Spring Cleaning Part Two

I'll be spending the next few millennium sorting through my deviantart account. I haven't posted anything on there in months, maybe over a year, and it's no longer a good representation of my work. So I'll be saving all the files to an external hard drive and deleting that account. Then I'm going to find the images I still like and putting them in a special blast from the past set on flickr. In the meantime, while all of this is slowly executed, Little Magpie Photography of facebook will be showcasing one photo a day from "the vault". It makes me a little sad to go back through these, reminding me of my first hard drive crash and, two years later, my first external hard drive crash. Thousands of photos were lost and all I have left are the few small files posted on deviantart. I learned a lot about organization and file backup, though.

Here, as a special little treat, is my first attempt at double exposure in a darkroom from 2004. It's poorly scanned and really not so grand, but it was a first and I'm still proud of it.

Cheers!

Spring Cleaning

When I learned from the New York Times that T-Pain is only 24, I realized that I haven't been trying very hard to get myself anywhere with my art. I've spent today replenishing my craigslist posts for freelance photography, working on my web presence as much as I can without spending mad money, manually fixing all my business cards with a sharpie, and planning new projects.

I forgot a few weeks ago to mention the new photos on flickr of what most people have grown to call snowmageddon. I realize that everyone has shared their snow photos with the internet, but it's important to have these images when it's 80 degrees out and we're hating the heat. So here's a few nibbles of that photoset! Check out the rest at flickr at your leisure.








There's plenty more sparkly shiny shots of the snow before it stopped being fun and pretty where that came from!

So the daily grind continues with breif moments of photo joy, and life goes on as peachy as usual. Keep an eye out for new photos, and keep the other eye out for deals on a new or used Nikon SB-600, Rodrigo y Gabriela LP's, and cute dresses to celebrate the return of good weather.

Hellavator

Took some new photos in the Terminal Building of Jayke. I've edited up to six versions of each photo, and you can have a look at them on flickr.

Here's some now!

Josh the Ripper goes to school

At last! I'm finally getting back to what I love to do; sneaking into abandoned buildings and light painting. My friend Josh, who you may recall from the family portrait shoot with Mel and Lydia, took me to a school in Larimer that hasn't had students since the seventies. It was legitimately creepy but I stifled my thoughts of zombies to shoot a round of portraits of my fashion-forward model and his decayed surroundings.




These are all six to fourty-five second shots using flashlights only. The only editing that I did was tone, contrast, and saturation. I'm really happy with the result!






Be sure to look at the whole set on flickr!

Dark Sky

Look what I saw!

More soon.

Flora and Fauna

Last week I was taken on a surprise adventure to Phipps Conservatory and the National Aviary. I was preened by some flamingos, but the camera made them nervous so I couldn't get a good shot of them chest-bumping us. But here's some other things I got!








I'd never been to the conservatory at night and I really liked it. The light was totally different so I finally got so see all the fantastic plants in a new way. I dig it, yes I do.








As always, it was no tripod allowed, but I think I made a few good photos anyway. The rest will be on flickr in a jiffy!

An Enduring Conundrum

Two winters ago my friend Dan Vogel asked me to photograph myself so he could paint my portrait. His painting was beautiful and was recently sold to Tim Victim, the gentleman who administered my first professional tattoo. Sometime shortly after the completion of the painting, I was hired to photograph the painting (of the photograph of myself, haha) to use on bus stop billboards around the city. "How fun and easy", thought I to myself, "to photograph a flat object that won't move."

I was very wrong. Oil paintings are hell to photograph. I was hired by a woman a few months later to photograph her entire portfolio of paintings which were textured and shiny and complex. I nearly turned down the offer because of my experience shooting the portrait of myself.

I don't yet have a solution. The color balance must be spot on to accurately portray the painting. That issue isn't nearly as befuddling as the light. Because it's shiny and textured, oil paint looks different from every angle, no matter how even the light is.

Here's the photograph that I took of myself for Dan to use as reference.



I've made a note that the next time I sit for a portrait, I should adjust my bra straps and reduce the amount of crazy-eye I'm unleashing. Anyway, here are some of the photos that I took of the painting. These are unedited to show just how tricky oil is.










And so on. Below is the shot we settled on. I plan to work on this some more. Still, I think I'll try to get more gigs shooting tattoo artist's work and not so much painter's portfolios.





P.S.- On the link I've put there from Dan's name, you can see a picture of the billboard. Neat!