Rob - Portrait Session
I met Rob through a social networking site for aspiring and professional models and photographers. Rob was a former model for The Mens Wearhouse mens clothier. He’s now looking to get back into some modeling and wanted some new shots.
|
|
|
Rob is a part-time tennis coach, so we wanted to get some portraits for that as well.
|
|
Rob is not the scary guy he looks like in this portrait, but I couldn’t resist b/c the lighting was just right:
|
not….Burning Down the House
A few years ago when I made from Baltimore to Silver Spring, I quickly realized how much more expensive rents in the DC area were, and I came to the realization that I was going to have to find a roommate. Ick. I hadn’t had a roommate since I lived with my sister Jamie right after I graduated from college.
I found Craigslist to be a good tool for this task, and I replied to an ad with a few vague photos, some of which showed what looked like a large paper lantern lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling, and dark maroon painted walls (gig ‘em). I was a little surprised that I was allowed to continue to live in the house after I caught a kitchen towel on fire on the stove my first weekend of living there.
Mitja’s situation was a little different from mine, he was (and still is) married to an active duty Navy officer who was, at the time 7 months pregnant. She had been re-assigned from a post in the DC area to two years active duty in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk, VA area, and in order to keep their financial situation and careers in order, Mitja listed an ad on Craigslist for a roommate while Elysia was stationed in Virginia Beach. It was a pretty sweet deal for both of us, I got a nice big house to myself 3-4 days a week while Mitja went to visit Elysia and their newborn daughter Clementine in Virginia Beach. Mitja and Elysia got to put my rent towards their mortgage and they bought a Condo in Virginia Beach. Mitja basically got to "go to their beach house" every Thursday night.
Mitja and I went through quite a lot while I lived in that house over that 18 month period I lived there: total remodel of the basement (I learned A LOT from that experience), care and eventual death of their beloved cat, this gal named Liz that I became quite smitten with. And if I had any idea how many gallons of ice cream we went through while I lived there…
So, since this is a photography related blog, I will get to the point. A few weeks ago, Mitja asked me if I could take some family portraits, and perhaps a headshot or two for him and Elysia. There wasn’t any question in my mind about it, other than..when? I’m quite happy with the way these turned out for the most part. Every photograph I take is a learning experience, and these are no exception, there are a few things I will do differently next time, but I’m quite happy with these.
|
|
Mitja writes his own blog (which is updated much more frequently than mine) about his family and experiences, and about being a civilian husband with a wife who serves active duty in the Navy Jag Corps. Visit his blog and you’ll find out about cake decorating, child decorating, and a little politics (without being overly political). Mostly you’ll get a real look into Mitja’s sense of humor and what a great family they are. I’m not quite sure they realize that they’re gonna have their hands full with their daughter…she’s a real HOOT! She does a mean version of Anchors Away, and has somewhat an obsession with the Lifetime TV show, Army Wives.
|
|
I had such a fun time shooting these, I hope I get to do some more like these again very soon. Thanks to Mitja and Elysia for giving me the opportunity.
My own food portfolio, perhaps.
My wonderful wife is out of town for work this week, and since I would normally spend time hanging out with her rather than doing anything else, I decided that I needed to break the boredom and keep me out of the fridge. There’s only so much Olympics you can watch, and its rare that we find an episode of Law And Order (R.I.P. Lenny) that we haven’t already seen.
A month or so ago I ran across an online pamphlet for Phase One titled "The Food Portfolio" and I really wanted to try to re-create some shots from there as well as some other still life shots I’ve seen in the last months. These don’t really do justice to the original shot, and I obviously don’t have my own $30,000 Phase One digital setup (yet), but I feel like I did pretty well. Here is a link to the original.
I will be trying some other shots in the next day or so, or perhaps some I’ve saved in my flickr as favorites from other people. Some of the shots in the food portfolio look rather messy, so we’ll see how that goes. Liz comes home Friday so I should try to have the house restored at least close to a cleanish condition.
More Film
I have not had a lot of opportunities to get out and shoot as of late, but when I do I find myself getting out the Yashica. Last week Liz came home from work looking especially beautiful and I made her sit for me for a few minutes. I snapped a few off with both my Yashica and my 30D.
Here’s a side by side shot of both, the Yashica on the left, and the 30D image (square cropped) on the right. Considerably different look, I think. Both images shot at ISO 400, f4, 1/125s.
Here’s another, just the film this time. Daphne seemed to want in on the action, so we had to oblige.
And now one of just Daphne, this time taken with Fuji Provia transparency (slide) film. It has an AMAZING look to the film, but is a bit more expensive to process. Having transparency film is much nicer because you don’t have to scan the images to see what you end up with, you just have to hold them up to a light source.
And a couple from my sister’s softball game in Mansfield, TX last weekend. Again, with the Fuji Provia 100.
I think I may try experimenting with processing some black and white film at home. It costs about $15/roll to have it processed at most of the local labs, but you can get a kit (including all the chemicals) to process it at home for around $40, and that’s enough chemicals to last a good long while. Unfortunately to process the transparency color film, the chemicals come in larger volumes than most consumers would use in a reasonable amount of time, but the black and white home processing (at least from what i’ve read) is totally reasonable…and there’s no darkroom required as long as you’re not printing/enlarging.
