Last week I hosted another one of my Creative Portrait workshops, in Columbus, Ohio. Students came in from Toronto, Portland, Asheville, and San Francisco to learn some of my lighting and camera techniques. Big thanks to @westcottlighting for providing the strobes, transmitters, and light modifiers, and to @nanliteusa for providing the LEDs.
My next workshop is January 25-26 and is at a discounted rate until December 15. There are only five spots FYI. More info, here.
Slipknot X Revolver Magazine Photo Shoot
This shoot was a make-it-work situation, if ever there was one. I was given 30-minutes to shoot a magazine cover as well as individual portraits of each member of @slipknot for @revolvermag. Apparently I didn’t think this was tall enough of an order, so I decided to shoot four different color schemes, both with and without a prism…
Read MoreMultiple Exposure Portraits with Roarie Yum
My studio is located within @thefort614, which is a 130 year old warehouse on the south side of Columbus. It used to be the home of the Seagrave Company, which used the space to manufacture fire engines and other rescue vehicles, for over 60 years. Every square inch of the building has a glorious patina that can’t be faked. The cracked plaster, distressed flooring, and sun-faded glass is something especially rare in this fast growing city, populated with new builds…
Read MoreImages From the May Creative Portrait Workshop
Here are some of my favorite images from my latest Creative Portrait workshop. As you can see, we covered a braod range of techniques over the two day class.
Read MoreMultiple Exposure Portraits with Rigid Textures
Last year I explored fluidity quite a bit in my work, and this year I’ve been gravitating towards rigidity. To create these images I wandered around taking photos of a range of textures, which I used as a base layer to make in-camera multiple exposures in two portrait sessions.
Read MoreProcessing Trauma: Photo Shoot with Covid Nurse
Meris is a nurse that witnessed profound trauma during Covid. She kept a journal as a way of processing all that she experienced, which included journal entries and collage art. When she asked me to take her portrait and mentioned the journals, I suggested that I could photograph some of the pages and use them to make in-camera multiple exposures (seen below)…
Read MoreLiquid Strength: Multiple Exposure Photo Shoot with Bodybuilder
I started the session by photographing a mix of oil, seltzer, and ink, in a variety of different glassware…
Read MoreIdentity: A Commission by Unsplash+
The team at Unsplash reached out to me to commission a body of work around the theme of identity. Identity is such a broad, subjective concept that I ultimately used several different technical approaches to create the portraits…
Read MoreTechnicolor Rainbow
Here’s the set of images i made of @larryrobertson during my last Creative Portrait workshop. I have learned that my images benefit from me waiting to color grade the files until I have the time and energy to really explore the possibilities of what they could look like.
Micro and Macro with Katy
I had a wildly varied session with @cortadh0e last week…
Read MorePhoto Shoot with Ballerina Dancer
I rarely go into a shoot with a fixed notion of how I want it to go, or how I want the images to look. I often base my techniques, color palette, and post processing on what the moment dictates…
Read MoreEyes and Ears and Mouth and Nose (Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes)
It’s been nearly five years since I’ve photographed @kate_sweeney and it was interesting to see the parallel in tone with our last shoot (third eye vibes)…
Read MoreFluid Photography: Making Tiny Galaxies from Food Coloring, Vegetable Oil, and Seltzer
Back in the lab, making galaxies. I created these images with vegetable oil, seltzer water, and food coloring. Now it’s time to use these in a portrait session, both as projections and as multiple exposures.
Read MoreWe Are More Than the Sum of Our Parts: A Photographic Pushback Against Artificial Intelligence
Many AI images look are impressive at first, in a too-good-to-be-true kind of way. Interiors brag gravity-defying architecture, or scenic terrains depict features that have never before been seen on this planet. However, there is inevitably an element that seems off when viewing these images. They are too perfect, and lack the tactility and weight that feels believable, a phenomenon referred to as the uncanny valley. This begs the question, are AI images a success or a failure? Are they successfully creating visions of an ideal human or world according to some programming and an amalgamation of stock imagery, or are they a failure in coding, with the author lacking the awareness to include nuance and imperfection in their vision? Its these details that, I’d argue, that inform us that a person or a place is real…
Read MoreKinstugi and the Art of Self-Care: Adult Survivor of Childhood Abuse
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing a broken vessel with a precious metal, such as gold or platinum. A repaired vessel isn’t the same as it was before the trauma, nor is it diminished. The essence of the original vessel is still there, but golden scars now trace the lines where the fracture occurred…
Read MoreWarped and Fragmented Portraits of Rachel
I had a blast playing around with a range of different prisms, refraction panels, and ring lights last week with @rachelluree. As always, these effects were created in-camera, with the only post work done being color grading in Lightroom.
Read MoreImages From January's Creative Portrait Workshop
Here are a handful of my favorite images from January’s Creative Portrait workshop. I’ve been teaching workshops since 2011 and have been slightly modifying the format each time until I found the current iteration. I now cap the two-day class at five students, which allows for more hands-on time and exploration of each technique. Since there are endless variations that can be created from any one of the techniques that I teach, I start by showing the class three iterations, and then I guide them, one at a time, in helping them fold it into their own visual style. This allows students to really retain the knowledge, as well as work it into their personal style.
Read MoreFluid Portraits Commission by Unsplash+
These images were all created using in-camera effects. No Photoshop was used— only color grading in Lightroom.
I was recently commissioned by Unsplash+ to create a library of fluid portraits. Last year I began working on a new body of images where I explore fluids and in-camera multiple exposures. My Canon 5DIV allows me to select an image from my memory card and overlay it on my viewfinder, when in “live view”, which allows me to intentionally compose multiple exposures. Even though I know more or less how the fluid and the portrait will merge, there is always a moment of surprise when the final image pops up on my screen. As you can see in the gallery below, the same fluid shot will produce wildly different results depending on how the subject is light, the clothes they’re wearing, their hair, the complexion of their skin, etc. This makes each image a one-of-one.
Read MoreAvatar: The Last Airbender Photo Shoot for Entertainment Weekly
This is one of those achievement-unlocked moments for me. Since I first picked up a camera as a teenager (27 years ago 😱), one of my dreams was to shoot for @entertainmentweekly. A few weeks ago that dream came true, when I was given the opportunity to shoot the cast of the new, live-action adaptation of @avatarnetflix, which premieres next month on @netflix.
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Zenith Pilot Big Date Flyback Editorial for Road & Track Magazine
I’m excited to share this editorial that I did for @roadandtrack magazine. I’ve been working with fluids such as food dye and ink a lot lately and decided to use them in this shoot to create an elemental feeling, fitting with the theme of the issue: air. I find a still life to be harder to photograph than portraits because there are no happy accidents. All you get out of a shoot is whatever you put in.
Huge thanks to @cassidyzobl for the trust and opportunity. Swipe for #BehindTheScenes