Family Portraits

Over the winter break, I shot family portraits for the first time. A strong snowstorm became an issue for the outdoor shoot, and improvising became a necessity. We were lucky enough to find an alcove where there was slight wind blockage, and in the end the finished product was very Christmas festive.

W. Eugene Smith

W. Eugene Smith is a master of darkroom black and white analog photography. That fact is undisputed. But from looking at a few of my favorite images of his, you can see that his use and definition of tone is not only very well done, but essential to convey his meaning through the visual medium. He creates a subject in his darkness, and focus through the lighter areas of the image. using tone, contrast, shadow, and shape built by these tonal tools he manages to navigate your eye through the narrative of the image. He leads you through his subjects and stories, emphasizing with tones the important aspects.

Afghan Girl

This image is amazingly constructed. First thing you notice is the lightness of her eyes, which automatically draws the viewer to them. The out of focus background further lends to the ability to concentrate on the subject matter of the girl. the color contrast and curvilinear drape of her shawl leads the eye around the subject again, while the shadow of her hair frame the lighter gradient of her skin. This image was taken during the soviet occupation, she was a refugee in pakistan at the time. It is a film image that has appeared in countless ways.

Russell Lee

Russell Lee was a photographer hired in the 1940s by the national Farm Security Administration to document housing communities and rural areas. He was a documentary style photographer, showing things as they were in the environments they are. For his work with FSA he shot in black and white, usually 35mm and medium format, generally with strong focus on the subject and lesser focus in the background. His intent with working in the FSA was to show through his artwork the workers struck by drought and the great depression. it was a government sponsored way to use images and artistic skill to not only define and remember a time period but to raise awareness, give a greater population exposure to the concept of putting a bigger meaning to an individual piece of work. Russell Lee worked with several other photographers on this mission, including Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.

Fine Art Photography

HDR Portraits

Black and White HDR Portraits

In this series, I challenged myself to not only take black and white HDR portraits, but to do them in a mass production type of way. This series was challenging in finding models, and learning how to be extremley time-effective about it.. This project took one week to shoot and one week to edit, leaving me with over 100 portraits.