Going to jump on the Throwback Thursday bandwagon today. This is a self portrait, taken at college. I’m pretty sure my lighting consisted of a harsh desk lamp while I was crammed into a loft bed space in my dorm room. This is the time I learned film and darkroom developing…lots of harsh chemicals, but lots of fun. I miss those days when I had hours and hours to spend in the darkroom. It gave me a very tranquil feeling…expose, develop, rinse, repeat.
Quickie post…prepping for todays shoot!
New toy! My husband presented me with a really cool color changing bulb for my lighting setup as I was shooting Heather…it even comes with a remote! Yes, I’m in photo gear geek out mode, please bear with me. It happens. Anyway, this bulb combined with a fair Heather and my black wall resulted in these. I need to experiment a little more and refine, but this was fun 🙂
You know what’s kind of ridiculous? I’ve had these two in my life for about 15 years and never once shot them together. If you’ve been following for awhile, you know I’ve shot Heather, oh, a billion times or so, and David one other time. He and I became fast friends in college, and I inherited his lovely wife through him. We live in separate states and they have kids, so it’s hard for us to all get together in NY at the same time, but we finally managed, and here they are. I prefer working with real couples as opposed to models pretending to be couples because the chemistry there is authentic…these two have been together since high school…impressive!
My mission this past Monday: get out the camera and celebrate the end of winter with the lush green of Central Park. Brittany and I got up early to take advantage of the soft gray, slightly foggy sky. FYI: cloudy is better for outdoor shoots when you’re just bringing a camera with no extra lighting gear! It’s funny, normally the gray weather doesn’t put me in the best of moods, but when I have a project like this, I’m all too happy to run around in the mist.
I’m going to show you these in more than one post. This is the first look we did…inspired by the movie “Funny Face” with Audrey Hepburn. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV as a child (a good thing in my opinion), but I did get to watch a lot of musicals…my mother got me hooked at a young age. “Funny Face” is one of my favorites…of course it is, it has a photographer in it 😉
Side note: I learned that dancers go through their pointe shoes in 2 weeks, sometimes even 2 days!
Oh this model was such a good sport…it was really hot that day and she modeled like a champ, with a light coating of powder all over her. This is what happens when I get loose and the museum and decide that I MUST do a statue shoot. No, I couldn’t wait till fall 😛
What to do when you find yourself on autopilot, turning everything black and white? Switch it up! This is Io, a wonderful alt model I’d been wanting to work with for quite some time, then finally ended up living in the same state!
Going to get a little more personal here today. I shot this self portrait last week since I haven’t done that in years. I’m definitely more comfortable behind the camera, which meant it was time to confront those nervous feelings. I’m going to be completely honest here…the range of thoughts and emotions that went through me during that 30 minutes varied widely. Some thoughts congratulated my willingness to do this, while other thoughts were more negative towards my body type. Some thoughts raised me up, while others tried to knock me down. It was like I was split halfway, one part subject, one part photographer. I allowed the photographer side to take over, eased into it more, and forgot about the negatives (ugh…photographer pun not intended). My role as the photographer is to make the subject feel good (while geeking out over gear) so I did just that. This was done with a timer, so there was a lot of hopping back and forth to reset the camera and look at the shots to see what I needed to adjust. Shoulders back. Leg a little to the left. All that fun stuff I usually use to direct others. By the end, I was having fun!
Yes, I’m aware of my body type. And I don’t hate it anymore. Yes, I’m aware that dropping weight will make me healthier…I’m working on it and already feeling better. It’s been a struggle and I take full responsibility for it all. That’s not the point of this though. The point was to confront some things and I did. I don’t know what I’ll look like in a year or even three months. But this is me now. And I accept that. To all those that have wanted to try this and hesitated: don’t worry. You’re fucking fabulous 😉
I met this sweet couple through a mutual friend. Originally, we were going to shoot just him jumping around, but when his lady came too, I invited her to join him in some shots. I’m glad I did, because the intimacy between them came out quite naturally as we progressed.
Alysa rocks. I did about three shoots with her, and she didn’t have the need to be “pretty” even though she is obviously quite gorgeous. Modeling was her way of contributing to the arts, and I’m so glad I had the chance to work with her. She wasn’t afraid of going dark and gritty. Fiercely intelligent, and I sometimes find myself going through her shoots and finding an image I hadn’t noticed before…
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