Did you know you can search Google by dragging and dropping an image from your computer? Google will scour the internet and show you everywhere that image appears. Yup, it’s true…While is isn’t breaking news by any means, I did a Google Image search for one of my images just to see if it appeared anywhere on the internet is wasn’t supposed to…Hit the link to see the results…

After searching for this image, I didn’t find anything odd. It was on someones blog who found it on Google+ but I was credited in the gallery of truly amazing cloud/landscaps from all around the web (how did this get in there).

Google does suggest a list of ‘Visually Similar Images’. The following was on of the top results…

Something in the color palette I guess…

Yesterday I had agreed to help my friend Dano with a shoot he had scheduled. Of course his model bailed (they tend to do that), so we spent some time playing with lights and having a generally productive time. Dano wanted to learn some high-key stuff, so drawing from my experience there, I helped him execute a few basic set-ups and get a better grasp on using big studio lights.

After we had spent some time working with big, bright light; I took my turn. This is a two light set-up with a black vinyl sweep for the background. I am actually pretty happy with the results and hope to do quite a bit more stuff like this in teh near(ish)future.

I have an idea for an extended project utilizing a look something like these photos. While I appreciate Katie and Dano sitting for me, this was really more about lighting practice than anything. If nothing else it was enjoyable to break out of the bright-white background thing and try lightning on the down-low…

Last night I posted about a demo on photographing motion in my Photo 181 class. I told my students that it might be good to shoot every bicyclist on the ped-way in front of the Student Union. Then I realized this was actually a good idea and decided to try it myself. Hit the link to see some panning practice…

There were lots of bikes on the racks, but surprisingly few bikes actually moving. Perhaps I picked an odd time of day. Some people had skateboards…

I had a few successes, but have to admit panning is really hard to do well. I did discover a few success tips but had plenty of failures.

Not totally sharp, but not too bad either.

It’s nice to make busy backgrounds into abstract color even in the middle of the day (when a large aperture is often hard to use).

Just thought that if I was going to ask students to photograph something, that I should as well. Plus it was a fun way to kill an hour or two…

Today in my class we did a demonstration on how to capture motion in photography. I had the students brain-storm the ways to show/shoot motion…Motion Blur, Freeze Action, Panning/Trucking, Zooming, Light-Painting etc. Then we went to the studio and shot some students riding skateboards around the room…

Blur Motion…

While these are not exactly the height of creative expression, they are a few photos from class and (hopefully) helped demonstrate the ideas to my Photo 181 students…

Panning…

I’m glad I can count on at least one student per class bringing a skateboard. I had them ride for a little while then traded places and let them shoot while I rode around the studio…

Different Motion Blur…

I had the students make sure the background remained sharp while the subject moved through the frame. Blur does not mean out of focus or poorly composed…

A better panning shot that shows the class shooting…

I had fun, hopefully the students did too (I think they did)

Light painting…

I bet you wish you were in my class in college, my students get to play with fire works…

No tripods but it demonstrates the point…

Having to teach  basic/into photography has really helped my understanding of the technical side of the medium. When you have to explain the idea of Depth-Of-Field, for example, to a group of people it really makes you think critically about what goes into creating that effect. While I hope to be entertaining and educational for my students, teaching this class has/will continue to help my photography.

I like to keep you, my loyal friends and followers, updated on at least a weekly basis as to what is going on here. Sometimes my posts have a theme sometimes it is just a compilation of images, either way I like to share what I have been up to lately. Even if it isn’t portfolio work (and a lot isn’t) I shoot constantly, click the link to see some film recently developed and scanned…

The two images above are from a trip to the Grand Canyon aboard the Grand Canyon Railroad. Katie (top) works as a passenger service attendant and got free tickets for us and a few friends. Window light portraits on the way home are shown here…

Everyone together at an amphitheater. As you may be able to tell from the info on the left of the frame, these images are shot on Kodak Provia 400VC. Expired in 2006 some of the colors are slightly off and the grain is through the roof (mostly in the shadows/under-exposed areas)

Some left over b&w from Long Beach, Calif.   It seems that my Nikon EM has developed a light leak, the last two or three rolls have all had a similar issue…

Down town LA near La Brea and Fairfax…

Frozen pond in Flagstaff, Ariz.

