Last minute shoot

Sometimes we get assignments/jobs at the last minute. ( I am not a daily newspaper journalist, I know they deal with this all the time...) But as a magazine features/commercial photographer, I usually have some lead time.

My girlfriend is a makeup artist. And one of her clients has a client that needs a hand model (did ya follow that?) So they called her and asked to see a shot of her hands asap! The shoot is in a few days and the client of the client needs to see hand samples. She asked: "Who has professional photos of their hands just lying around?!"

That is where I come in. So we got right to it. Very simple lighting. Pop a few shots. Then up to my office for a few minutes in Adobe LightRoom. Her client needed this photo with in half an hour of asking for it.

So here is what we came up with.

Show at Oyster Mill Playhouse

I currently have some prints hanging in the lobby of Oyster Mill Playhouse. They recently completed some renovations to the space and I had the honor of being the first artist to show in the new digs.

Over the last 2 decades I have had work in dozens of shows locally. And each and every time I went with shots that were close to my heart. I decided with this exhibit to show pieces that may have a more commercial appeal to them. By that I mean images that will, hopefully, appeal to the art buying audience in this area.

This selection was based on images that recently sold well in other shows.

Here are a few of the shots in the show. I encourage everyone to go to Oyster Mill to see them in person, and maybe even take in the show that is currently running, "A Shot in the Dark".

Thanks

Street Photography

What photographer, at some point in time, hasn't shot on the street? There is a freedom that comes from not having any other motivation than to capture the Decisive Moment. A rush of adrenaline from the hunt. The sense of danger that is associated with fear. Fear of intimately photographing strangers, fear of the stranger detecting my voyeuristic lens.

When shooting images on the street I think it is important to remember to be respectful of the people at which you are pointing your camera. We can capture people in their daily lives, and even in moments of tragedy while still being respectful.

These 2 images came from a trip to Manhattan back in August '09, while walking through Central Park.

Haiti Relief, Loose Print Sale

2009 was a tough year, all over the world. And like so many other people I have been moved to help the relief efforts in Haiti. The easiest way, for most of us, is to donate to an organization like the Red Cross.

During the last 10 months I have had images in 5 exhibits. And after each exhibit closed I took some framed prints back home. Each of these images have been removed from their mats and frames, they are "Loose" prints.

I am offering these loose prints for sale and donating 50% of the proceeds to the Red Cross. There are limited quantities of each print and size. As you click through to the full size preview of each you will see a table of sizes available for that image. From there select the appropriate paypal button below the image. I will update each image's remaining quantity as they sell.

I have priced these images at discounted rates and am offering free shipping in the USA. Thank you for considering a purchase. And remember, 50% of your purchase price is tax deductible.

Click HERE to visit the site.

Eye of the Beholder...

...Isn't that what they say about Beauty?


About 2 weeks ago I was driving along North Front St in Harrisburg, returning from a shoot at the Symphony Show House, when I drove by this scene. What do you see?

I see a red wall. Green Grass, yellow dandelions. White flowers on three trees of differing heights, from short to tall. And stark shadows cast by a mid afternoon, early spring sun. I also see the ugly construction site on one side, and the not so pleasant looking motel on the other. Not to mention the close proximity to a busy secondary road. I took all this in in the time it takes to drive by a 10 meter long scene at 40 miles per hour, about 1/2 of a second (at this speed you are traveling at 58.6 feet/second).

Two more views of the overall scene:






The potential for images made here was begging me to turn around. I had a full afternoon of work, but I could not resist the Siren song of all the beauty I had driven by. A quarter mile down a did a u-ey and parked in the construction site to the left. Warning about getting caught up in road side photo opps: ALWAYS watch were you park. On this day I pulled in over hundreds of rusty nails. Somehow I was able to get out of there with out a flat, or tetnis!. Other times I have almost been stuck in mud or in snow banks and once even had the owner of a farm chase me off with a fog horn! Glad it wasn't his hunting rifle.

One more word of caution, please pay attention to traffic, people think you are crazy when you stop your vehicle in the middle of traffic to take a photo. And while lost in their thoughts of you in a straight jacket, may not pay close enough attention. I have almost been hit by buses, semi's, mini vans and Hummers. Also, pay attention to personal property. Unless you ask permision don't park on it, and be carefull photographing it, that is somewhat of a legal grey area that I don't endevour to get into at this time.

Here are a few of my interpretations of the scene:







And HERE is the link to see the images a bit larger.

