A Woman in Red

I photographed Leah last summer.  She is beautiful and gorgeous. As you see, she was wearing eye catching red dress. Since the color of her dress is intense pure red, I requested her to stand in front of old back wall. That brings good contrast between pail wall and her, and she is more standing out in the image.

Now, a photographer have to work a little bit harder on the computer.  I wanted to enhance my inner imagination of kind of Gothic, like Gotham city in Tim Burton version of Batman. So added rusty “yogoshi” weathering effect on entire image.

I would be glad if you see the mood I saw in my imagination.

Please click the idea to view larger image.

Portrait in Winter (4) – from the 2nd session.

I have being posting images of Jillian from the session in December. This time, I would like to share images from January session . The reason I wanted to repeat a photo-session with Jillian is that I could not complete all of my ideas in the previous session and also she is so beautiful, obviously.
I guess the mood of the session may have been different from the December session. Due to my mind set, the images are more casual and kind of candid feel to them. it may have been more relaxed; even Jillian brought up some photographic ideas. I LOVE to hear ideas from a clients. That excites me and I can keep shooting forever.

Next image, while I was processing, this image reminds me the famous poster of the musical, Les Miserable. I did not expect this happened.

On the other hand, I had an image of the next photo at the shooting and I specifically requested her to make a pose for this image. I also know I was going to make it B&W. I experimented some digital framing, and I chose the design of the film perforations to add classic feel. Do you like the framing?

Please click the images for larger sizes, and please check other Jillian’s images in previous posts.

Portraits in Winter (3) – please participate in an experiment.

I talked about how I progress creative vision through development of one photo last time. Contrarily to the previous post, I occasionally have fully concrete idea before clicking shutter. This image is one of this type of cases.  I found a nice shadow of a tree on the wall of barn while I was hunting locations for the session. I imagined graphic contrast between the dark spooky shadow and beautiful Jillian. Also her shoulder line is straight and squire but this si I wanted rather than typical feminine pose since I imagined strength from her in oppressive mood. But there was problem which was messy ground  with a patch of snow and nasty weeds.  So I got an idea to add some digital effectｓ on the bottom of the frame.

Before asking you a favor, here is my thought. What is a fear artists or even creators worry about? It must be a question, “Will my work be accepted?”. That is proven by many episodes left by novelists, artists, and musicians, like scandalous failure of the Premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 1913. Or the shortest letter by Victor Hugo.  Although spending hours or even days facing a computer monitor to process one image, there is no guarantee people will like what I have done on the photo. First of all, if client does not like the image, all efforts I made are pointless. Then nothing must be happier, as an artist, than when the image is able to communicate with many people successfully.

Now I need your favor. Please participate in an experiment. I think most of readers here are photographers, but please forget critiquing and imagine your non-photographer in following situations.

1. YOU ARE THE MODEL and my client. I phoned you and let you know your photos are ready. I presented the images below as first time.  Which photo pleases you most? Why?
2. YOU ARE VISITING THE MODEL’S HOME and found these photos hang on the wall in her dining room. Which Image would make you feel WOW? Why?

Did you pick the same photo for these different situations? Or you think your impression may be different from other viewers?

Portraits in Winter (2)

In photography, we have to take some stages for completion of an image before publishing or giving it to a client. I mean shooting is an only part of photography, and post-processing is significant part of creation of images. At least for me.

When I am shooting, I occasionally have pre-vision of how the final image looks like. I also have plans for post –processing in this case. On the other hand, I sometimes just focus on lighting and a model at shooting. And my imagination progress as taking the stages. At first, I get rough idea of the final images when I see an image just after downloading the photo from a camera to a computer. Then while I am taking hours for post-processing, my imagination slowly progresses and the image is getting close to completion…I mean a layer to another layer, a filter to another filter. I usually take many errors as well before saving the final product.

Following images are the ones I took the type of the process. I focused on lighting and poses at the shooting. Then I tried to apply processing to meet the certain mood which Jillian brought to these images. I think that is why each photo below has deferent look and taste.

Please click the images for larger sizes.

Related post: Portraits in Winter (1)

Portraits in Winter (1)

I was supposed to post the images from the flood but I would like to process film first. I have to make time for it. So this time, I post images from the photo session I had in winter.

I had an opportunity to photograph beautiful Jillian in December, then I asked her another session in January since I really wanted try all photographic ideas I planned with this beautiful model. We traveled several locations from downtown to Englewood area Calgary. There was old barn with white wall in Englewood. Here are 3 photos from the white barn.

Just sunset time…it was quite warm afternoon as December. It was perfect light. I did not WANT to use any flashes.

Actually, it was not snowing. I added some effect. It looks chilly, doesn’t it? I call this image “snow white”

After the sun disappeared, temperature suddenly dropped and it became pretty cold. So I imagined a scene that a girl was waiting somebody in cold outside. Jillian responded well to my request. Don’t you feel the loneliness?

