Inessential Stuff

Not all shoots go according to plan.

When I first saw the red–very red–hallways at the Seattle Public Library, I knew I wanted to do a shoot there sometime.

Over Thanksgiving (while visiting my sis, brother-in-law and nephews), I set up a shoot.  I found a willing and very capable model in Shanzay, and the day after Thanksgiving, we went and shot.

The first problem was that there were far more people in the narrow, red hallways than when I had been there before.  So our shoot was constantly interrupted as people–sightseers, primarily–wandered around and marveled at the redness of it all.

Secondly, the red threw off the color balance.  I knew it would, so I was shooting on manual white balance, and I even filtered my flash to match the light bulbs, but color was still a problem (you’ll notice a few of the pictures look more orange than red).  And trust me, Shanzay’s skin tones are far more pleasing in person than they appear here.

Finally, the light itself was tough.  The hallways are dark, so it was difficult to use the ambient light.  But the strobes would cast wicked reflections on the glossy walls.  I was satisfied with neither.

It was something of a photographic nightmare.  I was tempted just to box these pictures up, but Bonnie thought they were pretty interesting, and there is no doubt that Shanzay did a great job.  So in spite of my disappointment and misgivings, here are a few (far from perfect) pictures.  Armed with a little more knowledge, maybe I’ll go back and give it another shot someday.

I did another shoot with Taryn last month, so I thought I’d put up some of the images here.  In this shoot, we did some sports-themed stuff, as well as a prison-break dress (which was pretty awesome).

This was the third time I’ve worked with Taryn, but this was the first time she showed off her playful smile.  A nice addition.

Madeleine C and I had planned on doing a shoot for a long time;  I had wanted to do a shoot with her for even longer.  When we finally started firming up some plans, Madeleine mentioned she had purple dreadlocks.  So I thought we should run with the purple:  maybe get some eggplants or a cabbage.

Ends up Madeleine C grew up on a farm and loves her vegetables and had been wanting to do a kind of vegetable shoot for a while.  So even though the shoot kept getting delayed, and her hair was no longer purple, when we finally did schedule a shoot, we made it a vegetable shoot.

If you ask me, Madeleine C was born in the wrong time period and totally missed her calling as a silent film star.  Expressive in a thousand different ways, she slipped from terrified to flirty to shocked to dreamy effortlessly and within moments.  She emoted so strongly with with turnips and brussle sprouts, one can only imagine what she could have done alongside Rudolph Valentino.

I’ve done several shoots with Ronnie for her clothing line Glamarita.  We did another, with one request:  the models didn’t want to shoot outside (too cold).  So after throwing some ideas around, Ronnie suggested her mom’s house.  It ends up her mother is an artist, who sells large canvases all around the world.  And since a number of these large canvases are around her house, either finished or in various states of completion, it made a fun place to shoot.  Here are a few of the images.

Here’s another photoshoot with Valerie (and a cameo by Taryn).  We decided to do a sports-themed shoot.  Mostly boxing gloves, but a bit of baseball, too.

And, of course, it is always fun to play around with the lights.  I really liked how the image at the right turned out, for instance.  But finding some really dramatic lighting is kind of double-edged:  on the one hand, I think, wow, that looks cool.  On the other hand, I think, man, I should have been using the lights like this the whole time.

Live and learn.

Valerie was great, as usual.

I had warned Taryn (mostly jokingly) that the location I had in mind–an abandoned house–might be a skunk house.

But when we arrived, the house had been boarded up.  We quickly came up with an alternative industrial site near downtown, and we did some dying light shots, then some off-camera stuff.

During a little break, we took stock of our shoot.  We were standing in a little hallway that had a door at either end.  We were pleased with the location and ready to shoot some more.

Then Taryn said she saw a skunk.  We stood there, quiet, not sure about our next move.  The skunk made it for us. He entered the hallway, not 15 feet away from us and sat down.  I honestly thought about waiting to see if he would walk up the hallway, and then get a shot of him with the off-camera lights.  But I thought the better of it–seemed the lights might be startling.

Taryn and I managed to escape un-sprayed, though I never before have taken down my lights and gathered up my gear in such a delicate and rapid manner.

We plan to shoot again soon.  No skunks allowed.  Anyway, here are the results of the Industrial Skunk Shoot.

In what is now a tradition, I oversaw a massive race of all my Hot Wheels cars this last summer.  I did this while Marcus was overseas, which gives me full-run of the house, and more importantly, the track.  Setting up the track always requires careful calibration (I spent about 11 hours initially making the track–then many more hours making repairs).  I had over 550 cars race (cars on Real Rider tires didn’t compete).  The racing was fast; the picture below of a wicked corner was taken at 1/320th of a second.

I know. The suspense is killing you: What kind of car won? A Track Star? A car on FTE’s? A 1980′s Ultra Hot? An Ace Racer?

Wonder no more. Here are the champions: 1st: the 2005 Phastasm on FTE wheels. 2nd: 2006 Pocket Bikester on FTE’s. 3rd: 2006 Carbide, special Holiday Hotrod.