I'm attempting to create icons for my personal project in Studio Craft.

To set up, I cut a large hole in a 24 x 36 piece of black foam core and taped a translucent piece of white packing material behind it. I'll need to experiment with wax paper too, but didn't get to it for these shots.
I clamped the board to a light stand and placed a light directly behind it, pointing at the back of the subject's head, through the hole. I used a grid spot and dialed this light down to about half the output of the main light.
The main light was set up directly beside the camera, in this case the Hasselblad H2D. Originally I used a softbox, but these were made with a snoot pointing at the subject to focus the light in a circle around the subject's head.
I wrapped a large piece of black velvet around the subjects to create a "robe." Originally I'd thought I'd just do floating heads, but in test shots I liked the edge light on the velvet and decided to keep it.
I've been looking at books on icons lately and as I continue with this project, I'll back the camera up, incorporate more clothing and hand gestures, and try painting on the final images, either digitally or with actual paint.
While I'm excited about the saints project, I'm also very happy with the latest location portrait results.
These were shot with a Toyo 4x5 monorail and softbox to front of subject on Kodak G100 chrome. The setting sun provides a back light. I really like the sort of produced realism of the images. These are both objective "realistic" documents and at the same time, heavily produced (lit, digitally retouched, etc.) subjective visions of these people. With emphasis on the subjective. I'll keep this up too.

Labels: studio strobe saints portrait

Today I got the very exciting news that the faculty jury in Savannah accepted one of my pieces for publication in the SCAD photography annual, Silverworks. They also selected all three of the images I submitted for the gallery show.
This is awesome news. It totally makes my day.

Labels: competition silverworks school accepted jury show gallery

It's the 21st century. Although I still don't have a rocket car, technology has brought us many very useful things. Such as film scanners. Except when they don't work.
This weekend I went home to south Georgia and shot my family with the 4x5. I got a couple that I'm very happy with, and some that I'll have to shoot again.
Today I had the chromes processed and was very excited to get them scanned and printed tonight. I went to the lab, got the imacon holders, got set up, and turned the computer on. The "bong!" that a Mac makes is a very pleasing sound. This one seemed to start out alright, then it got stuck halfway. I've had trouble with this machine before, so I restarted it. And again. And again. Then I unplugged it. And again. And again.
Then I talked to the operations manager. He said it'll start, it just takes a while. I started again and waited. And waited. And waited. After about 10 minutes of halfway starting, it jumped to the end. Then 20 more minutes.
And I gave up.
One hour. No prints, no scans... no computer even. Sigh.
The polaroids look great. I'm not sure my family will be totally enchanted with them, but I think the pictures sort of reflect their tolerance of my interest. They've been putting up with this for the last 20 years or so, they figure they can stand still for five more minutes.


As I shot the four of them, each said something along the lines of "that's an old camera" or "that's a fancy camera." I said that any camera is essentially a box with a hole in it. And while this particular box (Toyo 4x5 monorail) along with the polaroid and chrome film (all technology that's been around 50+ years) served me well, the computer was a total bust.
Maybe I'll go to pinhole and chemicals. That's a simplified process, and there's really only one thing that can screw up there. Me. I can deal with that.

Labels: 4 by 5, 45, aggravation, complaint, family, polaroid, portrait, technology