portrait

 

 

Re-Inventing the Wheel

July 22nd, 2010

One of my recent assignments for my workshop was to shoot a portrait of someone and incorporate a mode of transportation as a design element.  Let me tell you, I thought about every possible method of transportation and the only things that inspired me were things I had absolutely no access to (small airplanes, hot air balloons, etc).  Everything I did have access to (cars, bikes, skateboards) bored me to death.  I had NO ideas – this was a major problem.  So finally I decided to take the most basic method of transportation – the wheel – and use it to create shadows in the hopes of producing a very graphic black and white image.  Immediately after I shot, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that I just didn’t get what I set out to do…however, after a few days I was completely happy with the result.

Bethany_wheelchair
It’s a common practice of mine to let my images sit a few days after a shoot before I look at them – it gives my emotions from the shoot day a chance to dissipate, so I can look at the images with fresh eyes.
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Jeannie & Alex

July 9th, 2010

A couple weeks ago I decided I wanted to shoot another double portrait, because I normally shoot singles.  It was a super low key shoot, using only available light.

Jeannie_Alex

I Like To Lay Down

June 23rd, 2010

My third and fourth “challenges” from Ken Merfeld were to shoot two portraits of the same person utilizing radically different techniques and to shoot a portrait of someone laying down, respectively.

Taking a portrait of someone laying down has its own challenges and can be done in many ways.  When someone is laying down, two important things to consider are the type of surface they are laying on and how their clothes (and in my case, jewelry) will lay.  These factors will ultimately effect how their body will look in the photo.  What was more important for me however, was camera angle and point of view.  I wanted to be on the same level as my model – when I am laying down and photographing (especially if my subject is also laying down), the rest of the world seems to melt away and I find I connect with my subject on a whole other psychological level.  For this assignment, I shot a model I had never worked with before – which is something I love doing.  Prior to the shoot I had no idea what I wanted my final image to look like – the only thing I had going into it was my colour palette.

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Creatures Great and Small

June 12th, 2010

Besides exploring abandoned buildings and getting bit by ticks, while in Nashville, I also went to the zoo.  Thanks to some sweet hook-ups, we got to go on a ‘behind-the-scenes’ tour, which involved such things as hand feeding elephants and giraffes!  It was probably one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I am crazy about animals so having an elephant take carrots out of my hand pretty much made my trip.

elephant
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Night Shooting

June 8th, 2010

I started back up again with Ken Merfeld and his portrait seminars.  I was in Nashville for the first assignment (more on Nashville in another post) so here is what I produced for the second assignment – to shoot a portrait outdoors at night using only available light…

Patrick_Venice_1

Patrick_Venice_2
Thanks to Patrick for getting dolled up and sitting for me at all hours of the night.

1986

May 10th, 2010

My team and I recently got together to do a beauty editorial inspired by the hair and make up of the 1980’s.  My model, Alexandra, wasn’t even born until 1990 (which makes me feel old) – but she did an amazing job.

Alexandra-1986-1

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Re-visiting old work

May 1st, 2010

A few weeks ago I decided to finally put a new (bigger) hard drive in my computer.  My computer had been running strangely and so it was decided that the best thing would be to reinstall everything from scratch.  This was no big deal since all my files are kept on external hard drives.  The only thing I was dreading was re-importing everything into Lightroom – luckily it went much smoother than I hoped for.  Not only that, but as I was going through all the folders to make sure my ratings etc had made it through the import, I got to re-visit old shoots.  In particular, a shoot from December 6th, 2007 caught my eye.  I decided to look at the images with fresh eyes and re-edit to see if my aesthetics had changed much.  I actually ended up choosing the same poses I chose the first time around (with an additional portrait thrown into the mix).  Then the fun part became retouching the old images with my current retouching aesthetic.  While the original retouched images from 2007 are still among my favourites, the newly retouched image has a completely different feel.  I’m really not sure if I even prefer one over the other.  What do you think?

jennilee - re-edit

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Waist Deep in Still Water

April 19th, 2010

Here’s a photo from last month – shot for my last workshop assignment, the “wet portrait”

Linda in Malibu

We hiked up to Malibu Creek Canyon and walked along the creek until we found what I figured was a pretty secluded place – that is, until we were waist deep in water as a group of about 20 children walked by – according to their comments, our shoot was “rated M for mature”.  Props to Linda for braving the cold water and maintaining her composure.

Understanding the Relationship

March 15th, 2010

I have to say that for me, photographing two people is probably the most daunting thing to do.  Now, I’m not saying that shooting one person is a walk in the park, because there are always challenges with every shoot but think about it…shooting a single person, you only have to worry about the light falling on one person, the emotion coming from one person, and the placement in the frame of one person – your focus is solely on that one person.  The greatest challenge (and this is with any portrait) is creating an image that draws the viewer in.

Shooting a group of people (3 or more) is fun in that you can play around with breaking the group up into smaller sub-groups (my preference is to always have odd-numbered groups of people).  Groups can be more challenging in terms of lighting, but by your arrangement of people, you can always create a dynamic, visually compelling image.  Now we get into shooting the double portrait…the reason this is the most challenging for me is two-fold.  First, you can’t really break up your subjects into smaller groups of odd numbers because (and here is reason number two) shooting a double portrait is about shooting the relationship between two people.  In shooting a double portrait you have to create a visually compelling image that draws the viewer in and makes them understand the relationship.

Diana_Casey

When shooting a portrait, no matter how many people are involved, I feel it’s important to not only make the portrait informational, but emotional as well.  As Paul Strand once said, “it is one thing to photograph people.  It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their human-ness.”

the contortionist

March 9th, 2010

This is Milo.

milo_portrait

Among other things, he works as a contortionist at the Venice sideshow.  We got together one day so I could take some photos of him – let me tell you, this kid is no joke.

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about me

A Canadian, Angela is a photographer that lives in Venice Beach, California and has driven from one end of the continent to the other three times in one year. She once flipped her car ten times and used to test explosives for the government.

contact info

angela marklew
angela@fstopinertia.com
310.913.5268

11 breeze ave apt a
venice, ca, 90291

my work

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