Photography Assignment: Apex Belltown Cooperative for YES! Magazine
May 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Apex Belltown Cooperative in downtown Seattle, WA for YES! Magazine. Summer 2012 Issue.
Seattle Central Creative Academy: Photography Assignment (Glamour Narrative)
April 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Three shots in three separate scenes, telling the same story within a narrative series. It tells the tale of a model of three eras of fashion: the 60s, 80s and modern. As a model, she’s on the journey of her career. Although she has it all – the beauty, the clothes, the style and money – she finds herself at a crossroads seeking more, but is subsequently slipping into a lifestyle she’s becoming all-too familiar with.
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Model: Morgan Terry
Stylist: LK
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark II with Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Telephoto Lens
variety of settings, ISO 100, tripod mount.
Post: Adobe LR3 & PS5
Seattle Central Creative Academy: Photography Assignment (EDFAT – aka Stranger Danger)
April 10, 2012 by 7 Comments
Ian Cipra is a man with a passion for apples. Working the tourist crowds of Pike Place Market in Seattle, WA, Ian sells not only apples, but grapefruits, plums, seasonal fruits and loads of vegetables. One day it might be a free slice of pear to push their sales. The next might be an orange. But on this day, he was representing the crisp sweetness of the Jazz apple. And thus the tourists flocked – passing, observing, tasting, purchasing – while the apple man put on a show of wit and camaraderie.
The assignment was to photograph a stranger. Approach someone. Collect a volume of point of views: EDFAT. Broken down, it stands for 1) ENTIRE, for observing the entire subject; 2) DETAILS, dissecting the subject into specific details; 3) FRAME, framing those details into strong, original compositions; 4) ANGLE, to shoot a variety of angles; and 5) TIME, building visuals by using slices of time. After 500 frames, an hour and a half of time, and switching between four different lenses for variety, Ian Cipra came out with energy and sold loads of jazz apples to smiling customers.
Location: Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark II with various lenses
variety of settings
Post: Adobe LR3 & PS5
Photo Essay: Wood – A Story from the Olympic Peninsula (Pt. II)
April 5, 2012 by 1 Comment
As I continue to drive out into the Olympic Peninsula, camera bags full and surf gear packed, I slowly observe the culture of a timber industry unfolding before my eyes. It is a people’s livelihood, their subsistence within the forest, bringing shelters over families heads and food to their hungry tables. And for the blue collar, it is not a wealthy industry. They are the cutters, sawers, operators, drivers and haulers of a civilization taking over the wild places.
With video files and the numerous still images of the cold cloudy spring passing over the Northwest wilderness, this project is evolving into an unbiased perspective of Man vs. Nature, and how the two can equally subsist; prosper side by side and thrive within one another.
Below is the second essay of imagery and visual thoughts from a story of wood deep within the Olympic Peninsula.
Photo Essay: Wood – a Story from the Olympic Peninsula (Pt. I)
March 25, 2012 by 2 Comments
Wood; a precious commodity. Cut, sawed, shaped, nailed, lacquered, stained. Occasionally it’s replanted, and years later, generations gone, money is made again. Wood is money. The forests are for sale, for their resources, for their lands, for their habitat. The following images are the start of a multimedia project telling the tale of wood, from origin to combustion, and the phases of transition in-between. How does it effect us? How does it feed us? How is the life under our feet and that above our heads impacted today, tomorrow and those generations ahead?
Seattle Central Creative Academy: Photography Assignment (Floral)
February 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
To depict the differences of diffused light and hard light on flowers, I created the following composition of an unknown flower species. Upon completion, the differences observed are slim. Diffused light – left. Hard light – right.
Location: SCCA Studios, Seattle, WA
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark II with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens
100mm, 1/200 sec at ƒ/5.6 & ƒ/11, ISO 200, tripod mount.
Post: Adobe LR3 & PS5
Seattle Central Creative Academy: Photography Assignment (Environmental Portrait)
February 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment
To create a narrative environmental portrait, I had three fellow photographers with one Elinchrom and two Triton strobes, as well as a lonely Speedlite. The Tritons were placed behind the subject through the doorway, with the Elinchrom resting beneath the camera pointed at the foreground and up the stairs. The Speedlite, attached to a PocketWizard, was placed directly at the feet of my subject (aka Tre). And once the exposure and lighting was perfected, I placed a handful of potato starch in Tre’s right hand. One. Two. He lobbed the starch over his head. Three. I released the shutter, capturing the four flashes while dragging the shutter to 2.5 seconds in order to absorb the ambient light and the fall of the potato starch. The effect? A man and his dog, come upon the viewer and suddenly something mystical transpires. The man is not who we think he is. Neither is his dog.
Location: U District, Seattle, WA
Model: Tre Williams
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark II with Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS USM Zoom Lens
24mm, 2.5 sec at f/11, ISO 400, tripod mount.
Post: Adobe LR3 & PS5
Seattle Central Creative Academy: Photography Assignment (Lo-Key)
February 7, 2012 by 2 Comments
Lo-key is the opposite of hi-key. The absence of light and a play on dark tones defines the dramatic lo-key photograph. Incorporate a good use of positive and negative values, and a narrative should unfold between your subject and the audience. Here I photographed my subject in character as a Shaman. He’s preparing for a ceremony with wild turkey heads using a large rusty cleaver in silhouette. He painted himself a sooty black with a singular white stripe running from forehead down to chin. There’s an aggressive, tense look as if he was suddenly interrupted within his sanctuary preparing for the ritual.
Location: SCCA Studios, Seattle, WA
Model: Matt Kuntz
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark II with Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens
70mm, 1/10 sec at f/4.5, ISO 100, tripod mount.
Post: Adobe LR3 & PS5
Seattle Central Creative Academy: Photography Assignment (Food Prep)
February 6, 2012 by 5 Comments
Food Prep. An enjoyable shoot because after you’re finished you get to eat it. I wanted to create a striking image focusing strictly on the food and a particular message. And the message? Polluting our planet, polluting our food. We live off the resources this planet provides us, and by wrapping a plastic holder for a six-pack can of Dale’s Pale Ale around the salmon’s head while floating over a white ceramic plate, represents the sense of fragility yet power which our food is. This image is a composite: one image exposed for the plate, the other for the salmon which was hung with 15lbs fishing line cleaned up in PS5.
Location: SCCA Studios, Seattle, WA
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark II with Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens
70mm, 1/25 sec at f/4.5, ISO 100, tripod mount.
Post: Adobe LR3 & PS5
Cameron Karsten's Imaginarium 