This piece is called, “Rat Patrol.” The name was going to be “Desolation,” or “Desolate Rider,” but one of my friends suggested that it seemed as though my lady was on a mission. So I floated “Rat Patrol,” and about six of my friends said, “Yes!” (Afterwards, I briefly regretted not calling it “Naked Mole Rat.” Briefly.)
[Read more…]Fantasy Nudes/Composites (NSFW)
In addition to the more traditional styles of artistic nudes, and the occasional boudoir photography session, one of my favorite forms of photography is what I call “fantasy nudes.” These are typically composites, and as you might guess from the name, often contain fantastical elements, or ideas, including sometimes science-fiction themes. In fact, truth be told, I think it is, hands down, my favorite type of photography. It brings out the creative side of me in every step of the process. The featured image is one such photo.
Today, I’m going to write about a recently-done image for which I just won a first-place ribbon in the Geek Artistique show at the Sorensen Studio in Fresno.
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Manipulation, Retouching & Restoration
One of the things I really enjoy is taking an image that’s missing something, or has too much of something, or has been damaged in some way, and either repairing, or, where possible, making a better photo out of it. [Read more…]
Third Place Award: Nudes in November 2014
I have been remiss about blogging lately. A bit too busy with my law practice – which, at the moment, is how I fund my life – so unless and until I sell more prints on a regular basis, that’s just how it goes.
Anyway, some of you may know that last year, I won First Place in Photography during ArtHop™ at the Sorensen Studio’s “Nudes in November” 2013 show.
Since then, I have won other awards, as well. The latest of these – bringing me full circle for the year – is another win for “Nudes in November” 2014 show, which I present above, as the featured image of this post. [Read more…]
Day & Night
That’s how it seems I’ve been working lately: day and night, night and day.
This Thursday, October 2, 2014, from 5 p.m. until at least 7 p.m., I have my first ArtHop™ exhibition at the downtown Citibank at Kern & M Streets in Fresno. If you’re in the area, stop by! I’ll be there.
Meanwhile, three of my prints, including the featured image above, and the original (more on that below), along with about a three-foot-long version of The Hills Are Alive, will be showing at the Sorensen Studio for their Fall/Halloween Show.
And then there’s my day job.
Oh, and did I mention that I have a new studio? (More on that in another post!)
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How the Sun Rolls at Night
Bunny Chafowitz and I were making plans to go out at 4 a.m. this morning to try to catch some sunrise “agscapes.”
Unfortunately, my day job got in the way of being able to adequately scout out locations. Since I had no idea where we might go to look for agscapes that might look good under a rising sun, I asked Bunny if it was okay to move our schedule by one day. She agreed, and we’ll go out tomorrow…or tonight…or…aargh…sometime after the next 4 a.m. following this post.
Meanwhile, she went on to bed, and I got to thinking about the sunrise.
This naturally led to me wondering what that pesky ol’ Sun was doing right about then, and how I was going to photograph it…. [Read more…]
The Hills Are Alive
I have been remiss. I’m shooting, but haven’t felt much like blogging lately. So maybe I’ve got a few stacked up inside me here.
Anyway, last night I went out driving around starting about 6 p.m. I didn’t have any idea what I was going to shoot, but I knew that I wanted — among other things — to try out a new “rail” I bought for being able to keep my camera on a line for stitching multiple exposures. For reasons that aren’t 100% clear to me, although I’ve got some pretty good ideas that it has to do with the distance between subject and camera, combined with focal length, the thing doesn’t do quite what I wanted.
Nevertheless, I managed to get some interesting shots, traversed another 20-30 miles of agricultural land outside my normal purview, and started to get a handle on what crops are being grown where.
Why does this matter? Because I’m wanting to try to apply lessons I’ve learned from landscape photography to shooting agriculturally-oriented shots. I live in the midst of one of the biggest farm regions of the United States; at least one New York Times article says our valley “is the world’s largest patch of Class 1 soil, the best there is.” Though I haven’t found a tomato farm yet — or maybe I passed one and didn’t recognize it?! — we are supposedly the largest supplier of canned tomatoes in the world.
Yet, until recently, I’ve never paid much attention to this. [Read more…]
A Hummer of a Weekend
Stayed home all weekend, playing around with Photoshop.
Stepping Things Up
If you’ve read any of my recent articles, you know I’ve been taking some steps forward in my artistic “enterprise.” First, I hired a graphic artist to design a new logo for So Shoot Me!™. Then I hired an attorney and finally filed to register the trademark I’ve been using — So Shoot Me!™ — for longer than I can remember right now. I rebuilt my website (twice, actually). I had “work shirts” embroidered to help me market myself, particularly when I’m shooting an event.
And I recently placed some of my work in a gallery connected with Art Hop; specifically, I’ve entered two pieces in Nudes in November, showing at the Chris Sorensen Studio in downtown Fresno.
But now I’m stepping things up. [Read more…]
Post-Processing Textures & Blend Modes: Zombie Pin-up
This post is not going to be a detailed “how-to” for the use of textures and blend modes.
And I should note — you’ve no doubt already noticed — that the image here is “different” than what I normally post, in that it includes a nude model. I’ve applied a little censorship, since I’ve never used any of my nude work here in a blog post. If you want to see the uncensored version, it’s in the “Transformations (Nude – NSFW)” gallery. And that gallery is, as the title suggests, not safe for work. So you’ve been warned. [Read more…]
Gray Horse Band Member: Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce is a good friend of mine.
Recently, the band in which he plays bass — the Gray Horse — was playing at a local nightspot. When I arrived to watch, I learned that a photographer they were expecting had not yet shown up, so I offered to go get my camera. [Read more…]
Photo-manipulation (NSFW)
DISCLAIMER! I can’t give enough warnings on this: if nudity offends you, or you are at work and it will offend your co-workers, do not click on the link to the gallery contained in this post. END DISCLAIMER! [Read more…]
Probably Not Home Alone 2
“Home Alone” was followed by “Home Alone 2.” Since my last post was a play off of that movie and I wanted to post the same beautiful woman again, I’d be just as…uh…”creative” with my title. [Read more…]
Photoshop Painting
First, apologies to the IE folks who haven’t been able to view the site. As noted elsewhere, I had to make significant code changes to the original theme. In the process, I left a “- ->” off the end of one line, which apparently confounded Internet Explorer. I’ve used Firefox for so long that I forget some people still live in the Dark Ages of IE and hadn’t viewed it using that browser. So, a belated welcome to the serfs amongst us!
Erin Before & After
Once in awhile, I get a wild hair and want to test what I’m able to do. Erin’s impromptu portrait is an example. [Read more…]