Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Goodbye Apt H in Asheboro, NC

I moved out of my apartment in Asheboro near school this past weekend..back to my parents house.. and I have lived there since May 06. ( I had moved there from another apartment in Asheboro..)

I am about to go to Boston for a 2 month internship that I'm totally stoked about.. and I needed to move out of my apartment in Asheboro to do that..

I took this photo last week while working at home on the computer for stuff for school around 4pm someday.
It really caught my eye for some reason.. the light was just really pretty coming in the way it was..


So I got my camera out and shot a few - like we photographers should do when we see something like that we would believe to make a great photo.. or we think should be a photo. Which, I know I don't do as often as I should. but.
I did it this time.

I desaturated it almost 50% in photoshop to give it a more interesting, graphic, older look. I like it.
Its a really simple photo but I didnt really have anything super interesting to post.. so I'm glad I shot these. =]

Its a simple photo... and a nice ending to this apartment that I called home for quite a while.

I will miss Asheboro but I'm totally excited about Boston.

I gave myself a goal to shoot at least one photo everyday while in Boston. and post it here or my other blog.
so keep a look out for Boston photos!

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Business Portrait (process post 4)

These are shots from the last shooting assignment for chuck.. we had to shoot a business portrait with working enviornment showing in the background and put it on a magazine cover in Indesign...

I was really stressed out and got this assignment via email from Chuck because he was sick.. so I called my dad up and asked if I could come photograph him at his office that afternoon. This his is actual office, how it was. He is a CPO at Starmount Company. I did all the type and what not by myself in indesign.. I found the smart money font!
I also should have added text to the side with his name and CFO of the year.. I did for print. I didn't turn it in like that but.. things could always be better like I always say. I was stressed and running low on time.. but I should have slowed down and thought about what I was shooting more. I also should have thought about the cover more and what to put on it.. but I spent a lot of time with this in indesign and tried to get the type nice so I didn't have to scan in a mast head of a magazine.



I shot it at my dads office in greensboro... I used alien bees and had a softbox to the left of the camera.. and kind of up high tilting down..
exposure: 1/60s @ f/9.5

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These are some process photos..(I forgot to shoot some of my business portrait)

These photos were at our commerical classes field trip to Kreber on last monday in High Point.
We went with James' class and he gave us already shot product and we( our group of 5 of us) had to put it together and shoot 5 different shots for a 2 page spread... and here are the shots of our set up..





Here is the shot produced from this set-up at Kreber...




These are shots from Sarah's Canon 5d.
exposure: 1/80s @ f/9

we had a light bouncing on the left out of a v-board and another bounce board on the right of the table.. we also had a light coming through a duratrans in the window. I think the duratrans really helped save our shot(we were kind of in a rut with it and it was really bland and boring..) It really helped give it a sense of time and place.. and opened it up. Even though its not really in the shot much, but I think it really adds something. I made the pretty drinks!

Let me know what you think!

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Monday, February 19, 2007

Asheboro!

Last week, we had to go out and shoot an object for james in random places that had certian specfications for the shot.. a scavenger hunt of sorts.

While out shooting around Asheboro for that assginment... I took these shots. These things and places called out to me to be photographed while I was walking around so I did just that, for myself. I like them.



Both of these shots were taken off Church st. in a sort of back alley - behind the old Straight A tattoo shop.
I really love the randomness of the chair. and I really love the saturation of that blue blue door against that red brick.
I love downtowns and the random old things that they hold. Its also nice to get to shoot the things you see and say "that'd be a great photo" instead of just passing them by.

Its the simple things that make me happy, really. =]

I will kind of miss Asheboro. haha.

exposures: blue door = 1/250s @ f/5.6
chair shot = 1/250s @ f/13


Enjoy.
Let me know what you think.

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Kelly Corset 2 (process 3)

These are some other shots I have from the corset piercing shoot.

I have been told by at least 3 people to post some of the photos that show her full piercing because they would like to see it and not to be afraid to post them. So I shall.. and If this kind of thing grosses you out, I'm sorry. You can look away but I hope you still enjoy looking at my photography.

Here are the shots.

This image doesn't show it completely.. but its another one of my favorite shots. These are the first few kinds of shots I was doing at the shoot - with the mirrors.


This is her full piercing. anyhow.. these mirrors were very helpful to create a more interesting shot without her having to look back at me and it just be her back. I should have moved her hair but I was focusing on the piercing and it was getting late... so that is for the excuses for it not being perfect. haha.. These were all shot at the Green Bean coffee shop in Downtown Greensboro.

Here is another shot that I like, that doesn't have to do with her piercing on her back. I think she has really pretty eyes and I forgot I had this shot - So I thought I'd post it. Her eye make up is a little messy on that one eye but like I said - this shoot was more about her piercing so. This was shot at the bar across the street from the green bean, I don't remember the name from it but its next to McCoul's pub. they had these really awesome old wooden and glass doors and stair case that we shot on.
enjoy.

Okay ignore this next shot - We have to do a few process posts during the semester required by our teacher for our multimedia class - in which this blog is required. We haven't had many shooting assignments in our other classes so and the ones we have had.. I have forgotten to shoot my set - up to show as a process post here on the blog. SO I drew one in photoshop.
you can laugh. its okay.

I just shot it with a soft box, up high on the right and tilted down. I used a bit of fill light from another alien bee I had bouncing off the ceiling on the left.. farther away.
sorry I don't have actually photos for it - this wasn't an assignment for school, it was a personal fun shoot SO yea but. anyhow.
SO there is my cheesy drawing.

exposures: first shot - 1/125s @ f/8
second shot - 1/125s @ f/6.7
third shot - 1/30s @ f/9.5.





