Recent Work
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Recent Work

I have fallen behind when it comes to blogging, but still wanted to update it periodically. Here’s some of my favorite work from the last six weeks…

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Photo Shoot with Ballerina Dancer
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Photo Shoot with Ballerina Dancer

I rarely go into a shoot with a fixed notion of how I want it to go, or how I want the images to look. I often base my techniques, color palette, and post processing on what the moment dictates…

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The Negative Side of Social Media : Commissioned by Unsplash
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

The Negative Side of Social Media : Commissioned by Unsplash

As some of my longtime followers know, I’ve had a complicated relationship with social media. In 2019 I was experiencing so much anxiety that I permanently deleted all of my accounts (60,000 followers over 3 platforms) with no plans to return. I spent the next year off the grid. Though I’d already been in therapy for years I also began going to a support group for adult survivors of childhood abuse (ASCA). I started climbing and began regularly cycling again. The combination of processing trauma, moving my body, and removing myself from situations and relationships that exacerbated my anxieties, I began to heal…

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My Colorful Portrait Shoot for Tech Industry's Sidebar
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

My Colorful Portrait Shoot for Tech Industry's Sidebar

Back in January I had the privilege of working with Sidebar to create a library of images for their new website launch. I’m so grateful for such a wonderful opportunity and true collaboration with the team at Sidebar as well as the designers and creatives at Mackey Saturday that developed the campaign. Big thanks to @elizabethcareysmith for art directing, @kyleameeks for assisting, @xixstudios for hosting, and all the subjects for bringing power and joy to the shoot.

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Using a Fungus-Filled Lens with Long Exposure and Prisms to Create Psychedelic In-Camera Effects
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Using a Fungus-Filled Lens with Long Exposure and Prisms to Create Psychedelic In-Camera Effects

Whenever I’m doing a personal shoot I try to make at least one small change to a tried-and-true technique in an effort to see how the resulting images differ from previous sessions. For example, let’s say I’m shooting long exposures in a darkened room while my subject is wrapped in strands of LED lights and moving around the room. Each image is different based on their movement, which creates unique light trails. In the following shoot I might have the subject and camera stationary as I swing the strand of LEDs around the room, thus framing the subject in light. Another session might involve me moving my camera while the subject and lights are unmoving. Each tweak of the formula creates dramatically different results and I frequently discover new techniques through these experiments…

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Shoot with Fashion Photographer Gail Shamon
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Shoot with Fashion Photographer Gail Shamon

This was a fun, quick little shoot with fellow photographer and friend @gabrielleshamon. Gail did her own hair, makeup, and styling. I did three lighting setups, sticking to a red/yellow/blue color triad. I simply rotated out gels on my main, background, and rim lights for each set. This allowed me to have a broad range of looks that still felt related to each other, all in a short amount of time (I think we shot for about 45 minutes).

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Why We Choose to Suffer: Conceptual Portrait for Wall Street Journal
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Why We Choose to Suffer: Conceptual Portrait for Wall Street Journal

I was recently commissioned to create a conceptual portrait to accompany the @wsj article, “Why We Choose to Suffer.” The essay is an excerpt from Paul Bloom’s upcoming book, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, which touches on why we humans often choose things that create unpleasant moments for ourselves, and how these moments can ultimately lead to growth and even pleasure…

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Bold Colors and Shapes with Ballet Dancer Kristie Latham
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Bold Colors and Shapes with Ballet Dancer Kristie Latham

My latest shoot with dancing queen, Kristie Latham. We’ve been shooting together for over a decade now and it’s fun to look back at how our work together has evolved over the years. I started off with a simple color and shape study with the Lindsay Adler Optical Spot (Kristie styled her wardrobe). Then I finished the shoot with some long exposure work (I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this technique).

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All the Things with Annika
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

All the Things with Annika

This was my first shoot with Annika Peterson and we did all the things. I started off with some light lighting, using a black fiber optic brush and orange gel from Light Painting Brushes. After that I explored making long exposures while rotating a linear prism FX filter and multi-strobing my flash. Finally, I took some shots with my fungus-filled lens, using shutter drag and an LED with changing colors.

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Images From My Creative Portrait Workshop
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Images From My Creative Portrait Workshop

This past weekend I hosted a 2-day Creative Portrait workshop at my studio. In an effort to keep the atmosphere intimate and allow for a lot of hands-on time for students, I capped the workshop at 5 students. We covered a range of techniques such as using flags to shape light; color theory; making and using snoots; long exposure portraits; and lighting with projectors. We packed a lot in, as you can see below…

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Vesperteen Promo Shoot
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Vesperteen Promo Shoot

My buddy Colin Rigsby has a music project called Vesperteen, and he reached out to me to do a shoot last month. Colin and I go way back. His wife was friends with my wife before I ever met her. I attended his wedding, did several shoots with his old band, House of Heroes, and shared many great moments over the past two decades. It was great to catch up, shared some laughs, and create some beautiful art. We created a wide range of vibrant, kinetic images in promotion of his new music

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What is Time?
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

What is Time?

I did some more time explorations in my latest shoot with Katy. I began with the same technique I explored in my last session, shooting long exposures with multi-strobing lights…

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Tryzdin Grubbs (American Idol contestant) Photo Shoot
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Tryzdin Grubbs (American Idol contestant) Photo Shoot

Tryzdin Grubbs is an uber-talented, 15-year old singer from Columbus. He also just happened to get accepted onto the latest season of American Idol. Before the episode had even aired, Tryzdin popped by my studio for a photo shoot. This was our third shoot in as many years and this one was the most dynamic yet. We’ve both grown quite a bit in our respective crafts and so it was cool to see what new things we were bringing to the shoot, from a personal and professional standpoint. Here are just a few of the different looks that we knocked out in the brief but efficient, one-hour shoot.

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Collaboration with Sustainable Fashion Designer Malvar = Stewart
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Collaboration with Sustainable Fashion Designer Malvar = Stewart

Celeste Malvar-Stewart is a fashion designer that specializes in using locally-sourced, sustainable materials in the garments she makes. I’ve collaborated with Celeste several times over the years and the thing that I especially love about our shoots is how open she is with the way I interpret her garments. She simply hands me a garment bag filled with delicate treasures and tells me to style and shoot them however I please. I am someone who thrives in situations like this— just improvising and figuring it out as I go. The more I plan ahead, the more anxious I get at all the possible points of failure. If you don’t have a concrete plan you can’t be held responsible if you deviate from it…

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Plants and Plastic with Chyna
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Plants and Plastic with Chyna

I’ve collaborated with Chyna a dozen times now, and we’ve since become friends. She recently came by the studio and we chatted about work, life, and plants, among other things. I had recently propagated one of my plants by splitting it into two pots, one of which I gave to her. Before she left I asked if she would want to do an impromptu shoot with her new green friend. After snapping a few frames with the plant I convinced her to let me shoot some colorful long exposure images…

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Shutter Drag with Window Light  / Creating Dappled Light with DIY Reflector
Nick Fancher Nick Fancher

Shutter Drag with Window Light / Creating Dappled Light with DIY Reflector

I wanted to create a dappled light effect, similar to sunlight reflected off of windows. I actually came across this effect by accident. I bought some mirror stickers used for crafting, which I adhered to a piece of cardboard. I had scored the cardboard on the back which made it an easy-to-carry tri-fold reflector. The happy accident came about in that the corrugated cardboard texture created the dappled light effect when lit with a bright light source, in this case a flash…

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