JULIA II

            So, once again, Julia modeled for me. And once again, she amazed me. She's pretty, she has a great sense of style, and she is a GREAT poser. She just knows how to work the camera. She also has a very personable personality. I hope that makes sense. If it didn't, we'll just go with "she's very nice".

     I wanted to see how good at posing she was. Challenge her a bit. So, I put her in front of a white seemless background, with no props, no anything, and I told her to just do her thing. "pose". As I walked over to my camera, she started twisting and spinning around. I said " just keep doing that. She laughed and kept going. It was maybe one of the most graceful things I've ever seen.

                             

   With this shoot, I wanted to show off a little of her figure. But in a tasteful way. Show a little skin and a little "wow". Now to make this shoot a little more interesting, Julia's boyfriend came to the shoot. I have had boyfriends come to shoots before and it is never any fun. They don't get mad at me, they get mad at their girlfriend and the whole shoot goes down the drain. It didn't take me long to realize that Jace was not going to be a problem, he was a super big help to me. A second pair of eyes, if you will. Pointing thing out to me that I didn't see. So, I''d like to say "Thanks, Jace!".

    Julia alway dresses super nice and somewhat elegant at work. And she always wear stockings. Fancy stockings. I don't think she's worn the same stocking twice in a two week period. I guess their like a trademark of hers. Great legs, great stockings. That was my though for this photo.

     In closing, I'd like to thank Julia for her hard work and her commitment to helping me improve my portfolio. And in putting up with my never ending complements at work. 

 I think she called me a "peeping Tom" during this shot...lol!...she's got a sense of humor, too.

It's been awhile: Here's some of the my favorites from the past months.

 Sometimes a person just needs some quiet time. Riverfront Park can be very quiet, if you let it.

   I took these two over 4th of July weekend. The one above is old cement walls from some sort of building that was long gone. I could have spent hours there, but we had to get the fireworks to the lake, so that the photo on the right could take place. That photo is a 6 second exposure from our grand finale. It didn't go as planned. But no one was hurt, very badly. Joe burned his hand and jennifer's hair was on fire, briefly. But I had a tripod to hide behind!

   One day this spring I was at school walking to catch my bus, when I came across this sidewalk chalk drawing contest outside the library. That is where I took this photo. At the time, I didn't know how much it would affect me. I titled this photo "Love for Alice". To me, at a glance, it looks as though the artist is wiping a tear off Alice's check. That is a sign of love. Love for her art, love for what see made. This is like my own love for my art, my Photos. The difference here is after a few days, Alice will be gone, her art will be gone and only those there that day will have seen it. But I saw it and I loved it... okay, off my soapbox...



...and on to a few portraits.

    So I would like to say a little about the first one. This a a guy I work with. And he makes a lot of faces. He is a character. I am so glad he agreed to do the shoot be cause it turned out great. I'd like to thank all my models for agreeing to do a shoot and showing up and going through with it. It's not easy standing in front of a camera and let a weird guy photograph you, but you all did a great job.

Another "revisited" photo.

    This photo was taken on a very overcast day. I really liked the background and surrounding area, I liked the pose. The only thing that was troubling to me was the lighting. It was an impromptu shoot and I didn't have a flash, or a tripod, or reflector, or anything. So, I just turned up my iso on my camera and shot. So, the photo was very grainy.

     I basically just messed around in photo shop and came up with this photo. It was a lot of trail and error. A lot of "that looks cool, I wonder if I can do this?...". I learned a lot during the creation of this photo. The main thing I learned was, always carry my speedlight with me!

"Not Abstract Enough"

    That was the reason why I never pulled this shot up in photo shop at the time I was editing this shoot I had with Sarah and Des. I just didn't like the background. And I didn't care for the posing in the shot either. So, naturally, I thought what a great photo to use for my "photos revisited" series. A photo that I never did anything with anyway. And I guess I really still don't have anything to say about the photo now, even after I messed around with it. It's ok, I just still don't really like it. We got a lot of great shots from this shoot, but I don't think this was one of them.

The Truth Sometimes Hurts

        Here is the next photo in my "photos revisited" series. Another photo that I first posted on this blog. The truth Guy. When I brought this photo back into photo shop, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. So I selected the word truth and gave it a drop shadow, it looked as though the word was coming off his chest. So, I turned the drop shadow red, and it looked like the word was ripping off his chest. "The truth hurts" Whether your "getting" something off your chest or whether someone is "drilling" you with the truth. I know I have been hurt with the truth many times. That is what this photo ending up meaning to me...

The Girl With The Dragon..wait,...The Girl With The Octopus Tattoo.

      So I have decided to revisit some photos that I have already taken and see if I can't do a little something to them in photo shop. Some photos I will already have edited and liked, and some I will have looked over and just have stored away, never to be seen again.

       This image is one of the first that I posted on this blog. It was one of my tattooed bodyscapes. Everyone who has seen it, including myself, thinks that it was one of the best I photographed for the series. So if it's so good, why did I mess with it? I don't know. It is just a beautiful, striking image, that I think deserves a second look. A different look... I mean, look, they remade "A Nightmare on Elm Street". Ok, bad example, but you know what I mean...

Julia : episode II

     When we last left our super hero, she was hanging around the clock tower in Riverfront Park. We now find her at Wild Walls climbing gym practicing her skills and keeping up with her fitness routine!

       But seriously, when I mentioned to Julia about doing a Wild Walls shoot, she was all for it. And I can't thank her enough. Because just like our shoot in the park, she came prepared and she put everything she had into the shoot. She worked that evening, and she could barely pick up a tray of  wine glasses because her arms were so tired from climbing!

     So, once again, Thanks Julia and have a great winter quarter at college!