In an ongoing effort to rid the internet of mediocre cat photos I present the following…

Lucy likes tuna…

Another addition to a series called Photos I didn’t take. Not sure when/if this will ever be completed but I would like to display some of them sometime.

Well that’s it for my somewhat random posting of photos. I just like to keep new content coming to this site as often as possible. This is what I have been up to for the past few weeks…

Be sure to check out my photos from Electric Kingdom this month. For those who don’t know, Electric Kingdom is the premiere, monthly electronic dance party in Northern Arizona. DJ’s, live art, ambient light performance, photos and lots of fun. I have been working with EK for the past 7 or 8 months, always a blast.

I usually shoot the roaming photos, another photographer does the live photo booth. Be sure to check those out too.

Check out the EK Facebook page and my album here. 

If you have been reading my blog over the past week or two, you may remember a post about saving part of a studio session from a prematurely unplugged computer. If not check it out here…

Now on to current news. Don’t worry, I didn’t unplug anything this time, everything went according to plan, except for the amount of talent that was supposed to pass through my studio on that particular day…

My colleague Matt Beaty and I have been going through a model database we began compiling last fall with the intent of actually shooting some of these people. Initially we just did a quick interview and headshot so we could remember who the person was. Now the time has come to see what each person has to offer.

Matt had five people lined up for about an hour slot each all afternoon. All but one bailed. (I say bailed because to say someone canceled would imply they called/emailed/texted/sent carrier pigeon to let us know they couldn’t make it ahead of their scheduled time) Someone’s time would come and pass, Matt would call and everyone either was out of town or had some other ‘problem’. And not to say they didn’t. In all likelihood these various emergencies got in the way and everyone simply forgot to notify us amongst the chaos. But in my opinion, if someone had agreed to be somewhere (and all had verbally agreed on the telephone several days in advance) then being across the state at the time you are scheduled to shoot is no excuse. If one was on the way to a shoot and got a flat; after calling AAA, wouldn’t you call the photographer/person you were on your way to meet? A no-call-no-show is analogous to quitting/not wanting to partake in something, and that’s fine, I just appreciate a call. We could have left for lunch or something instead. Perhaps this is the price one pays for working with amateur/free models.

To those that chose to bail, I’m sorry we won’t be working together in the future. For the one young lady (Harley) who did come, we were glad to have you and will most definitely be working with you again and inviting you on future Visual Collective trips as talent.

Now without further ado, I will get to the images from the afternoon…

Basically, this was a tryout. As most Visual Collective trips involve workshops in location lighting and model direction, we wanted to see how someone did infront of lights, with multile people shooting, with different concepts and different directorial styles etc.

My idea wasn’t anything crazy, just sharp, clean portraits in a studio setting. Glad I could save this almost non-existant studio day with one good session. Click the first image to see a slideshow.

Enjoy…

Besides embarking on Adventures to far off locations, leading workshops, running contests and everything else we do; building a community of like minded individuals who share a creative passion is one of our main goals. To this end, with cameras in tow, a bunch of new friends (and a few old ones) headed out to explore some of Downtown Flagstaff…

It was fun to get out and take a walk for a few hours with a group of people, many of whom I don’t know very well, and just take some pictures.

I saw a lot of lines/compositions involving strong lines…

Did you know I have been shooting  a lot of power-lines lately? It’s true check out more here or just search my blog for many, many examples…

What did I tell you.

More strong lines. This was some kind of power box outside a city building. I like the perspective and almost monotone color palette.

I liked the form of this smokeless ash-tray. Industrial design and all that jazz…

If graffiti is generally considered bad, and American flags generally regarded as good, what about American flag graffiti?

We did some location lighting as well. Matt shot everything at f/22 as a personal handicap to make him think outside the box.

Dano (long time tvC supporter) playing with a lock, which was unlocked.

