We had a bouquet of flowers on our dining room table for the last two weeks, and it had been dead for easily half that time. When I finally got around to tossing the dead flowers I caught myself and decided instead to bring them to my studio to photograph. Though I’ve been photographing flowers and plants for years I’ve never thought to document them after their prime. I added in some dead leaves from one of our ailing house plants to round out my decay study. I enjoyed these studies so much that I may begin a new series around it.
Read MoreStrata VIII
I’ve shot with rubber cement half a dozen times now, each time slightly changing not only how I apply the material to the plexiglass but also how I light it and process the images in post. Though I’m getting closer to what I’m going for in this series, there are still so many variables to explore with this material. Over the past year I’ve experimented with shooting through a range of substances and materials to get more painterly or sculptural results, titling the series Strata. You can view my other texture explorations here.
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Zoom Drag
This was a fun, quick session. A simple setup— just one light and a projector— with a dramatic result. I was experimenting with zooming my lens from 35mm to 16mm as I simultaneously panned the camera during the long exposure. The strobe on the background kept her silhouette intact while the projector and camera movement created the wavy, fluid lines.
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Seasonal Affective Disorder and Hunting For Light
Lately I’ve been hyper-focused on light and texture. I can get seasonal affective disorder (SAD) pretty bad in the winter when the days are shorter and days or even weeks can go by without the appearance of the sun. When the sun does decide to make an appearance it feels like I’m awaking from a coma. I notice qualities of the light that I would likely otherwise ignore the rest of the year when sunlight is plentiful: how the light looks like water through an old window; the shapes that it creates when it hits a living room armchair; how it moves across nearby buildings until it hits a window and bounces into an otherwise dark corner of my room. It’s magical. I’ve recently taken to carrying a mirrorless camera around with me to make sure I’m ready when the sun hits.
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One Man's Trash...
This marks my third shoot with Melissa this year. Though she now lives in NYC, she was in town for the holidays and asked if I’d be interested in doing a plastic-themed shoot. In preparing for the shoot sent me a few images from a recent Vogue Portugal fashion story that implemented single-use plastics into their shoot. I really enjoyed how they repurposed trash into the creation of something new and beautiful. I knew that I would want to take a different approach to the idea by capturing the texture of the materials and experimenting with creating more abstract portraits, and so I asked Melissa to “rescue” a range of plastic from her life over the next week and bring a range of options with her to the shoot…
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Strata V
This was my first attempt at implementing color into my oil portraits. I have been a fan of Andres Serrano’s Immersions series for a long time and decided to use Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ as a color reference. Aside from loving his use of reds and yellows, I’ve always been struck by the coexistence of danger and beauty in Serrano’s images, which are themes I’m exploring in this series.
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Strata III
I’ve been working with oil and honey for several shoots now. I’ve also tried shooting through plastic wrap, which has a really nice texture. Though I really like the texture of the oil shots, I want to figure out how to show a bit more of the subject without making it too literal. I also want to try out implementing color into these.
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And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
I was recently enrolled in Sara Lando’s online photography course, The Support Group for Lazy Photographers. Though she has been teaching the course for many years, this was the first time that she offered it in English. I immediately signed up, excited at the thought of what she would compel me to create.
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