to the victor go the spoils

Well I did it ... I managed to pull off what I thought was an impossible shoot.
And it turned out really nice!
I'm still playing around with some different post processing options ... right now I'm kinda leaning towards a Dave Hill kind of post. It makes it look a little grittier. I'm just glad I was able to pull it off. Huge thanks to Denver for doing the hair, and huge thanks to Larissa for being my model for the shoot!

i'm a producer

Being a photographer is essentially being a producer. You have to produce. Find models, get equipment, props, locations, assistants, and all sorts of other things. It can be pretty intense. So far, I've had it pretty easy as far as production goes ... no elaborate sets, no models (that weren't my friends), never really had a need for an assistant, and never had a Harley Davidson as a prop ... a prop that must somehow make it to my location when the owner of it will be out of town, a location that I am yet to find, for the model that I have to yet to find to interact with said prop, all while using the equipment that I have yet to procure. And I have to do it all by Sunday. Wow. It's only week four, but I'm totally feeling some week ten pressure on this shoot!

But oh man, just wait until I finish my super secret summer project ... It's going to be amazing.

it's not me ...

So all I have to ask is this: who's awesome?

You would think that I answer I was going for is "Jimmy is awesome". But it's not.

Jessica is awesome! We did this shoot today ... partly for fun, partly to get an idea for something I want to shoot for school. Either way, it turned out really nice ... even though the particular Hasselblad I was using today was nearly impossible to focus. Get is sharp in the viewfinder, the image is soft. So we had to guess how far away she was, se the focus that way, then tweak it to find the actual focus point. Talk about a pain, so the majority of the images went from out of focus, to close to in focus, to a little closer, a little farther, then dead on sharp. But we did end up with a few good ones. scratch that ... a few great ones!

But I still can't get over these Phase One digital backs, every single time I see an image from that camera and digital back, I actually say "wow" ... out loud ... even when I'm alone. The quality of the images that these cameras produce is unreal. Can you say Christmas?

It's official ...

I hate my Canon 5D.

Well, not hate. But I guess it's relative. I've been using Hasselblads with Phase One digital backs ... they are amazing. It's a 6 megapixel back, and it blows my 12.8 megapixel 5D completely away. No competition at all.
I look forward to shooting with it A LOT.

Oh summer, '08

Did you catch that pun? I'm clever like that.

So this summer is shaping up to be kind of awesome.
School: I have some really cool classes this quarter. The one I'm most excited about is fashion and beauty photography. Our teacher, Greg DuPree, is kind of a great photographer ... not to mention that this is the kind of shooting that I want to be doing after school. He's also requiring us to use Hasselblads with digital backs! Can you say "effing awesome"?
Second most awesome class is Individual Projects, which is exactly how it sounds ... you get to shoot whatever you want. So I have to figure out what I want to shoot there.
Runners up in classes are a Weddings class, basically a lot of business talk bout how to make money and not get screwed. Last, and certainly least ... product illustration. I'm a people shooter. Products are fir someone else, but oh well, I'll learn it.

Oh yeah! I also have to have a hair stylist and makeup artist for my shoots in the fashion class, so I'll be teaming up with good ol' Sommerville for that. Good times.

I'm working on a special summer long project ... look for it at towards the end of summer, I'll keep you posted it's progress.
Here's a sneak ...

"intern"

I like how assholes think they can tack the word "intern" at the end of a job title and offer it for no pay.

Seriously. A person is going to spend their time and use their equipment to take photos for you. You need to pay them. You're admitting that you don't have the skills yourself by asking for someone else to do it. So please, respect these people and pay them.

Nice Glass

So a while ago, I bought my Canon 5D ... a very nice upgrade from my little Nikon D50. I love it, it's most beautiful thing ever ... maybe not ever, but you get the point. The images it produces with it's 12.8 megapixel full frame sensor are truly amazing. Small problem ... with a sensor of that quality, it captures more detail than smaller cameras, and it's quite unforgiving in that aspect. So to counter this you need higher quality lenses.

Unfortunately I spent so much on the camera body that I couldn't afford a nice lens. Right now I have a used (good story) Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. What does all of that mean? EF: just a standard Canon lens. Of course, you know what the zoom means. f/3.5-5.6: that's a shifting aperture. That's part of the problem. When at a wide angle, your maximum aperture value is f/3.5, but when you zoom in the maximum aperture is f/5.6. Without getting too technical, just know that it's not good. In addition to that, the quality of optics aren't as good as the L-series ... the premium Canon Lenses.

Well, L-series glass starts around $1000. I'm sure it goes without saying that I can't exactly afford that on my students budget. So, here it is ...

I'm accepting donations for some nice L-series glass. Seriously. I'll even make it worth your while ... you make a donation, I'll pay you back with photography. Maybe a nice portrait of yourself or family, or maybe a nice 11x14 print of one of my photos, something. Anything to say thanks. I'm serious.

Help a poor kid out!

The Land That Time Forgot

I think I know what the problem is ... I could never find a blogger template that I really liked. They would always have some layout features that I liked but were always lacking somewhere else. Enter the power of Google. Searching around today I found this sick template. I may go in later and change up the graphics and colors to matching my photography branding (assuming I ever get that done). But for now, I think it looks pretty awesome and the layout is perfect.

Speaking of pretty awesome, I found this thing called Pictobrowser. It pulls photos from your Flickr page and puts them in a really nice slide show.



Nice huh?