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Mason Rae (model test shoot)
A few months ago I worked with Mason Rae, the model you see here. I had seen some images of Lara Stone in a magazine that I wanted to loosely emulate. It was more of a starting point really, but I wanted to work with the umbrella as a prop, and go for something light and airy. I didn’t want an underlit look though, and also didn’t want to go the whole faux-polaroid route either. So like I said, a loosely-based starting point!
I wanted a local model because I had arranged hair and makeup to be done at a salon here in Ventura. The location was simple, just the beach on a (fortunately) cloudy day. We spent two or three hours in the salon, trying not pace around nervously while the team (Naz Madaen with makeup, and Joey Villegas on hair) prepped the model, and then off to the beach for an hour’s worth of shooting. This was a one-look shoot! And we got a nice bonus: sailboats in the background.
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Disneyland
Some images from Disneyland at the end of October with my family.
Disneyland is such an over-photographed place, so I try and do something different when I go. The last time I went, I shot color slide film and went for abstract shapes (blog post here). This time I decided to…
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Ugh…Butterflies!
I took the family to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History a month or so ago, where they had a butterfly exhibit. This is no dead-bugs-on-pins exhibit. This is a fully-enclosed, double-doored screened enclosure with thousands of butterflies and flowers inside.
Ugh. Butterflies.
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Ventura County Fair
Some images taken on my Yashica-Mat ‘twin lens reflex’ camera at the Ventura County Fair last week. Intentionally given a lo-fi look…this camera is really pretty nice. But I was shooting for a dreamy, aged quality. Shot on Fuji Neopan 400 black and white film.
Click on any of the thumbnails to view the full image.
Camping (With Lighting Equipment!)
We went camping a few weeks ago at Lake Casitas. I had mentioned that I was going to the photo editor of a local magazine, and she asked if I could take some camping photos for possible use later on. So I brought along some lighting equipment as I had some ideas. No big guns on this trip, just some speedlights and such. Read on for more images, and technical details.
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Abstract Disneyland
The family and I went to Disneyland in the spring, and I challenged myself to make the place more photographically interesting than just family snapshots. Which meant carrying around two cameras, but what the heck.
The goal was to take abstract shots of Disney. Images where maybe the subject matter was apparent, maybe it wasn’t. Hey if you know what some of these are (other than the last one, which is obvious), drop me a comment and tell me your guess! This outing was inspired by one that Jules Bianchi talked about at a workshop awhile back.
When I go on vacation, I like to shoot film rather than digital. I have a special attachment to film, but my workflow doesn’t allow me to use it much professionally. So it is often reserved for “fun”. I decided to shoot 35mm slide (”chrome”) film, in this case Fuji Sensia. The year before I brought a 40-year old medium-format twin-lens-reflex camera to Disneyland – with black and white film, natch. So this outing was positively ultra-modern by comparison.
While I had this developed ages ago, I’ve just now gotten around to scanning the film. Here are some highlights.
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Help My Brain, Please!
Another quick and short post, but I need your input this time. Yeah you. You’ve been waiting for me to ask, haven’t you?
I’d like readers to give me a short list of inherently funny or peculiar objects. I hope to use the ideas in creating some image concepts. If I use an idea (and can remember where it came from after it evolves sufficiently), I will pay you royalites post it here and give you big kudos. This is a brainstorm kind of thing, which might yield nothing, or might yield some cool shots a day, a week, a month from now. I’d just like other people’s thoughts, which I can then use to spur shoot concepts.
Examples of what I mean by funny or peculiar objects: Portable toilets. Party hats. Cotton candy. Swiss cheese.
Ok your turn! Thanks.
When I was a younster and told my nana something was funny, she would always answer “funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?” In this case, both are welcome.
Green is the Colour
Tonight I’m “digging through the crates”, to use a DJ term. Coming across old images that struck me then, strike me now, and I’d all but forgotten about. There’s a green theme to these, and an unusual amount of trees (although given the color, perhaps not that unusual). These were taken back in the day, before flash and before digital. Other people had flash and digital, but I didn’t! More than half of these were taken on 110 format film (or the hand-wound 16mm equivalent).
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