Category Archives: personal work

Thursday Throwdown! Mad Max Edition

Today I finally watched Mad Max : Fury Road, and although I’m sure that this movie wasn’t for everyone I was enthralled for the entire 2 hours!  With some over the top violence, sparse and mumbled dialogue from time to time and a plot that may have been thin here and there you may wonder what I have to rave about here.

Well, I watched the Black and Chrome Edition (seek it out on your favorite streaming service  for purchase or pick up a disk for archival purposes).  This was the version that George Miller (director) prefers himself.  The oversaturated oranges and blues were to differentiate it from other post-apocalyptic movies and WOW audiences.  It did just that with a great box office record to show for it.

I have always had a thing for B/W imagery and movies,  probably stemming from my days in the darkroom back in the day.  It’s timeless, it’s classic, it doesn’t reflect whatever crazy hues were in style right now but gone next season.  I’ll show you an example here of one of my puppies…

This image is straight out of camera (SOOC) unedited and it’s fine.  Fine is nice (I should’ve mowed the lawn before maybe), but we want exemplary, we want AWESOME!  Don’t get me wrong, Frejya IS awesome but this image was just fine.

There, that’s better…  A little more contrast, a little more OOOMMPPFF!  I should totally hang this on the wall!

For another amazing B/W movie take a minute and seek out Pi (directed by Darren Aronofsky), shot in B/W using a high contrast reversal film process!

For a peek at what inspired this post take a look at the video below…  (let me know what you thought in the comments!!)

Something different…

  I am a people photographer, interacting with people, bringing out their personality in the photo, coaxing out another personality they want in the photo, it’s half of the fun.  Oftentimes people walk away from a photoshoot feeling better than when they arrived, more confident, sexier, their head held a little higher maybe…

  I know a lot of photographers who are great at their craft, very talented people, but won’t photograph a human to save their life!!  But the landscape images and flowers and macros and still-lifes they create are amazing.  Every once in a while I force myself to try to see the personality in something that I can’t talk to and coax it out of, sometimes I succeed, sometimes not…

 

These flowers seemed to be basking in the last rays of the sun, aching for it’s warmth before the light gave way to darkness and cold…

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In the shade of a stand of trees this little one spread its petals as wide as possible in a desperate plea for attention, this bright tiny (about a 1/2” across) flower screaming to be known…

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This last one stood confidently in the sun, strong and tall, showing off it’s clean lines and almost European good looks…

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Do you think that any of them walked away from their session more confidently?  Take a look next time you see them and let me know…

Michael

ps:  when is your session?

Uh oh! (some peronsal work too!)

Okay, I apologize, that was really rude of me!

…what? you’re confused now? Alright, it has been almost three months since I blogged last! Well, I meant to, I mean we’ve had a great summer, weddings, engagement shoots, seniors, I even uploaded the images to blog about! And then…

…nothing…

I have a bunch of stuff coming and a schedule now for blogging so keep an eye out for that. I have been updating facebook pretty regularly (a lot of the images are for clients on there, so they’ve seen all the nice new stuff).

Jessi will look familiar to most of you guys, we have worked with her to produce headshots two years in a row for her dance competitions as well as photographed a recital. It was during that recital when I was rather overwhelmed with emotion that I got the idea to do some dance related images with Jessi. These images are only the starting point for this project…

reflections

such grace and beauty…
dance on the path

we had been up a little arlier that day and captured this…
morning beauty

Jessi’s beauty is matched only by her talent…
a chilly start

early flight

Many thanks to Jessi for getting up so early to help with this, we’ll setup another session after a while.

As always comments are greatly appreciated, either here or via email, let me know what you think!