Self/group portrait in a window…

As those of you who follow thevisualCollective know, we like to do what I call Daily Affirmations. Basically, a daily portrait session where each person on the adventure gets shot in the same light/location/theme but can do whatever they want other than that to express their personality/feelings at the moment. On longer adventures it is fun to see how much dirtier everyone gets over several days. Here it was just a one off thing. I will end with a series of Daily Affirmations from tvC Photo Walk::January 2012

Jarod (spelling?)

Matt

Yours truly

Dano

Katie

Amanda

Chris

Kristen

John

Chris

This was totally one of those “D’oh” moments were you realize your mistake just as it’s happening but the gears of disaster are already turning and it is too late to change course.

To clarify, I was shooting tethered to a school computer that doesn’t allow files to be saved after one logs out (or unplugs the computer). I sometimes shoot tethered because it is nice to look at images while shooting on a bigger screen with better software and someone sitting there making sure everything is coming out well i.e. in focus, good exposure, framed correctly etc.

After shooting I was transferring the camera raw files to a portable storage device and striking the set when I unplugged the computer mid transfer. As I have alluded to, everything was deleted from the computer and from what we could tell the folder on the jump drive was corrupted in the unplugging (we couldn’t open it with Finder). Devastated and quite grumpy I packed my bag and headed home.

Upon my return to the home office I figured I would look one more time, but this time with the Adobe Bridge photo downloader. The folder opened, there were lots of items, and even a few image files. As it turns out the program I was using to shoot tethered (Leaf Capture) creates a lot of files in a session. Custom camera settings, raw utilities and my saving grace, thumbnails in jpeg format. In the few minutes the computer had, it transfered most of these small files before dealing with the large, time-consuming camera raw files.

Ecstatic, I opened one in Photoshop…72-dpi just shy of 1000-pixels long and a jpeg to boot. (for those in the know, this is not exactly what one wants to have as a starting point for high-quality images with any chance of ever being printed or looking half-way decent).

Out of the thumbnail images I managed to save, I found a few that were worth the time to play with and try to salvage what I could. What follows is the culmination of my afternoon…

They came out pretty well for web, but don’t expect to see prints…

Thanks Angela for stopping by, I really liked this set…

Dahlia stopped by to say hello. She recently cut off her dreadlocks and I wanted to shoot her new do. (Did you know I used to have dreads? Fun fact)

We had two other friends stop by as well, unfortunately their images were lost, sorry…Be sure to stay up to date with Matt, Andy and The Visual Collective to see the rest of the images (and maybe a video piece) from our day.

Once again I have found a roll (or in this case two) that have until now escaped my careful eye for some reason or another. If you study your history you will undoubtably remember a post on this blog a few months ago of a similar title detailing the discovery of a roll of exposed film in the deepest bowels of my refrigerator. If not, then please follow this link to catch up…

Now hit the link below to see what was unearthed in this, the latest discovery in an ever expanding archive…

This time it wasn’t an unexposed roll but a box of slides that had been forgotten and buried in a book shelf. At the time I had them developed I was probably upset that the film was apparently very expired. If an image came out at all it was almost totally green, with a few negatives managing to hang on to some red and yellow tones.

The two rolls were taken around Flagstaff sometime between 2010-2011. They were developed in October 2011 and put away until now. Something in the odd/muted color palette stuck out to me this time. It has an interesting vintage look. That is when the negative can be saved of course. When the color can’t be saved, sometimes the content still can when converted to gray scale…

The next few shots are portraits taken sometime in the spring of 2011 around Northern Arizona University. Above: While helping a friend with a photo shoot for class I stole a few minutes with his model. The trade off for saving the content of the image is the loss of color and lots of grain, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Something I set up in the studio, I think these two were shooting each other for an assignment and I made them sit for me.

While I wish the color had worked, these are nice as black and white too…

Not sure who this is, a friend of a friend maybe, there was part of an unidentifiable face in the left of the frame that I cropped out. Thought it was a nice moment/street portrait.

Now what to do with the dozen or so unexposed rolls of this film still sitting around the house…