Historically, whenever I create something that I’m really excited about, I immediately get overwhelmed (this latest shoot is case in point). I’ve thought about reasons why it may affect me in this way, and here are just a few…
Read MoreI Discovered a New In-Camera Glow Effect
This was my first shoot exploring a new technique, and I’m ecstatic at the potential. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I’d love to shoot a music video in this style, so hit me up if you’re in the market for one.
Read MoreMore Images From Glow Workshop
Here are some of my favorites from my latest workshop. Thank you @ademolarizzy for bringing so much energy to the images and thank you to my students for coming out to make art with me.
Read MoreImages From the Glow Photography Workshop
Here are a few selects from my “Glow” workshop this past weekend. One of my favorite things about teaching is that I often end up discovering new things, such as this concentric circle halo effect that I stumbled upon…
Read MoreThe Negative Side of Social Media : Commissioned by Unsplash
As some of my longtime followers know, I’ve had a complicated relationship with social media. In 2019 I was experiencing so much anxiety that I permanently deleted all of my accounts (60,000 followers over 3 platforms) with no plans to return. I spent the next year off the grid. Though I’d already been in therapy for years I also began going to a support group for adult survivors of childhood abuse (ASCA). I started climbing and began regularly cycling again. The combination of processing trauma, moving my body, and removing myself from situations and relationships that exacerbated my anxieties, I began to heal…
Read MoreElastic Plastic: Exploring a New Material with Alayna
Here's some recent work with @a.bean.sprout. It's been a couple years since our last collaboration and was a great time of conversation and art-making. I especially had fun exploring shooting through a piece of plastic that my friend @davidtsigler salvaged from an old Mac monitor. The red in that first image is actually a warped reflection of the red shirt I happened to be wearing at the shoot. My mind is still pouring over the possibilities that this material affords me.
Read MoreImages From My Latest Creative Portrait Workshop
Last week I taught a two-day photography workshop called The Creative Portrait. I taught my students a range of innovative camera and lighting techniques that allow them to capture subjects in creative ways. Here are a few of my favorite images from the weekend.
Read MoreImages From the Creative Portrait Workshop: April 2022
This past weekend I taught a Creative Portrait workshop to five students, at my Columbus studio. I’ve been teaching workshops for over a decade now, and each time I teach one I tweak the format a bit, which keeps it interesting for me and my students. My work is constantly evolving and so I like to work a couple of my newer techniques into each workshop. I typically teach 8 core techniques, each of which can be executed in a number of different ways, each producing radically different results. Here’s what I taught, this time…
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Glow On: Art Nouveau Photo Shoot with Sonia Constable
This shoot is the result of my most recent collaboration with Sonia Constable. Going into the session I knew that I wanted to create a wrapping, well-defined outline around her, in a nod to the Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha. Though I certainly took inspiration from Mucha’s bold outlines, I took these portraits of Sonia in a different direction by adding a soft, internal glow to accompany the well-defined silhouettes. The combination of hard-lined silhouette with a graduating internal glow creates the effect of a body heat map.
Read MoreUsing a Fungus-Filled Lens with Long Exposure and Prisms to Create Psychedelic In-Camera Effects
Whenever I’m doing a personal shoot I try to make at least one small change to a tried-and-true technique in an effort to see how the resulting images differ from previous sessions. For example, let’s say I’m shooting long exposures in a darkened room while my subject is wrapped in strands of LED lights and moving around the room. Each image is different based on their movement, which creates unique light trails. In the following shoot I might have the subject and camera stationary as I swing the strand of LEDs around the room, thus framing the subject in light. Another session might involve me moving my camera while the subject and lights are unmoving. Each tweak of the formula creates dramatically different results and I frequently discover new techniques through these experiments…
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Shoot with Fashion Photographer Gail Shamon
This was a fun, quick little shoot with fellow photographer and friend @gabrielleshamon. Gail did her own hair, makeup, and styling. I did three lighting setups, sticking to a red/yellow/blue color triad. I simply rotated out gels on my main, background, and rim lights for each set. This allowed me to have a broad range of looks that still felt related to each other, all in a short amount of time (I think we shot for about 45 minutes).
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Hair / Beauty Shoot with Chyna Tené
A few weeks ago my friend and frequent collaborator @chyna.tene stopped by my studio to hang out. She brought some of her crafting materials with her to work on some of her art while we chatted. We got to talking about hair and I showed her a book of hair portraits from J.D. ‘Ojeikere before suggesting that we do a similar, hair-themed session. She selected some jewels and I cut some strips of wire from her crafting materials and we styled her hair in several different ways. I used the @lindsayadler_photo x @westcottlighting Optical Spot and gobos to illuminate her in a variety of patterns. The whole shoot only took about 45 minutes but the act of creation and collaboration stuck with me for the rest of the day.
Read MoreThe Boy Who Was Struck By Lightning
When @mengesdesign was 8 years old he was struck by lightning. That random fact immediately came to mind as we looked over the first two images from our latest collaboration…
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Creating Dappled Light with a DIY Reflector
What if I told you that i only used one light to create this image. It’s true. I used one of my favorite lighting modifiers— a DIY reflector…
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Coors Light: Hold My Coors Campaign
I recently teamed up with the creatives at Five Hundred Degrees studio to shoot the Hold My Coors campaign for Coors Light. We spent a day on location and a day in studio capturing this clever line of beer accessories. I legit want one of those hoodies now.
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New Work for Angels and Airwaves Album Lifeforms
Last year I teamed up with Brandon Rike and the crew at Tension Division to shoot art for the upcoming Angels & Airwaves album, Lifeforms. Modeling by Shelby Stephens and hair by Christine Pointdexter.
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Americana / Film Noir with Skrizzly Adams
One day last year (what is time) I worked with @alexhaldi of @pawncreative to create art for the new @skrizzlyadams album cycle. We shot a bunch of smoky images on location at a bar to match the classic Americana aesthetic of the artist. My assistant @sethmosesmiller helped me position a snooted speedlite up near the ceiling for the first setup, which created a shaft of light in the smoke. For the second setup we wanted to imply sunlight coming through the window blinds but since it was in fact a rainy morning we had to fake the light with a projector. Less is more, more or less.
Read MoreWhat is Time?
Mylar Skull
Another of my mylar explorations. This is a 7-image sequence shooting reflections on mylar. All in-camera effects.
Fancher X Feinknopf
Last week I had the privilege of photographing photographers. Great ones, at that. Brad Feinknopf is a legend in my neck of the woods, and to be asked to photograph him and his team in my style was a great honor.
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