Exploration with Culture
For the Gun Buy-Back Program project, I had to purchase an armory of squirt guns. Instead of letting them go to waste, I laid them out in a different scenario. Could this represent the gun collector at age nine? Or does our adult behavior represent the love and care of our parents and the environment in which we’re raised?
By approaching Rwanda Partners and offering them my help, I scored the opportunity to take a selection of their bowls into the studio and photograph them for their website. With three lights, some plexi glass and fishing line, I was able to create a clean, depth-defining product shot to help them better portray their products. Hopefully, more opportunities will arise with Rwanda Partners after the initial shoot. Visit RwandaPartners.org for more.
Location: SCCA Studios
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark III with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens
100mm, 1/160 sec at ƒ/16, ISO 100, tripod.
Post: Capture One & Adobe PS6
Found within a friend’s basement, these bottles were too characteristic and entirely toxic to pass up. Setting up in an open-air carport settled the minimum level of fumes and maximum amount of ventilation.
Location: CK Studios
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark III with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens
100mm, 1/25 sec at ƒ/16, ISO 100, tripod.
Post: LR4 & Adobe PS6
America’s recycling program. It’s fantastic in my city, sucks in others. So I took the idea of recycling into the studio, and placed one shot in context (above) and took the other two slightly out of the box.
Composting. Try it, you’ll cut back on your weekly load of trash and also create a healthy garden
CPS: Child Protective Services or the Department of Social Services. Putting children through America’s foster care system since 1974.
After traveling to Ambergris Caye in Belize, photographing various artists utilizing the skill and exactitude of their hands, I purchased one of the wooden bowls from Graniel’s Dreamland as a gift, gifted, took it back and brought it into the studio… whew. And now it’s done.
Full bowl studio shot
Close-up bowl studio shot combined into catalog spread with on-location workshop shot
After weeks and months of design, storyboarding, preproduction, shooting and post, the following seven catalog spreads are finally complete.
Bee vs. Bee-keeper: Above is a shot of a Northwest bee-keeper harvesting the season’s honey, while to the right a bee flies, stinger ready, protecting the colonies winter surpluses.
Foote Board: Inside his mobile shaping room, PNW surfboard shaper Kelly Foote sands down a new design.
Carlson’s Imagination: Internationally-renowned glass artist Robert Carlson prepares the next phase of his creative process, applying paint to the artforms.
Prince Rolex: An early 20th century Rolex watch worn in style.
DDT Apocalypse: DDT, a pesticide banned in the US, explodes with devastating consequences.
Lang Tattoos: Woodblock print artist Tracy Lang transforms her career as a tattoo artist.
Kelly Foote Surfboards: A new design, a new board, more waves.
The other day I had the chance to photograph Tracy Lang, an accomplished woodblock print artist. But she wasn’t doing woodblock. Tracy was doing grapefruits, practicing her new tattooing skills on the skins of this fruit with the inspiration of the late writer and watercolor artist Henry Darger, painter Maxfield Parrish, and tattoo artist Musa
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark III with Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
16mm, 1/5 sec at ƒ/18, ISO 100, tripod.
Post: Adobe LR4 & PS6
Internationally-renowned glass artist Robert Carlson recently spent one week as the Artist-in-Residence at Tacoma, Washington’s Museum of Glass Hot Shop. Here, he worked with the shop’s artists and interns to create the next line of imagination: 10+ orbs of glass weighing from 5 – 25lbs, each unique with twisting sculpted tentacles and bulbous knobs and hooks. They now await to be adorned with color.
Location: Carlson Studio
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark III with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens
100mm, 1/50 sec at ƒ/22, ISO 100, tripod.
Post: Adobe LR4 & PS6
Location: SCCA Studios & CK Studios
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark III with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens
composite w/variety of settings, ISO 100, tripod.
Post: Adobe LR4 & PS6
Cameron Karsten's Imaginarium 
Photo of the Day: Athena Devouring Her Soldiers
Inspired by Francisco Goya’s 1819-1823 oil painting Saturn Devouring His Son, the above project speaks of humanity’s innate compulsion to send its soldiers into the throes of death. We fight for land. We fight for possession and power. It is our willingness to send man and woman into war; and Athena above, goddess of warfare (and wisdom) unleashes her rage over the very men and women we as a people send into battle.
On the other side of the coin, we also fight for freedom, for a voice, for the ability to live our lives as we choose. There are always two sides, our decisions coming from a place we find within ourselves.
Shot with three Q-flashes, black back drop, and a 6-stop neutral density filter allowing me to shoot wide open, I brought the subject as close to the wide angle lens as possible to create distortion in her face and hands. Goya’s image is offered below for reference.
Location: private residence
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark III with Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
16mm, 1/80 sec at ƒ/2.8, ISO 100, tripod.
Post: LR4 & Adobe PS6