Please click the images for larger sizes.

Snow White, Jillian

Christmas day in Calgary this year was very cold . It was -22 degree. I had a chance to photograph beautiful Jillian in the end of October. She is not only beautiful but also so natural. Therefore, I would like to avoid edgy, conceptual images which I tend to do for portraits. It was actually challenging for me. Although the day I photographed Jillian was not that cold, I added some snow to his image since I developed this image at holy night.

Wish wonderful 2013 to Jillian, photography friends of mine and everyone.

Please click the image for larger size.

Snap with film – Grainy portraits

When going shooting, I still bring a film camera, even to serious sessions. These  images on film are for myself,…just for satisfying my artistic ego. When I have chances to “snap”, I tend to pull my film camera from a camera bag. So these photos may not be published forever; just sit in my photo album. A camera I take with me varies depends on my feeling. It can be Nikon F3 and expecting “thin line” sharp image, or old Minolta and expecting beautiful bokhe. Sometimes I expect very sharp images from medium format camera, Mamiya  645pro; some other days, I try pinhole with rangefinder camera to get ethereal feels. This time, I wanted to try very grainy images from  Ilford HP5 B&W film (Iso 400) pushed to 3200.

Although last time I tried the grainy photo from the same method was about 10 years ago. I am pretty satisfied the result this time. I used the telephoto lens made in early 1960’s. I like this lens for portraits because its contrast is not harshly high compared to modern lenses. I can get mild and gentle portraits but well balanced images. This character of the lens looks more distinguishable with film than digital. I often feel film is honest…..! So I have to be a little more serious while I snap.

My shadow by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Black and white portraits frm Arts hotel – 1 by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Black and white portraits frm Arts hotel – 2 by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Model shoot from the Indoor portraits workshop – Ashley Quan

Now I can share some images from the indoor workshop Janice Mayers Foreman and I presented. Ashley Quan is a very experienced and obviously beautiful model. Also she is a fashion designer and owner of Apiana Que. Please check out her website here.

Recently, I have been experimenting some different methods of post-processing. This time I tried to apply processing differently to each image to meet the moods. I hope you like them. Please click the photos for larger sizes.

Related Article: Artistic Portrait – Is a copy bad?

Artistic Portrait – Is a copy bad?

Edmonton photographer, Daryl Benson has been one of the photographers I truly admire…I am always fascinated by his artistic images.  His images are super original. It is like Thelonious Monk who is considered to be one of the pioneers of Be-bop (one of Jazz styles post swing era). His unique approach of piano play and his music was also called “Monk music”. However, I have never tried Daryl’s methods even though I felt to creating images like his works. To be honest, I am afraid of bing a copycat. So I had just concluded and told myself “Just be an artist like him”. But how can I learn his technique and such matchless creativity without coping?

About 3 weeks ago, I attended Professional Photographers of Canada meeting and the guest speaker was Darton Drake, amazing portrait photographer from U.S. I was so moved by his philosophy and attitude toward photography and arts. Great artists always have many astonishing episodes, and we can learn from their stories. His portraits were so outstanding and only one of its kind. I am sure that words can describe only a little about his art, so please visit his web-site, http://www.dartondrake.com/.

Then I signed up the workshop by Darton and Shelly Vandervelde. He showed us his way of the photo processing, every steps from the file came from camera to the complete work of his artistic portraits. He mentioned that copy was not bad and it was necessary (but not submit images to competitions or put on sales….make sense to me).  I felt relieved. Well…think about other art-forms, everybody has to copy one point. Artists have to break the shell of the comfortable zone. I knew “copy” is the only way to expand horizon, especially when we find such inimitable artistic styles.

So I tried! This image was taken as an ice-break shot for students at the workshop Janice Meyers Foreman and I had in June. I had only 5 minutes window before students started shooting, and it was studio portraits. I had to give up the shooting before my creativity kicked in. But I think I could turn the image to something I can share, I obviously applied the processing techniques I learned at Darton and Shelly’s workshop . My confession would be…this attempt is against my policy. I should visualize the final result, even partially, before clicking a shutter button instead of using Darton’s methods as a rescue technique.

Model: Choco Sparks

I know I have to try this methods again and again, and hopefully, I can develop my own methods and styles. I think  I will have more sleepless nights.

Winter to Spring, and Me

I had chance to photograph some models in February and the theme of the photo-session was “spring”. February is not quite spring so I wanted to try to express transition from winter to spring. I asked models to turn their heads to their left and to express winter by face expressions. The same action to right side but this time I asked them to express spring. Lastly,  I asked them to face toward me and to become themselves. I merged these three images. Actually, I wanted to try this conceptual images with multiple-exposure on one frame of film. Photoshop is too easy. Please click images for larger sizes.

Venus Le

Janel Royal

Jen Maslak. Flowers were provided by Jen’s company, Catalaya Floral Design & Gifts.