Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Undergroundies Unite!

It's been slow going on the photo front since my Mechanimal shoot. Duquesne University bought that batch of photos and put a few on their website. Scroll about halfway down the page and you'll see it. Notice the photo credit they gave me, how exciting! Last week Stephen Douglas, a local metalworker, hired me to shoot a couple of his pieces to determine if he'd like me to shoot all his work. He and I met last year when we both had work displayed in a Liquid Sunday gallery. I traded him a black and white portrait of my muse, megan, for a big metal bunny. I told him I'd love to light-paint his work. The deed is done!



The light-painting was actually just an afterthought. All the major shooting was done at the terminal building. To see the rest of his amazing work you'll have to jump over to my flickr account. It was a delight to work with Stephen for a few reasons. Firstly, he bought me a hot dog on the way to the shoot site. Second, he's a local self-taught artisan who's clearly bound for greatness. I can't wait to shoot the rest of his work! It wasn't quite the challenge that I've faced shooting portfolios of client's oil paintings (what a nightmare), but the two pieces that I shot were shiny, intricate, and loved to take all the light and suck it into some hidden black hole of no return. I thought light painting would be the way to go, but there were still spots of glare. Shooting in the soft, even light of the terminal building was better, but didn't quite do the trick. Next time I'm planning on building a big light tent like i did way back in the day for this shot. Then again, natural light is my friend, and I reckon that's going to be the best route for his work.

Today my friend Joel of Zombietown Productions gave me one of his t-shirts that he designed and I decided to do a self-portrait shoot a la zombie in the hopes that he will keep dumping his spare merchandise on me. Like with Stephen, I'm just keen to being a part of local artists' struggle to the big time. Maybe when all the bands I've photographed get signed to major labels, and zombietown prints are flying off the shelves of indie boutiques, they'll remember dear old me and ask me to stick with them as their camera girl.



Their undead camera girl.


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