Garden of Light and Shadow Fashion Shoot

This past summer, I brought together some of the most talented models and artists I've worked with for a fashion shoot in Gramercy. The theme of the shoot involved the contrast between light and shadows in a lush, beautiful garden. The models, Caaha Xaashi and Joo Young, wore beautiful garments and accessories pulled by wardrobe stylist, Carol Hong. Their hair and makeup was done by the amazing Amanda Forsyth. The location was especially picked out for it's gorgeous garden and it's bronze double doors. It will also be my future photo studio location. On that hot summer day, we put together some sizzling fashion.




Here's some behind the scenes of the shoot as it progressed.

Camera Settings: The garden photos were taken with both daylight and artificial lighting to give them a very commercial feel. I used both a canon speed light on an impact stand and an excalibur strobe with a westcott softbox. Because of the midday light, I turned down the ISO all the way to it's lowest setting and purposefully increased the amount of stops in order to control both exposure and to get every beautiful detail of the garden. The indoor photos were taken with a 1k rifa continuous light. All photos were taken with a 70-200mm Canon lens. You can see more photos on our website.

How to Make a Steadicam with a Chicken

Awhile back a video came out showing that chickens have steadicams for heads:

In case you're wondering, the reason the chicken is able to do this is because of what's known as the Vestibulo-ocular reflex. Humans have this too, only it just doesn't look as funny.

YouTube user destinws2 actually went ahead and turned a chicken into a steadicam.

Living things as camera equipment? I'd love to show up to a shoot with that thing.

Anyway though, it's not nearly as creepy as these pinhole cameras made out of human skulls!

This one is a 150 year-old skull of a 13 year old girl:

And this bad boy is made out of silver, gold, mercury, gem stones and a blessed Tibetan monk skull! Talk about hardcore.

I'm thinking we should stick to metal and plastic.

Video Gallery of Women's Tennis at the New York Times

Check out this incredible motion gallery of top women's tennis players in slow motion over at the New York Times! It's just another example of how print is being re-imagined in a digital context to include motion, further blurring the line between still photography and video.

This piece was directed by Dewey Nicks and shot on the Phantom Flex camera system.

New York Times: One in 8 Million

An incredible collection of short biographies combining photography and audio put together by the New York Times. I think One in 8 Million is a great example of how the internet can be used to create these multi-dimensional pieces that bring together several disciplines into an art form that has never existed before. Yeah, putting photos and audio together is nothing new, but throw interactivity and instant access into the mix, and now you're talking about a medium that has a few more tricks up its sleeve and more room for fresh thought than just your standard narrated photo story.

Web 2.0 and new emerging technologies (DSLR's that take HD video at prosumer prices, iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), allows artists and designers to explore new multi-disciplinary forms. There's an opening there to create new perspectives, even if it means just tweaking something with new technology or matching ideas together differently. Have you seen an incredible photo project that's already famous and you wish you beat it to the punch? Turn it into a video. Have you seen a short film that you wish you made? Make something similar and then integrate it into social media like Twitter and Facebook. Have you seen a cool multi-media style or approach that you want to emulate, but you don't want to look like you're just copying? Apply it to a completely different context (take the one in 8 million idea and apply it to chefs in Manhattan, mothers, rappers, or pet owners talking about their pets.) Instead of trying to be the best in some particular genre, create a new genre and explore it.

There is never going to be another Henry Cartier-Bresson or Richard Avedon. They were artists in a different context, a world with different social and technological relationships. What was fresh and new for them is not fresh and new for us if we stay confined to their original forms. The spirit of the age is different. Break out, combine, mismatch, be the pathfinder and pioneer of something really new altogether.