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Monday, February 12, 2007

pringles

This was the first assignment from James this semester. We had to be in a group and design 8 different types of product shots and our products were pringles.

The next week, we traded our designs with another group and shot the shots that the other group designed.
Here are my two shots that I had to do, nothing that spectacular. but hey. I shot and edited them with in 5 hours. I think they are pretty fun shots.


This was a shot that was designed by Doug and when we designed them, we weren't sure if we were going to have to shoot them or not. Doug had designed a shot with the pringles man in it, which wasn't possible to do. I thought of doing a silo type thing of a person eating pringles instead and while editing them, I layered different exposures of the shots and made the pringle and the can pop out of the silo with a layer mask.This was a simple product shot, using an interesting angle. Rachel designed this shot and she said I did her shot perfectly. =]

Exposures: shot one = 1/125s @ f/22
shot two= 1/125s @ f/16
both shot in the RCC studio with bronocolor lights.

let me know what you think!

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Joint Project Shots

We are doing a joint project with the graphic design students... we have to choose a product/service and shoot it and they design layouts, magazine ads, billboards etc.

I haven't really been happy with this assignment(with what I've produced for it), but I'm sure when its all put together in the layouts that it will all look a lot better.

We did a place called Southern Supreme, located in Bear Creek, NC.
They are famous for their fruitcake and have been on Good Morning America.
They also have hand made truffles, chocolates, jellys, gift baskets and cookies. Its kind of like a small town version of the fresh market.
We are actually doing this for Southern Supreme, they might actually "buy" these shots and designs from us.

^ this shot is going to be used for a billboard. its crumbs from a fruitcake and the ad is going to say something about how tasty it is.

I'm not quite sure what this shot will be used for, but its probably going to be used for a magazine ad and/or on their website. They are their handmade truffles.

Exposures: shot 1 - 1/125s @ f/16
shot 2 - 1/125s @ f/9.5
They were both shot in the studio with bronocolor lights.

I haven't really been that happy with what I've been shooting lately. Things could always be better, but they serve the purpose for the ads and show the product nicely.

let me know what you think!

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Monday, February 05, 2007

Kelly Corset

this weekend I got the chance to shoot a girl, named Kelly, getting a corset piercing(we shot her getting the piercing and then we had a "fashiony" shoot afterwords).. which is what you think it is. 18 piercings on her back, 9 on each side.
a piercing that looks like a corset.. I don't want to post any of full shots of her piercing on here because I don't want to scare certain people away from my blog who might not think its as beautiful as I do.
I have many more shots of her back with the full piercing but these are the few of my real favorites from the shoot actually. She is a pretty girl.


but she looks like a new age pinup girl.


I really wanted to just shoot her as a pinup, more so than her corset piercing but later on down the road we are going to go all out and do a pinup shoot and do her hair and get awesome outfits.

I actually did do photoshop work on these. I remembered the skin smoothing trick and played with it some to give a softer, smoother look.
I was actually editing these to send to her and then I was playing with the second one and saw this crop out of it and was playing with the color temperature in the RAW window and really liked this setting for some reason. It gives an classic pinup feel and it really works well with that blue wall. I usually don't manipulate my photos like that much with the color balance but I just like it.
(you can also see the top of her piercing in this photo as well.)

I shot these at the green bean in downtown Greensboro on Saturday.
with my fujiS3, 24-85mm lens and alien bees. with a soft box.


I'm happy because I didn't think I got any thing that fabulous out of the shoot, but here we go. I had other ideas in my head, but the day didn't go exactly as planned and so I had to work with what ended up happening..I'm pretty happy with these two and I'm really liking what I did to the second one - I haven't had that great of a result in playing with photoshop in a while. its a good feeling.

let me know what you think!

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Jewelry - process post 2

So. our second assignment for chuck was to shoot jewelry. on 4x5 chrome, which I hadn't done since the beginning of last semester. it was definitely a nice refresher - I miss 4x5 sometimes. I'm definitely a film girl at heart.

I'm going to go ahead and say - my film looks a lot better than my scan. and I did a 3f scan! so I don't know. things could always be better. I haven't been very happy with what my end product is when I've been shooting lately.

I'm decently happy with this but like I said, It could always be better.

^ this is the 3f scan shot, raw. no photoshop. SEE! the 'base+fog"!

^ this is the final edit.
its the same scan, photoshopped(for flaws, color,etc). I wanted to try and layer together some different exposures but I had moved my necklace and my "circles of confusion" are different in every shot just about. so it didn't really work out. I had to adjust a lot(while shooting, the necklace kept moving so yea). I don't really like this crop b/c we had to crop it to 8.5" x 9.5"in photoshop and it makes it look fat. and too wide. but.
ALSO. something happened where the right side of the necklace was hanging forward too much towards the lens and happened to get out of focus - I had schiemflugged a bit. but nothing drastic. and my bellows seemed to have been "bellowing" a little bit(haha, no pun intended!) so. not too sure what happened. but

Here are my process posts, my set up.
I had to use 2 bellows!(w00t) and 2 extension tubes.
I shot with a 210mm lens
and fuji provia 100 chrome 4x5 film. on a sinar f1.
exposure: 1/4th of a second @ f/5.6
broncolor lights.
Soft box on the left and a hard light with a blue gel on the background.
fill card on the right side of the necklace and fill card below the necklace.

for the background - I also added (after I shot these process photos) Christmas lights to the background hanging on a Matthews stand to get the lovely 'circles of confusion' in the background.
Chuck said to make it up close and dazzling and that is what i did. I took me a while to set it up and I was bored with just the blue background and so I rummaged thru the prop room and found some Xmas lights and put them in the background to add some pop and glitz to the shot.

I am decently happy with it. It took me 5 hours to set up and shoot. so I hope its at least decent. ha ha

Let me know what you think! <3>

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