Moab in Color
April 13th, 2009
If you saw my post on Black and White Landscapes in Moab you might have wondered where the color photos were.
Wonder no more.
Tina in the Rain
April 13th, 2009
The same beautiful Tina you may have noticed in the Seaquarium Charity Event photos. These are a few weeks old, but better late than never.
Styling by the lovely Julia of Pearl and Company. Small world right?
Viva Las Vegas
April 13th, 2009
I’m really not sure what day or hour it is right now. Red eye flights from Vegas always leave me disoriented and confused.
While I went to Vegas to help my friend and fellow photographer Luke Potter shoot a wedding (including a shoot at an abandoned Vegas Sign graveyard) I couldn’t pass on the chance to shoot in the desert.
The wind was blowing across the sand like a banshee. Fortunately Teri Marie was a truly professional model and stuck through the high wind, constant dust in her eyes, and abusive sun. Finding good models (10% looks, 40% talent, 50% professionalism) is hard work, so if you are in the Vegas area and need a model who you can count on I can strongly recommend Teri.
The style in these shots is heavily dependent on the lighting technique. The camera used for this shoot was a Hasselblad H2 medium format body with a Phase One digital back. The H2 system uses leaf shutter lenses which can sync with flash at 1/800th of a second, which means it’s relatively easy to under-expose the ambient light (making the clouds, sky, and ground dark) and take most of the light from the strobes.
An Illustrated Short Story
April 12th, 2009
Photo styling by Julia Kreibich.
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe
THE “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”
Keep Reading the Masque of the Red Death
Flor in One of the 1 in 9
April 12th, 2009
Fun fact: 1 out of 9 homes are now vacant due to the crises in real estate (USA Today Article).
Below is model Florencia.
Charity Event
April 12th, 2009
My friend Julia, owner of Pearl and Company, was the stylist for Patxi Pastor Band at a charity event to help a Miami marine biology magnet school. Each member of the band has accolades, awards, and achievements in spades, but with the millions of viewers the face most likely to j0g memories is Christina who was in the top ten of American Idol (YouTube Recollections Anyone?). Though frequent viewers of this blog might also recognize Cameron.
The band sounded great and the event was a blast.
Portrait Color Styles
April 12th, 2009
Back when I worked primarily with film and a darkroom the options to style a finished image were relatively limited. Color palets were mostly a function of film type, the contrast and natural coloring a function of the paper, and toning could only be accomplished by chemical agents like Selenium, red wine, bleaching, and adjustments to the white balance of the darkroom enlarger. If I wanted to see how an image would look with a particular toning, contrast, or white balance it would take hours of work to produce a relatively limited range of options.
Now with Photoshop such creative experimentation can be done in seconds. Some photographers bemoan the reduction in skills required to create these different styles in the digital age, but I feel differently. Now that the photographer can see a dozen iterations of a photograph with relatively little technical effort the photographer can focus on the image rather than the process.
Below are seven different takes on image toning and styling. Strictly speaking these styles were the result of image processing (conversion from the raw file into a processed file) rather than retouching (manipulation of the processed image).
If you’re feeling sociable then leave a comment to say which style is your favorite.
Clothing, makeup, and wardrobe styling by Pearl and Company.
