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 MoreHow to Create Practical Effects in Photographs without Photoshop
Lately I’ve been exploring different ways to manipulate my images after the fact. Since I’m not great at Photoshop creating realistic effects in Photoshop and don’t like the absence of “happy accidents” when working on a digital file, I prefer to print the images and then physically modifying them. So far I’ve explored crumpling prints, poking holes in them, submerging them in water, and lighting them from below before re-shooting them…
Read MoreThe Great American Road Trip
A couple weeks ago I booked a shoot in Los Angeles but given the extremely high numbers of covid cases I decided to avoid the airports and turn it into a road trip. Though I had made a similar cross-country trip twenty years ago with a friend, this time it was a solo trip through a country in lockdown. It was more than a little unnerving to stop off to fuel up at the only town within 50 miles only to find that every gas station, restaurant, and hotel is closed. I couldn’t help but think about books and films depicting a post-apocalyptic country where one could go days without human contact. That said, the beautiful diversity of landscape hit me especially hard; the mountains, deserts, and the kitsch making me more grateful than ever for this country…
Read More34 West Theater Co. 2021 Season
This was my 11th season working with 34 West Theater, who are based in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Over the years we’ve grown be be good friends and I always look forward to seeing what we create together. What I love about them is their willingness to improvise. Though I suppose that’s an element that most actors celebrate, it’s not always the case that I’m given such a broad range of creative freedom in a shoot. They always come to the shoot with a broad range of outfits, props, and some general ideas for where they’d like the images to go, but they ultimately leave it up to me to transform their ideas into images that they’ll use for promoting their upcoming shows…
Read MorePlants 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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The Unmasking: Shoot, Print, Shoot
Last week I shot had a brief session with @mundermonster. I shot for about five minutes, capturing a range of poses. Then I took a break to import the images, select a favorite, and print it out on an office inkjet printer. Then the shoot resumed and I directed Mary in using the print as a prop. I really love this as a visual metaphor for the perceived self…
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