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Renee :: Portrait Session

07.10.12

I met Renee last Summer in my Photography I class that I was teaching at Lenoir Community College. From a teacher’s perspective, she was/is the perfect student….loves to learn, turns work in on time, works hard and respects her classmates. Even outside of being the model student I just loved having Renee in my class. She has such a bright and warm personality and you can tell even without knowing a lot about her that she lives to serve God as well as others. Renee is an Interpreter for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing as well as ministering to different groups through speaking engagements. She needed images that she could use for her website and promotional materials so I was happy to help! Renee is also an artist. Last year she started school at Barton College to work towards her Bachelor of Fine Arts. She concentrates in ceramics, but is skilled in other disciplines as well. She mentioned she wanted some creative portraits and of course the promotional portraits. I was thinking about working with multiple images much like I do with my fine art images. Some images are “stand alone” images that are strong enough to be presented by themselves and function by themselves, but other images work better to support each other. So, in my mind I thought about pairing images through diptychs and triptychs. I also use this method when I design wedding albums. There are some images whose shapes, lines, colors, textures and concept work well when displayed next to another image that shares similar properties. I usually don’t do a lot of sepia toning or split toning for portrait sessions because I have become more of a fan of classic black and white. However, for Renee, the warm tones just seem to fit the warmth of her personality. I had a great time on this shoot and worked on a more alternative approach for a few of the images by creating double exposures in post-production. I even broke out the lensbaby!

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Heather - July 11, 2012 - 2:02 am

Julie, I love the split toning and the usage of the lens baby! I think one of my favorite ones is the ‘sniper’ photo!

New Found Fun…JellyFish Image Transfers

06.26.12

A while back I got a comment on my blog from Jelly Fish Photo Image Transfers about a special transfer paper. So, I followed the link and I was interested in how close they look to the Polaroid Emulsion Lifts I use to make when Polaroid 669 film was still being manufactured. Now that I have had some time to experiment I ordered a few online. The company is in Spain, so it took a bit longer than a company here in the States, but I hardly noticed. They were very efficient, and I am super happy with the results. These prints work much like the old Polaroid emulsion lifts (in terms of the “peeling process”) except now you can get make large prints without the bank breaking cost of 8×10 polaroid film!  The images shown below are approximately 8′x10.5″ and 8.5″x8.5″. I transferred mine to a watercolor paper. First you put your watercolor paper into cool water. Then, you put the transfer print into another water bath. Let it sit for a few minutes, then begin carefully peeling the transfer off of the plastic backing sheet (kinda like a decal). Then, you transfer the loose print onto the watercolor paper. The trickiest part is getting the print onto the watercolor paper. You have to dip the paper in and outside of the water to straighten it out. Much like the polaroid emulsion lifts you must be very careful with the loose film, not too rip it. You can also use your fingers (very gently) to slide it around a bit to enhance the wrinkles in the print. The lovely wrinkles and dips are really what makes this process so beautiful.  So, here are my first two prints. So, fun! I will definitely be doing more in the future!

 

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Purell Image Transfers

06.26.12

I have found a new obsession. As is I haven’t already been addicted to image transfers. I have to give credit to the photographers who post on Digalogue, a blog about “Adventures in Digital & Analogue Imaging” which is right up my alley because I love experimenting merging analogue and digital photography. They had a post about Purell transfers and I was thinking, Purell?, the hand sanitizer. Yes, Purell, the hand sanitizer. My interest was peaked, so I had to try it. I ordered Inkpress Clear Film from B&H and made some prints on an Epson Inkjet R1900 to do some tests. I tried 4 transfers on several types on watercolor paper. The images shown here are Arches Rives BFK. After the Inkpress Print dried, I coated the watercolor paper with Purell using a brayer, just like the instructions from the blog link above. I made sure it was well coated, then laid the print down, kinda like rolling it from one end to the other, then rolled it with moderate pressure for a couple minutes, altering the direction of rolling. And I was amazed…it transferred right to the paper. I added the altered borders in Photoshop. These are images from New York. The first one is one of the multiple exposures I was talking about in the previous post. More to come…

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New York, Part 1

06.26.12

After Neil’s lighting workshop, my sister, Jill, came up to New York and we took a few days to visit the big city. It was quite overwhelming. What to do in just a few days? There was so much. So, we decided to act like tourists and hit the highlights…a Broadway show, a harbor cruise, the Met, MOMA (MOMO according to Jill), and the Museum of Natural History. And…a little shopping of course. I was like a kid in a candy shop in the museums. I was overwhelmed by the Picasso’s, Van Gogh’s, Monet’s, Warhol’s, all these art pieces that I have been teaching about and learning about for years. Jill loved Broadway the most. We saw, “End of the Rainbow”, a story about the end of Judy Garland’s life. I think Jill would have gone to a show every night. It was great!I would have to say my favorite area that we visited was the Meat Packing District and the High Line. It felt a little quieter, which is more my speed. I think we both really enjoyed the 911 Memorial. It made it so real and made you think about what those people in the buildings must have been thinking.
Not only was I overwhelmed by all the sites, I was quite confused about where to even begin taking pictures. I wasn’t really into taking pictures of the main sites. It was kinda like…there are a million pictures out there of this same thing that I am photographing. But,  I did take a few pictures of tourist stuff for Jill. I took my Fuji X100 camera along so we could travel light. I love that camera. I also took my lomo diana because I decided to do a more abstract representation of New York. So, I loaded the Lomo and did a lot of double and triple exposures. I am still working on those. A sneak peak is coming soon. But, for now, here are some of my touristy pics with a few of the abstract ones mixed in. They don’t feel very cohesive, but they will be images that help my sister and I remember our trip! That last image is an Instagram of St. Patrick’s Cathedral…of course I had to do at least one steeple image!

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Jill Hall - July 11, 2012 - 5:00 am

I had so much fun hanging out in the Big Apple with you!

New York Workshop :: Neil van Niekerk

06.26.12

In the end of May, I had the opportunity to attend a lighting workshop in New York City taught by Neil van Niekerk. The workshop lasted all day and covered a variety topics in lighting including using ETTL, metering light, using various modifiers, as well using bounce flash. We had two wonderful models for the day and had a lot of opportunity for hands on application and to ask plenty of questions. I learned a lot of new approaches to lighting and am looking forward to putting them into practice. If you are looking for a great lighting workshop, check Neil’s workshop out! And, it’s a great excuse to visit New York.

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