Documentary photo project (as promised)

As I said earlier, I’ve decided to post some photographs of my work-in-progress project for my documentary class at school.  Instead of explaining it, I’ll let you read my proposal that I turned in today to my teacher.  I’m excited to persue this project more in the next few weeks.  Here’s the official proposal:

“I am fascinated with the way that people move in and out of the city.  Many people seem like they’re in a hurry to get places and I want to try to show the feel of transience through this project.  I like to think that I have a special eye for peculiar types of light and where it falls and I hope to utilize this skill for my project, while integrating it into my topic of transience.

Another aspect that I hope to show throughout my project is a relationship between people in the city and their environment.  I’m fascinated with all of our tall buildings and how we seem to take them for granted.  I’m interested in the scale of humans to buildings as well which I hope to show.

This project will contain photographs of people and places.  I’ll mostly be shooting in the loop/gold coast area, but also by the lake because I feel that the lake is such a large part of city life.

I plan to shoot in adverse conditions also because I enjoy the challenge of dealing with inclimate weather.  I also plan to shoot a lot at dusk and dawn because of the peculiar lighting at these times.  Also, I plan to shoot at night at high ISO’s without a tripod to allow my more freedom regarding transportation.”

Amber Weins foggy photo shoot

If you live in Chicago, you probably know how foggy it was here last night.  At 9 o’clock I was coming home from a friends house and was overtaken by the incredibly dense fog.  I had a paper to write and I debated going out… but long story short, I called up Amber and we were shooting within a half hour.  I originally thought of it as a fashion shoot, but now looking back I see it as very lifestyle based and even fine art (especially towards the end).  I had a lot of fun shooting these photos and I think it comes through.

I’ve also been working on a few school projects which I hope to share on my blog at some point.  They are different from what I typically post on this blog so I think it will be a nice change of pace.

Some of these photos here are very “snapshotty”.  I’ve been trying out this kind of technique lately and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it.  It pretty much goes against everything I normally do.  I’ve been using on camera flash, ambient light, and most notably, taking photos crooked and blurry.  I’ve been keeping some of the light color casts and showing my own shadow even in some photographs if you look hard enough.  I’ve also been overexposing and underexposing occasionally.  I’ve also been cutting off limbs as well in more atypical places (I know that sounds painful). These are tricky things for me because I’m such a man of tight symmetry most of the time when I photograph.  Anywho, I’ll shut up now… look at the photos and let me know what you think of this new style that I’m trying out!

I’m going to be trying to write more every time I post photographs too from now on to help you guys (my audience) get a glimpse into my life… if you even care!

Photo shoot highlights with Shannon

Shannon commissioned me to take some head shots for him.  He’s an actor… and an all around cool dude. I’m on top of my game today… here are some edited versions of some photos that I took earlier in the day.

Vanessa photo shoot pt. II

I got into a weird mood that night… as you can see.  Scary movie baby!

Shoot with Lauren

Ben Rodriguez-styling/makeup
Kristin Doyle-hair

Photo shoot with Fascious

Two Sundays ago I went to the Green Mill in uptown to watch their poetry slam.  If you aren’t familiar with the Green Mill, look it up online.  Mark Smith started poetry slams.  Literally- he is on the cover of the Idiots guide to poetry slams.  Anyway, I watched Fascious perform and I was instantly drawn to him.  After the performance I asked him if I could photograph him in my studio and he (luckily) agreed!

A few days later we shot in my studio and here are the photographs that came out of it.  He was only here for about a week and left back for his home in New York but I know we’ll be working again in the near future.  He’s a great guy with an interesting life story…. you got to check him out.

Enough enough, check out his website! He has a full album up for download that has a lot of heart and soul put into it.  I can’t wait to work with you again Fascious!

Photo shoot with Vanessa Pt. 1

here are the normal ones, stay tuned for crazier ones.

Cristina Aguirre head shots

Only two of them,  sorry for the delay Chrisina!

Alistair Gillespie photo shoot

Alistair is a Brazillian DJ that I shot with a few nights ago.  We only had a little bit of time to shoot and he wanted some head shots.  He is here going to school but is originally from Brazil.  He’s a cool dude; check out his Facebook page for some samples of his music and watch him perform in Chicago!

Haiti photo shoot- Christina

The last ones for the Haiti shoot…. best for last?