An Autumn Walk

I love water. I need to live close to it. The larger the body of water the better. The Susquehanna River is no slouch in full filling my needs here. Though it ain't the ocean!! But I can deal. Walking along a body of water is very therapeutic for me, I try to do it often. Though it does not happen as much as I would like in the coldest of the winter months.

Here are a few shots from one of my October jaunts along this water way. Vibrant colors, movement and tree species juxtapositions all make for very cool compositions.

When shooting color I like to stay away from ultra contrasty, saturated colors. If these appear naturally well then, no problem. But my passion has always been, and remains to be BxW. When it comes to BxW I like to mold and shape the tonality of the image. My goal being to create great tonal relationships. With color images I feel a responsibility to the integrity of the image, so colors matter. If they are unnatural than the scene as I saw it is not truthfully represented. Don't get me wrong, I do fine tune color images so that I get the very best colors and tonal quality from them. I just try to stay away from fantasy. My first photography instructor made an impact on me with the following statement: A photographers job is to show the world to their viewers in ways that they have never seen it before. I always took this to mean showing the viewer what they are missing all around them- to accentuate the ordinary or show them a place/person/event they have not seen with their eyes, not to create something new for them to see.



When it comes to BxW as long as the tonal relationships make sense I may shift them around more freely to make the image have more impact. Shades of gray instead of color reduce the world in the image to relationships of the elements with in the scene. This allows the viewer to more easily see what the photograph is trying to say. Since the colors are removed the viewer is placed in a position of voyeur instead of participator. After all we don't see in shades of gray. Where as with color images the viewer can feel the reality of the scene, these images are literal representations.

I Love to print BxW images. For the longest time after moving to digital I missed my darkroom. I sold it all in early 2003 when I bought my D30. But in the last few years I have come to appreciate my current tools. I print my BxW with an Epson 2200. This printer uses archival inks and has a great reputation. Although it is now about 3 (or is it 4) generations behind Epson's current printer in this model line, it still gets the job done. I like to print on Ilofrd papers they make some lovely surfaces that remind me of my days printing under the dim glow of a safe light and the smell of fixer hanging in the air.



To see more images from this collection please click HERE.

Fog

Wednesday, December 10th, witnessed the perfect conditions to produce delicate clouds that blanketed Harrisburg. Fog. I love fog. I love to walk through it, smell it, watch it and use it as a compositional element in photographs. A mist that undulates, hiding and revealing elements of a scene. Isolating beautiful forms from distracting backgrounds. And softening the color pallet just enough to produce romantic monochromatic color images or soft Black and Whites.

As I crossed the Susquehanna River, on the way to an appointment, I saw the fog consuming it. I nearly crashed as my jaw dropped upon observing the perfect scene that I was missing. I got to my appointment, ran my errands and made my way back home, which is 2 blocks from the river front. I changed into some boots, grabbed my G9 and was out the door. As I approached the river I could tell the scene had changed, it was no longer as mystical as it had been 2 hours earlier. But there was still fog, not all hope was lost.

So I started shooting. Nothing was happening. I wasn't seeing the image. I thought it was mostly due to the diminishing water vapor. So I started walking, my goal was to walk across the Harvey Taylor bridge and shoot over the islands in the middle of the river. This would help eliminate the distracting view of buildings on the West shore. But as I went along I decided to try going to the lower walk way that sits right next to the waters edge. I descended the steps from the lower sidewalk right up to the water. This provided the needed change in perspective I was looking for.















It got me closer to the fog and changed my vantage point just enough to allow the remaining fog to isolate the islands, and their barren trees, from the man made structures on the other side. Cool. Very Cool! I shot for about 1/2 an hour until I decided that I had really covered this location. That was all the time I could allow anyhow, I needed to get back to my office and work.

I like shooting this type of subject with my Canon G9. I can shoot with iso's from 80-400 and get a very nice film like grain. Really reminds me of my days shooting Tri-x. I am always astounded when I view the images later, this little camera's 12 megapixels and great lens really resolve fine detail! One of the keys to using this camera, I have found, is to shoot as if you were shooting chromes, expose for the high lites- and nail the exposure. There is just enough latitude in the shadows that I can pull out a bit more usable detail than one might think. I can make very fine looking 12x18" prints.





Please follow this LINK to view a couple of other images from that afternoon.

While there you will get a glimpse of the changes that are coming to my website. Hope you enjoy!