My studio is located within @thefort614, which is a 130 year old warehouse on the south side of Columbus. It used to be the home of the Seagrave Company, which used the space to manufacture fire engines and other rescue vehicles, for over 60 years. Every square inch of the building has a glorious patina that can’t be faked. The cracked plaster, distressed flooring, and sun-faded glass is something especially rare in this fast growing city, populated with new builds…
Read MoreImages From Latest Creative Portrait Workshop
This past weekend I taught a 2-day Creative Portrait workshop at my Columbus, Ohio studio. Students came in from Utah, Arizona, Texas, and New York. It was an intimate time of learning, experimentation, and creativity…
Read MoreElastic Plastic: Exploring a New Material with Alayna
Here's some recent work with @a.bean.sprout. It's been a couple years since our last collaboration and was a great time of conversation and art-making. I especially had fun exploring shooting through a piece of plastic that my friend @davidtsigler salvaged from an old Mac monitor. The red in that first image is actually a warped reflection of the red shirt I happened to be wearing at the shoot. My mind is still pouring over the possibilities that this material affords me.
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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…
Read MoreThe Boy Who Was Struck By Lightning
When @mengesdesign was 8 years old he was struck by lightning. That random fact immediately came to mind as we looked over the first two images from our latest collaboration…
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Creating Dappled Light with a DIY Reflector
What if I told you that i only used one light to create this image. It’s true. I used one of my favorite lighting modifiers— a DIY reflector…
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Americana / Film Noir with Skrizzly Adams
One day last year (what is time) I worked with @alexhaldi of @pawncreative to create art for the new @skrizzlyadams album cycle. We shot a bunch of smoky images on location at a bar to match the classic Americana aesthetic of the artist. My assistant @sethmosesmiller helped me position a snooted speedlite up near the ceiling for the first setup, which created a shaft of light in the smoke. For the second setup we wanted to imply sunlight coming through the window blinds but since it was in fact a rainy morning we had to fake the light with a projector. Less is more, more or less.
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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.
Read MoreCollaboration 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…
Read MoreShutter 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…
Read MoreCollaboration with Clothing Designer Xuena Pu
This was a deceptively simple shoot. Designer Xuena Pu makes garments with bold shapes, so I decided to make a range of basic shapes in Photoshop which I projected onto fabric behind the model. I made the shapes orange and chose to light the model with a complementary color of cyan. I used a softbox to create even, flattering light, making to add a grid to in order to avoid overlighting the backdrop. I then posed Dajia so that her lines (or lines from the garment) either aligned or broke out of the projected shapes.
Read MoreLong Exposures with Dancers Wrapped in LEDs
In my last post I mentioned how I’ve struggled for years to capture the essence of a dancer in a single frame. These are more attempts in this ongoing quest…
Read MoreMy Travel Gear Kit
This is my travel kit. I’ve whittled down my gear over the years to get the leanest and meanest kit possible. With this two camera, two lens, two light setup I can easily travel and solo shoot, creating a broad range of indoor and outdoor scenarios.
Read MoreMy Photography Studio: From Basement to Loft
This is my studio. Not even 5 years ago my studio was in my basement. The ceiling was just under 7ft and the foundation leaked every time it rained. My lighting kit was little more than a couple battery-powered flashes and a desk lamp. Though I only had a tiny space and limited gear, it was my space. I learned to use every inch of that studio and gear…
Read MoreEphemera: A Collaboration with Hana Mendel and Celeste Malvar-Stewart
Last week I collaborated with Hana Mendel (an amazing photographer, illustrator, guitarist, etc) and clothing designer Celeste Malvar-Stewart. In an effort to maintain social distance guidelines, Celeste dropped off her garments, giving us permission to style and shoot them as we saw fit. Hana showed up ready to shoot and I kept my distance, wearing a mask the whole time. Save for the addition of wearing a mask, the shoot wasn’t any different from my other personal shoots— I always work with a minimal or non-existent crew…
Read MoreShe's on Fire
A couple weeks ago I shot with photographer/model/stylist Hayle Cordle and I leaned back into my passion for color. Since I wrapped writing for Chroma two years ago I have shifted my focus from color to experimenting more with abstraction and texture. This felt more like a simple study of mood, via color. I need to give myself permission to do more of these simple, fun explorations. It’s restorative.
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Trauma Portraits (Series)
In 2017 I began a series exploring trauma. I invited participants to come share their story with me, which was followed by a brief portrait session. I had subjects gather several images (or a video) that represented a time of significant trauma in their lives, which they brought to my studio to share with me. When they arrived we took some time to sit and discuss their story. After chatting I took the imagery they brought, loaded it into a slideshow, and projected it onto them while I created multiple-exposure portraits. As the photographic layers began to stack up, the projected images of trauma became less and less recognizable and only the colors and fragmented shapes remained. Old photos representing terror and loss began to disintegrate. Scars transformed into beauty marks, wounds and wholeness inextricable.
Read MoreA Rose by Another Name
As quarantine restrictions are starting to loosen I am slowly resuming shooting with people IRL, which is such a blessing. This was a quick study of soft pastel colors, which I selected based off Rose’s wardrobe. For the final scenario I (subconsciously?) had Rose cover her face in one of her shirts, which gave the image a mysterious, even mournful look. Though we are beginning to go back to work and return to “normal”, the quarantine has left an obvious mark on human interactions.
Read MoreMetal Hammer Magazine: Lamb of God
Back in February I had the opportunity to photograph the metal legends Lamb of God in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia. I was told that the theme of the story was revolution so I began to brainstorm ideas for lighting, pose, and technique that would match. We used orange as the color palette, giving a nod to Russian propaganda posters. I also decided to give a nod to the infamous NWA album cover for Straight Outta Compton.
Read MoreEpisode Two of The Creative Portrait
Episode two of The Creative Portrait is now live. In case you missed my previous post, I am teaching my entire creative process in a multi-episode video series. In this episode I cover the following setups:
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