Long breaks

Well another week of twiddling my thumbs and going back over old images looking for something I missed or something to re-edit is coming to an end. I'm sure there are other amateurs who like myself periodically find themselves with extended breaks between shoots due to budget issues. Tell the truth when you first started you thought over time you'd create more and more quality pictures or “Keepers” as they are called by some. But no that's not what happens no what happens is you become picker and picker which means fewer and fewer keepers which drives you to work harder to get more keepers which again cause you get picker and picker and the whole vicious circle begins a new :)


Hopefully the next time I post I'll have some images from the shoots I've scheduled for the upcoming week. For now here's few re-edits from April 2006 and December 2004






Remember your best photograph is the one you haven't taken yet

Another Year Almost Gone

Well as we come to the end of 2008 I guess it time for some reflection on the past year. I guess growth and struggle would be the two words that best describe the past twelve months for me as a photographer and artist. Yes definitely I feel my photography especially my artistic work improved significantly over the past year, though at times its didn't seem that way as I struggled with long periods of creative block and doubt. Period of frustration when ideas come few and far between that are only aggravated by what I see as a difficulty in pre-conceiving things in my mind. Its like the photo I want is in my mind just out of reach but I don't know which door to open to let it out. Luckily for me I'm able to work with a number of wonderful models on a regular and on going basis who know when the little creative hamster in my head is struggling and needs some help.
Well the new year with all its promises and mysteries is just around the corner so here's to artistic and personal growth.


Finally I'd like to close the year by sharing my favorite 13

Mike

Shooting wide open or why I love primes

Yup something else that I love and pretty much discovered by accident. Of course like most other photographer I've read about and know how aperture can be used to control DOF but like most I pretty much stuck to F-8 or close to it, that was until the spring of 2006 when I got my first prime lens the 85mm 1.8 from that moment on I was addicted to primes. Soon afterwards the use of controlled or limited depth of field, usually in the F2-F2.8 range, to get just that perfect mix of subject to environment soon became a key element in the composition of my work. Now days when pre composing a shot or serious of shots I try to envision which aperture will allow the perfect balance of subject to surrounding rather then just using some arbitrary aperture bases on some tests on the web.

Mixed lighting

Even when shooting with strobes or flash I try to use them in such away that they add to the natural lighting rather then overwhelm or replace it. For the two photos shown here I metered and exposed for the background in order to maintain as much detail as possible in the background and then used a single strobe to help illuminate the model and foreground while at same time maintaining the patterns created by the shadows on the floor.

First attempts
Though I've been shooting nudes since the fall of 2004 it wasn't until the summer/fall of 2006 that I began the process of learning how to use natural and or available light as my main source of lighting and relegating flash to a secondary role.
The following are a selection of photographs taken during this time period.

July 2006 MF Color film scanned and converted in Adobe Lightroom




October 2006 Canon 20D 50mm 1.4mm lens. processed in Photoshop CS2

The following are a selection of photos from last month's shoot with Sarah Ellis. All were shot with a Canon 5D and processed/converted in Lightroom The first two were shot with available light while the other two were shot with a single studio strobe+ 7 inch reflector which I feel delivers a very unique look when compared to photographs done with typical modifier such as a soft box or umbrella.

Introduction

Over the past few years I've come to realize that for me photography is a journey without a destination and I find that to be a wonderfully freeing realization. Think about it if only for a few seconds what it means to take a turn down that un-marked road of discovery or to try something new or different without having worry about arriving at a pre-determined place at the pre-determined time and the creative freedom it gives you.
What best describes the style of my Nude work? I'd have to say traveling without a map, by this I mean I don't follow any particular genre but instead barrow a little from each as well as other types of photography including high fashion.
You see I consider myself a recorder of beauty and art rather then a creator of either. In saying this I mean most of my photographs start out as either very simple or vague ideas, that really only come to fruition when I'm actually shooting. Or just as often are the results of a little spur of the moment inspiration.