Monday, October 6, 2008

Home Sweet Home


I got to spend a few days at home on our alp. Every time I go home I forget just how amazing it is. I usually visit in August because it gets cold in October...... and cold it was. I decided to hike up to the Sandhubel Mountain. The Sandhubel is about 2800m above sea level, it's quite a hike, takes about 4 hours one way. I used to run around in that area when I was a kid. For some stupid reason I opted for bringing all my camera equipment. I definitely had too much crap with me, my shoulders were killing me as I was climbing up.

You can usually count on crossing paths with a fair amount of animals. Groundhogs, mountain goats and capricorn are generally in that area. This time, I'm guessing because it was late in the season, I saw nothing. I hiked all day and didn't see any animals (besides some birds) and as usual no people at all. It's pretty amazing to just spend an entire day outdoors in this scenery all by yourself. Kind of feels like being on another planet. I love the isolation.

The problem with photographing these kind of places is that you often simply don't get a true sense of the scale nor how steep some of the places are (unless you have a foreground object to reference). But I like how textural and almost abstract these landscapes can become.

The house on the lower left used to be a diary farm.



The white and red paint on the rock is what tells you that you're still heading in the right direction. Sometimes the markers are spaced pretty far apart which I would think could be confusing to hikers.



Since I dragged my damn tripod all the way up I figured I may as well use it for at least one shot. Me.


The colors are so odd........ the purple in the back and the green rocks but this is the way it looks. Sigh.....wish I was there right now.

Friday, September 5, 2008

International Photography Awards 2008

I just found out I won second place in the 2008 International Photography Awards for one of my photographs (Non-Pro/Fine Arts/Portraits category). My image will be printed in their annual book. I also received 7 honorable mentions for some of my other work.

Big THANK YOU to Ella Bella, Jane, Jacqueline, Philip and Alexandra (hair&make up -Madame Jane, Jacqueline) for being part of my recognized work!


2nd place - "Peacock Girl" -Non-Pro/Fine Art/Portraits

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Ms. Jane







Model: Jane
Hair & Make Up: Contessa Black

Jane is always great to work with because she has such an interesting look. In addition I enjoy how different she looks once you play with her hair and add some make up. I think we all had a great time with this one. I got those weirdo bunnies at the store "Tuesday Morning". It's basically a junk yard (sorry Tuesday). It really is a mess, stuff everywhere. But you can find really bizarre stuff and it's cheap. The dress I got a while back at Daffy's. I knew I would eventually find a good shoot for this dress and it was worth hanging on to. The little white jacket thingy I got at our awesome Blue Sky clothing exchange. I work with some classy ladies.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Dancing On Top Of The World






Model: Cassandra

I love to dance, I love watching others dance,........ did I mention how much I love dance? I had a chance to take some pictures of Cassandra in action. We shot those on the roof of my studio last week. It was like a hundred degrees out, I felt kind of bad for Cassandra who was dancing her heart out in the sweltering sun. Besides the hot sun she also had to deal with shattered glass (I tried sweeping it away as much as I could before she started) and an uneven bumpy floor. After she was done we looked at her point shoes which had gone from pink to black from the dirty floor. I guess ballerinas are better off inside. :)

The dress as always was mine and I was happy to see it fit her well, the only problem was the low cut. She was worried that her boobs would pop out while she was dancing. I had not thought of that and didn't really have any good solution so we had to pick one of her leotards. She had that blue one which at first I thought was not going to work but then seeing it against the sky color.... lovely.

We had a blast, Cassandra is a lot of fun.

Monday, August 18, 2008

The Lovely Cassandra







Model: Cassandra
Hair & Make Up: Contessa Black

I got another chance to work with Cassandra. It's been a year since our last shoot and she has always been one of my favorite models. Besides being a pretty girl, I just love her spirit and enthusiasm. She's a dancer and so it makes my work easy as she doesn't need that much instructions. I also got to work with Contessa again. I mainly chose to work with her because the make up job was going to be so similar to Adyas. Cassandra and I started working at 10am and didn't finish until 6pm (we did two shoots). We were both spent.

The only really depressing thing is that there appears to be something wrong with my camera. I had the hardest time focusing during the shoot and unfortunately my fears were confirmed. Most pictures were out of focus. Very depressing as there were some really nice shots that I won't be able to use.....

Monday, July 28, 2008

Holga Magic



I've been shooting a lot of film stuff lately. I shot these with my Holga camera at Playland in Rye. I think there's something magical about the Holga. I feel like the Holga turned this grand place into a miniature set. You totally loose the sense of scale.

More film stuff http://philm-phoblography.blogspot.com/

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Lisa



Model: Lisa
Hair & Make Up: Alexandra


Now that I've had a chance to shoot with quite a few people I've decided that I really love working with people I know. I enjoy working with someone who has never modeled before and is just willing to go for it. Personally I feel like I'd much rather work with someone who has never modeled before but is really into it then someone who knows what they are doing but are only there for the cash.

Blah, blah...... anyway, was fun working with Lisa. It wasn't an easy shoot because I really didn't plan much ahead.... I had no clue what we were gonna do. We played around for quite a bit until we hit something. I was happy that the dress I got fit her so well.

I'm giving up my studio in September.... so I'm trying to shoot as much as possible until then. I'd like to get sort of a series of these style portraits together before I'm done..... then I'll probably take a break from photography for a while.