My Lens had a Baby

I'm always looking for new toys, especially when it comes to photography. So, when I thought about it, why not get a lens baby. At first I was reluctant to spend big money on something that I didn't think I would like, but I was able to buy a used one for not all that much, and I have kind of enjoyed using it.

I don't know where you are from, but the weather in NYC this weekend was BEAUTIFUL and I decided to take out the LB and see what she could do. I only snapped a couple shots and they are okay at best, but it was fun to play again.

New and Continuing Projects...

So the last post was just bringing things up to date, without showing much along the lines of what I have been doing.

Polariods:

As I travel, have guests over, work on jobs, and the like, I have been doing on and off what many have been doing for years before me and will continue to do until the last sheet of polariod has been exposed. I snap a polaroid. I capture a particular moment in its purest and to some extent least manipulated form.


iPhotographer...

This is from a series of photographs that I started around the first of the year. Everyday, I have been taking pictures with the camera on the iPhone and using Photogene as the sole processor for the images. While my goal is one image a day, I have been taking and editing photos of anything and everything that catches my eye.

and finally, a continuation of an assignment that one of my professors gave me.

Fantasy Portraiture:

Still to come:

Plain White T's and Dark Denim Days:
A series inspired by Gap and another of other fashion editorial shoots.

Hoboken:
A series of portraits of the various shop owners in Hoboken

In an ideel world

Well, It has been far too long since I posted anything on here, so let's recap.

In May of 2008, I graduated with Honors from RIT. It was a whirlwind, mind blowing four years of my life that I miss terribly at times. Since May, I have moved to the NYC area, where I have been Assisting, Retouching and being a Digital Technician. I have worked with some amazing people down here and I keep finding more and more fascinating people to work with and become friends with.

One photographer, Chris Lynch, allowed me to jump into the industry in a way I never expected. Chris has a side project that he has been working on called The Portrait Corner, which I was privileged enough to work two nights with Chris and his team at Spectacle and PEX (the Philadelphi Experiment - Pirates V. Ninja's). These two shoots happened over the span of one weekend and where a typical shoot occurs during the week at normal waking hours, Spectacle and PEX occured in the early hours of the morning in very unique locations. The photographs speak to the genious of the planners of these events and Chris's amazing vision to translate these events into an outstanding portrait opportunity.

Another photographer that I feel privilaged to have worked with and to know is Jami Saunders. She was the lead photographer for a start up fashion company called ideeli.com. I was lucky to find Jami through one of my good friends and colleagues, Emily Sperry, at a time when I was facing the reality of having to move back to my parents. It was an amazing time working with Jami, where I was retouching images for Ideeli and on occasion helping to problem solve difficult products that needed to be photograph. Problem solving skills that I learned at school and working with ETC Photographic. Unfortunately, our time working together regularly drew to an end in November when Ideeli went in-house and the Brooklyn team broke up and went where jobs and the wind took us.

Beyond these photographers there have been many opportunities that have opened up along the way. I have been working regularly with Studio W26 in Manhattan, as well as with fine-art photographer's Robert and Lynn Bianchi and with some regularity, Aaron Goodman. Blessed with the help of my friends, I feel like we are all finding our way in this crazy world.

This brings us to being about current.

A little more than three months after the first round of working with Ideeli, I am back working for them again. I am retouching for them on a semi-regular basis and was doing a good enough job to be offered a full time position with them. After a week of hard thought and a lot of talking with my friends, family and mentors, I decided to turn down the offer. While part of me felt that in this economy I may have been making a mistake, by turning down the offer, a bigger part of me was saying it wasn't right for me. And I find it kind of funny how the universe sometimes tells you that you made the correct decision. In the Spring issue of RESOURCE magazine, there is an interview with photographer, Martin Schoeller, where he said something that rings true to me.

"If you want to be a photographer, be a photographer ten hours a day instead of spending five hours retouching some half-ass picture you don't like in the first place."

Now I'm not saying that the images I have been retouching are half-assed, but while I am retouching them, I get that feeling that I should be taking those photographs. It's that feeling that lead me to turn down the offer and persue more freelance work, as well as shooting opportunities.