Portraits

Portrait Shoot: Artefact

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A few weeks ago, I returned to Artefact's office to photograph new employees.  I'm not sure how many photographers they've used in the past—I haven't done all their photos—but it was the fourth time they've had me, and as ever, the shoot was a total pleasure.  I do standard headshots for them, but every employee also gets a unique, quirky photo that showcases his or her personality and/or interests.  It is SO much fun.  The people are great, totally game, and their ideas for their personalized portraits are fun and creative and an absolute joy to bring to life.  Here are a few of them, and of course a couple obligatory photos of me taking photos.  Feel free to click any you'd like to see larger.

I should pause for a minute to give special kudos to Jefferson for his image, which was inspired by Arrested Development.  If you haven't seen the show, or have but didn't catch the reference, click here.  And no, we didn't have a sheep.  He added that later, and did a wonderful job.

Let it be known that I can, should the situation arise, be called upon to give juggling lessons!  Ultimately, Courtney opted for the balancing image above, but still.  We had fun.
(Thanks to fellow photographer Josh Huston, who assisted me and took these behind-the scenes photos.)

Jewish in Seattle: Oscar Olivier

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It was a privilege to photograph Oscar Olivier for Jewish in Seattle late last year.  He is a refugee from the Congo and an inspiring figure, and if you have a moment, you should really do his story justice by reading the excellent article by Emily Alhadeff. We made this portrait in Des Moines, where he lives.  Neomi, the art director, wanted something that looked dramatic but we didn't have a location and the weather wasn't cooperating.  It was a mighty bright, happy day outside (albeit still chilly—note the very stylish cardigan).

So we hit the beach—can't go wrong with water and a good sky as your background—and utilizing a little day-for-night camera and lighting trickery, we made it look a bit more moody.  I was really pleased with the result.  Below is my favorite image, along with Neomi's select as it appeared in the magazine.

Jewish In Seattle: Fashion Feature

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A short time ago I was contacted again by Neomi Rapoport (art director of Jewish in Seattle), this time to ask me about shooting a fashion feature for a holiday issue of the magazine.  "Do they really mean to be asking me?" was my first thought, as I'd never claim to be a fashion photographer and do not, in fact, even feel that I'm particularly fashionable myself.  I was nevertheless totally happy to do it, of course, because it's fun to branch out and do different things, and I'd never pass up the opportunity to work with Emily (editor) and Neomi.  And wouldn't you know it?  When you have a great location, art director, model (Devon at SMG), stylist (Emma Ranniger), and HMUA (Kathy Evans), it turns out you wind up looking pretty good.  Especially when you have lovely clothes as well, provided by some of Seattle's finest designers.  Here are just a few images from the day's shoot, beginning with my personal favorite:

And then, because there was some question at the magazine about fashion for the cover, we did a few photos in my studio depicting different takes on honey and apples.  I quite liked them all.

Life imitates art

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I shot the image below very recently, and I kind of love it.  The model, a really charming kid named Derek, was an absolute pleasure and sat very patiently while my super talented makeup artist Erika Seward did her work with him.  He actually was pretty delighted with how rough he looked when she was finished, as I'm sure I would have been.

We shot at Derek's home with a borrowed bunny and stun gun.  The bunny's name is Mr. Thumps, and yes, of course the electricity leaping between the contacts on the stun gun was made in Photoshop.  I know better than to hand an 11-year-old a stun gun with the battery in it, thank you very much.

The photo is awfully funny to me on its own, but I think it's made even more entertaining by the story that came out of Portland shortly after I shot it.  Seems a 22-pound house cat attacked a family, forcing them to dial 911 from their locked bedroom.  No kidding.  To be fair, though, it does sound to me like the family had it coming.  The baby started it all by pulling the cat's tail, which earned him a blood-drawing swipe to the forehead.  Then the mom's boyfriend kicked the cat away, and that apparently is where things really went off the rails.

Me, I just enjoy it when I shoot something that turns out to be timely.

For those interested, the photo was lit with a 4-foot by 6-foot softbox from camera left to mimic daylight through a window.  A silver bounce to camera right filled in shadows a bit, and I used a smaller box from 3/4 rear, camera left, for a rim light.  Camera was set at ISO 100, f/5.6 at 1/60 sec.

Superhero sneak-peek

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You're right.  I don't blog often enough, and I'm sorry about that.  The infrequency of posts isn't indicative of infrequent happenings, however, and I'll use this first blog entry in a while to demonstrate that fact with a sneak peek at a personal project I've recently undertaken.  It's a conceptual series about superheroes that I've been shooting these past several months, and am continuing to shoot.  The central question of the series is: What is everyday life like with a superpower, and what would superheroes do in a city without crime? All of the photos so far are composites of many more than just a couple photos, so each is fairly labor intensive and most have involved several individual shoots.  Here are a couple of the images I've done so far—I hope you get a kick out of them.  As always, feel free to click on them to view them larger.

This was a composite of seven shots in total.  Can you tell what they are?  Oh, you don't want to play that game?  Okay, the first is the cityscape—it's downtown Seattle as viewed from Smith Tower, a 38-story building from 1914 that until 1931 was the tallest building west of the Mississippi, and until 1962 was the tallest building on the west coast.  (I actually hosted pub trivia for years so forgive me if you're not interested in the factoids, but I think that's kind of cool...right?)  The second shot in this photo is also part of the cityscape—the tallest building, the one at both edges of the frame.  I added it for the sake of composition.  The third shot is the flag blowing in the wind, which I thought just added a nice touch.  The fourth and fifth shots are the superhero and her cape.  The sixth shot is the building on the left, the one she's cleaning.  It's a building a block from my studio, which I shot from a ladder at ground level.  I just kept the frame and replaced the windows with my own reflections.  The last shot is the sky, which I actually shot about a year and a half ago while on a road trip.  The "Capitol City Times" sign on the building was added in Photoshop to tie this shot in with the other shots in the series like the one below.

How does an indestructible person get a haircut? I found this wonderful barbershop while scouting downtown.  It's called The Stewart Street Barbershop, and the owner, Steve, couldn't have been more generous when I asked if I could shoot in his shop.  Nearly everything in the shop was as I shot it, although I did add every element (except the pole) on the wall behind the models.  And while I did have my superhero model hold an actual magazine, I mocked up a back cover and shot my own image for my new front cover.  The sparks, of course, were all made in Photoshop, as was the shop decal on the window.  And speaking of the window, the scene outside was shot about a mile and a half away on a different day.  In reality, a bus stop is outside the barbershop, and it didn't work for the photo.  Replacing the scene outside the window meant replacing reflections in the window—the barber's back, the sparks, the barber's pole.  All in all, this shot was a fair amount of work, but as I've said before, I really enjoy the details.  And I really like this shot.

As I say, these are just a couple—there are more already and there will be more in the future.  I'm really looking forward to going more in depth on the making of each photo, and to bringing the whole series to the blog and the site when it's ready.  In the meantime, I'll be offering peeks here and there, so please check back when you think of it.  Thanks!