I recently collaborated with Larry Robertson and we did a bit of everything in our session. The broad range of visual styles that we brought together was a perfect match for Larry who is a poet, clothing designer, musician, and a tour manager amongst other things. After the shoot was over and he had a chance to look over the images we made he said, “If I were to die today these are the pictures I’d want people to see to remember me.” Turns out the images represented the broad scope of who Larry is even better than I had imagined.
Read MoreCreative Portraiture Workshop: New York City
It was great to be back in New York, teaching my two-day Creative Portraiture workshop. Photo god Lindsay Adler graciously lent me her Manhattan studio while she was off killing it in Milan. We had a blast experimenting with light, color, and technique.
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Rae of Light
Rae is a dancer with Balletmet and a frequent collaborator with me. She’s as willing to experiment as she is talented, which means we always come away with a great range of images. We started off by creating fragmented portraits courtesy of my broken mirror, before moving on to creating golden images with slow shutter speeds and mylar reflections.
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Finding Inspiration at the Hardware Store
Over the past year I’ve been pushing my images into more abstract, painterly directions. As digital images seem to be moving into a realm of hyperrealism, I find myself longing for gritty tangibility. Since I have always more in the get-it-in-camera camp, I have been experimenting with a range of techniques and materials to try and achieve the look I’m after. I started off this past spring by adding substances such as coconut oil and honey to glass and then shooting through it. After that I moved on to shooting with imperfect, fungus-covered lenses to get a hazy, dreamlike quality. Next I tried my hand at capturing distorted reflections in mylar. Most recently I explored what broken mirrors can add to an image.
All these experiments have worked together to inform my process in terms of optimal focal length, aperture, and light quality/direction when working with multiple planes, layers, and reflections. Now that I better understand how to manipulate these mediums I can walk through a hardware store, for example, and visualize how certain materials would look when photographed and lit a certain way, which is exactly what I did last week…
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Creative Portraiture Workshop Tour
I am excited to announce that I am doing a 3-city tour of my Creative Portraiture workshop in January! These are two-day, hands-on workshops that focus on creating experimental and innovative imagery. Students will work with a range of models to create both “studio” and environmental portraits. There is currently an early bird discount running until the end of November. For more information go to https://www.nickfancher.com/workshops. I’m excited to make art with you!
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Photo by Jeremy Slagle
Interview: Leaving Social Media
Back in April my friend Jeremy Slagle, a celebrated designer and illustrator, and Thad DeVassie came by my studio to interview me for their podcast. At the time of the interview I had been off social media for two months, which had been the reason for the interview. We chatted about my reasons for leaving as well as how I’ve reallocated my time since. We covered a lot of ground in the talk and I’m happy i was able to connect with these two on so many different issues that confront both creatives as well as small businesses. I hope you find it as encouraging and hopeful as I did.
Read MoreSurrender
As of late, my need to explore studio lighting has waned. I still have the drive to create, but I find myself at a place where I am uncertain how to proceed. Light exploration no longer alone satiates my creative needs. There’s no more mystery in the discovery for me. It’s time to push my limits again. I need to get outside my head and my go-to techniques. But how does one simply pull themselves up by their artistic bootstraps? I need something to force my creative hand.
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