can't believe their daughter has gotten so big - the last time i saw her was about a month after she was born. now she's almost three and they have another tiny human in their house. so strange, but very exciting for the family :)  

i really enjoyed getting to spend time we these guys, but photographing children is hard work...

why don't they just do what you tell them to?! :-p

tangled

assignment: classic b&w portraiture

jack

mad tea party

stanford

soccer

biocommunications photojournalism class assignment: shoot soccer. 

this was my first attempt and i enjoyed it so much more than baseball...the action was constant and the players had no problem pushing each other over.

here are a few extras from last night's take...

south loop, chicago

assignment: lines

first design assignment from my first semester in school... 

[camera: rolleicord twin lens / film: kodak b&w tmax 100]

design portfolio, spring 2011

san francisco

assignment: creative portrait

[camera: mamiya c330 / film: kodak tmax 100]

assignment: human scale

[camera: rolleicord / film: kodak b&w tmax100]

nobody famous

nobody famous

goat island, south carolina

assignment: design layout

a few months ago i posted some behind the scenes photos of a project i worked on for my design class. the assignment was to create a layout: 2 pages, 5-8 images, one unifying theme.

my layout was an editorial spread for a magazine about a movie (based on a story i wrote during the fall semester). the film opens up with the bathroom scene below and continues to backtrack, telling about the relationship of this man and woman. the piece is a character study on two people who found each other when it seemed things couldn't get any worse in either of their lives - they began to depend on each other, despite the fact that neither was stable enough to help the other person. after some time, both realize they are stuck in their situation - can't live with, can't live without. they need each other to breathe but are slowly killing each other in the process. 

the scenes on the bottom row are snapshots from the movie, as well - pieces of the puzzle that lead us back to the main scene.

i remember getting the idea for this story last summer after a dream i had, but i was only able to see the bathroom scene. so, i wrote it down and forgot about it. then october rolled around and a friend gave me florence and the machine's lungs album. the moment the last song began playing, the story was right back in my head again. turns out the song isn't actually on the album, and is instead from the twilight movie soundtrack, recorded specifically for that movie. the title of the track is heavy in your arms. (as a side note, i later found out the band rereleased the album with this track on it, so...thankfully... i no longer *have* to claim twilight and it's soundtrack as a source of inspiration).  - - - while planning for this, i continued to listen to the album. the song kiss with a fist stood out as another player in the storytelling process and i used both of the songs listed above to iron out the details of my movie. 

i have to thank both my models and assistants again for all their help on this. ashton and jason, you two were fantastic, especially ashton for sitting in that water for so long while we got the lighting right! michael and anna, thank you both for your helping hands - i couldn't have done it without you guys!

[all images were shot using my rolleicord and kodak tmax 100 b&w film]

a bigger version on the main scene:

assignment: high key / low key

object lighting class: one object, one background, two different lighting setups. 

high key = softer light and shadows, lighter tone

low key = more dramatic lighting with darker shadows and higher contrast

[shot on tmax 100 b&w film using mamiya c330]

mississippi river, new orleans

another film scan: shot on kodak plus-x 125 with my rolleicord iv