Brenizer Method

 So these images are rather old now, they were shot back when I still lived in Downtown San Francisco. The end of last Spring is closer to the time they were shot. I think but these were shot with my 85mm f/1.8. What is cool though is that the depth of field is much more than a 1.8 generally is. This is because of the Brenizer effect. Basically it is panorama portraits which when stitched together are these HUGE images that depending on how decent your computer might take about a half hour to process.

These were fun shoots all together but there are multiple things I would change about each one of these images. Minor background things for a lot of the images but small lighting techniques as well.

Traditional Darkroom Final

So for my final in my darkroom class at the Academy I had free reign to do whatever I pleased. So long I had an artist statement and some other stuff I didn't pay too much attention to and should probably look back to see what else I have to do.  Anyway these are some of the prints I have made for the class. Keep in mind these are all hand printed on RC paper so it isn't fiber like I used to print on but it is still pretty nice. I would have rather printed on fiber to be honest but I just don't have the time to constantly print on it. Hopefully I will in the near future but as of right now I have been too busy. Oh yeah, and the film it was shot on was this.

General Update and Some Portraits

   So it has been a long time since my last post. I want to blame this on me being busy with work and having mainly printing classes this semester which is partially the case. The other part is that I have been extremely unhappy with my old Canon 50D. I have been shooting a lot of film but sadly since I have moved and gotten rid of my older film scanner I been waiting on a desk I ordered that never came in since the website I ordered it from never completed the transaction even though I got a delivery date. Eventually I will get a new film scanner though and show off some newer stuff from the past couple of months but I am unsure of which one to get. Before I had the Epson v300 but I am probably going for the v600 model now. So eventually there will be some nice film scans of my older medium format images that I never been able to get online, let alone printed because I shot them extremely thin. There will be some awesome stuff up in the future and it will be glorious.

   Recently I have gotten a few emails every so often about the stuff I have been using. So starting now I will be linking the items I am playing around with in the blog so you can see the stuff I am talking about or thinking of getting for myself. So don't fret about the links they will just take you to the product on the Adorama website.

  So there are a couple of things I am slowly beginning to work on now that I have began to drastically improve my use of any high end printer. The first is my straight up image quality. Which wasn't "bad" before but it has improved to the point where I am dissatisfied with a lot of the stuff I have done in the past which is really a step in the wrong direction for me. The only recent images I have made in the last couple of months on digital are the two in this post. The first one of my friend Johanna and the second of Mahkayla.

   The image of Johanna was shot on my ol' 50D which still has a good quality to it but it isn't anything I am satisfied with, since I know it could be much cleaner if it wasn't for the noise I get at the mid range ISO's on it. It was taken using my 85mm lens, and honestly looks great because of it. The other image of Mahkayla is using the holga lens, for a Canon EF mount. You are able to get them in the different mounts depending on your own camera system but I actually found out that using this digitally is almost as fun as shooting with a real holga. The lens is awesome considering it is a chunk of slightly over priced plastic. Eventually I will start having images with my new Lensbaby Composer that I bought myself for my birthday but I am so picky with the images I have taken for it that it is unreal. For some reason I can't get my focus dead on even with being able to pick my sweet spot. The Composer is a lot easier to use than The Muse but I just am not willing to not use f/2.8 I guess.

Summer Classes and Fall Ideas

So since my summer semester is finally over and I have had time do a bit more than just working, moving to a new place and practicing on league of legends. So over the summer I did a class about photographing people. Most of the assignments were about street photography and setting up the scene for the shot you are looking for so there is a lot of waiting involved. The bulk of what I was looking for came for when I was taking a long rest and just people watching.

Modeling Shoot in Sonoma

     So my people photography class went on a trip to Sonoma to do a small modeling shoot in this landscaping/garden art gallery place. The name of it alludes me at the moment but I think it is Park 121but it was a super fun time. The models I had were great and I had a delicious hamburger there as well. The landscapes were amazing considering how small they were but I was able to get some pretty interesting shots!

As for the blog it isn't dead, I just been working and summer school has been moving so fast I haven't had a whole lot of time to do much else beyond sleep and editing. So with my first larger break I wanted to get these up. Soon I will have other images since I been doing a lot of work in street photography and have some cool shots that will go up hopefully within the next 7 days or so of that and you guys can see what I have been doing.

So until next time when I have a larger up date I will have to see you guys later!

Antelope Canyon

So in my recent vacation I had the pleasure of going to Page, Arizona and hitting up Antelope Canyon. This was a trip that was originally planned by Miles and I last year but we ended up not having the funds for it. Unfortunately Miles wasn't able to make it this year since he now resides near the northern parts of the United States. So I took this trip with my lovely girlfriend and my mother. The only complaint I really have about the whole canyon is that there is only one area I am aware of that you can go into, and it is only with tourist groups. This is kind of expected since it is on Navajo land so I can't complain too much but I feel like there is more unseen parts of this place. It is hard to get unique imagery in a place like that because of the saturation of similar images because of the one singular place.

