leonardo

Leonardo Kaplan is an artist friend of mine. He just got a new haircut and wanted a new facebook photo. This is the result. I'm really liking this sort of light. I liked the fight between symmetry and asymmetry in his hair so I decided on using really symmetrical light.

whittier road at night

I was home for christmas in whittier, iowa. There was so much fog coming home from grandpa kluver's house my dad couldn't really see the road. Funny how in climate weather makes for great photos.

I really want to do more of this. I think i've found a new direction.

I'm thinking that I want to work more on personal work like this, and take my work in a new direction. As much as I love shooting people with studio lights, etc, the process of shooting "art" is fulfilling on different levels. The idea of working narratives came to me after reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. The stories are lush, every detail is described in depth and it made me really rethink how I shoot. Inspiring.

It just goes to show exactly how much inspiration that comes not from other people's photography, but rather other people's way of telling stories is important as a photographer. Its a way of being derivative with my work, or rather referencing something, but using my visual language to express what I'm absorbing and not being someone who just copies another's style. I guess also finding content worth talking about is half the battle, and then you have to figure out what you want to say and why you want to say it that way.

gina and marshall again

this is another few shots of Marshall and Gina. Enjoy.

this first one has a bit of post production done to it. I created a second image, desaturated it, made the tones the right texture and color of creamy white, layed it over the original, changed the transparency and then erased everything but the highlights on the second layer. Love Photoshop CS4. It's really easy to clone and the way the image adjustments work has been improved and is faster for sure.



This shot is just two adjusted shots as transparent layers on top of the original and then desaturated.


These two were purposefully underexposed to see how bringing them back to a normal level would affect the grain/noise. I like the texture. It would look good printed. Too bad the paper in the background wouldn't stay smooth...

Gina and then gina, marshall hanbury jr. and ryan adams

So I wanted to shoot a bit today and did some shots of my roommate Gina. Then Marshall came over to practice a couple of tunes with Gina and I did a quick setup and took some shots of the two of them. Here they all are.










and now the two of them



this was a quick setup with some black foamcore, marshall standing on the ottoman, two lights, no diffusion (my preferred method these days)...


and then this gem was found earlier today. I was talking about how me and Kate love Ryan Adams so much and then gina showed me this series of shots from a photo booth in NYC when her band the Blacks was playing there. Apparently Ryan Adams showed up (this was ten years ago when he first moved there) and hung out with Gina for the evening.

winter scenes and watertowers

I love these things. This is the first snow I've seen in years and watertowers always make me happy. I've always been fixated with them. When I was a kid I imagined jumping off them with a parachute. I still need to do that before I die I think.

These are all shot from inside a car, and most of them while moving. I think its my new criteria for a good way to make pictures.