PH115 Final

So the main idea behind this shoot is to add abstraction between texture and architexture. The

project will be loosely based on Colburns early work with vortographs because of the opics used to make the initial images. Other than that there will be little influence of his work in this project. The strongest images to the viewer will be the most abstracted from reality, so my concept is removal from reality. Since all the images will be of architexture there will be key shapes to focus on to help bring the project from reality to a more dreamlike, lucid, state. It would be hard to discribe what a viewer would see since it isn't a concrete item I will be photographing. So a lot of the viewer's ideas of what it could be would be projection. These images will be geometric and breakdown into the basic elements of design, while trying to keep the dream like concept in shape. Keeping a smaller square format will also keep it to being a quite and more elegant in design. The small size would also make it so to truly see the images one would have to go up closer to them, and the closeness makes it more personal for the dreamlike state the images appear to be in. The images even since they don't have a spoonfed story, because honestly if something was spoon fed that is like this project it wouldn't be nearly as interesting. The images should have a painterly feel and not feel like they are an actual photograph. For me, the images come off as a bit of a motion dream, where one has to go somewhere but they aren't sure where the destionation might be. The images hopefully will envoke a bit of serenity into the viewer with the mostly deep blues for a color connection for the viewer, also the blue is a symbol of sleep. The main techniques used will be to use a fast mid length telephoto lens to compress and give a tack sharp focus point that can drop other details out of focus. The speed of the lens will also allow me to use an ultra fast shutter at a very low “Iso” to make sure there isn't any motion blur most of the shutter speeds used will be roughly over 1/1,000^th of a second or faster in broad daylight. On more cloudy days it will be a bit different but the thought process is the same since the effect won't work as well beyond 1/500^th of a second.

Visulization Final Project

 So my final project in my Visualization class is going to be more graphic versions of my Vortographs. Utilizing the similar ideas of what I have done in the past but instead of making these more of an explosion of imagery I want them to be a bit more graphic. I feel like some of these have accomplished that. This body of work does need more work to it but I feel like it is on the right track to being completed.

A quick little Stop Motion

This is coffee time.

I do wish I could have gotten a better sound for the stirring of the coffee but this is my first real attempt at a stop motion video. Which to be honest I did enjoy making. I might do some more of these in the near future and finally get good use of of Final Cut. Who said me taking media classes in highschool was a waste of time?

A Studio Shoot with Sasha

 The last time I did a shoot with my buddy was way back around last year. Thankfully because of my forgetfulness it makes it look like it was a little under a year ago now from both of the blog posting. I also forgot about this post up until recently but I need to get back to work on the blog more. Forgetfulness is a bad habit of mine since I started working more and doing more school work with out much time for myself in my thoughts, or as Mahkayla would put it,"talking in circles to myself". Beyond it being almost a year since the last shoot there is a lot I have learned since then, it makes me feel like paying about 8,000 a semester is actually worth it beyond getting what feels to be a new life all together since I moved up to San Francisco. I am noticing a good style difference as well. I am getting a lot better with studio strobe which I will admit was a weakness of mine. I had the general idea and concept of studio light down but never really the actual lighting and playing with it. I am slowly graduating from my speedlights, even though I lust for the new one canon has put out. I am slowly getting myself some Alien Bee's and some stuff for them, but I am mainly interested in the beauty dish.  Anyways from what I am aware of no one really comes here for my senseless ramblings to myself and more for Vorotographs, so I will be working on doing more of them soon. Also I might be patienting a vortographic lens of my design soon so there might be some on sale in the near future. Time will tell, but I know I will be using my prototypes ;)

Some Studio Work

 So beyond my normal work I been posting on here I thought it would be a good idea to incorperate some of my studio work on the blog as well. Seeing as I been extremely lazy and need to get back in the grove of posting my own work on here and not just school stuff I am hopefully going to start up on one of my projects again shortly. Yes, I know I need to finish the infrared photoshop technique tutorial. It has been on the back burner for ages now and will be finished when it is finished.

Other than that this was a simple limbo white background set up. Three strobes with bounce umbrellas going to another bounce onto a white seamless background. This also has an extremely large softbox for the main light. I forgot the power settings on the profoto pack but the average meter reading was about f/5.6 for the background.

Vizulization Assignment 6

Reflections

So this is my shadows and reflections project for my visualization class. These are vortographs of something I use everyday since I have moved to the city. They are important items to me, yet extremely simple. They are water jugs, simple yet they have worked time and time again.

Shadows

Depth Of Field In Portraits

f/ 5

This is a makeup assignment for the 5th assignment in my visualization class

f/25

My New Canon 85mm 1.8

So this was one of the first images I have taken with my new 85mm 1.8 canon lens. Honestly it was a great buy for the price I got it at. At around 295, with out tax I picked up this beauty and it has been worth every penny so far. Both of these images were taken with the 85mm lens in studio. Which now getting used to the studio, which has been an awesome work space so far, I just need to get more reliable models. The ones I do get are awesome though. I can't thank Dustin and Sasha enough, you guys rock!  In other news this lens is going to be wonderful for vortographs. I will end up having more vorotgraphs in the near future utilizing this lens in the near future.

Off The Grid - Food Truck Central

So last Thursday Brianna, Mahkayla and I went to Off The Grid for the first time after getting my new 85mm 1.8 lens, which my next post will be about. Anyways this was beyond amazing, I had Fuji apples and Huey had a day of fun before he got his balls removed. I had a sandwhich with rice as the bread. It was amazing, my current level of intoxication won't allow me to go into much other detail beyond sounding like a kid with downs since I am sleepy as well and my judgement might be impaired but it was DAMN GOOD. I really want to go again this Thursday to try out the curry truck, get a steamed bun and then have some southern comfort food.
Long Live The Food Trucks!

Oh yeah and the images are from the sx230, I should have tested the toy camera mode for it. Or at least shot these in black and white but these are conversions with the black and white filter and the hue and saturation layer for the different tones.