fstopinertia – photography of angela marklew

I’ve always been a firm believer that one does not need to go to school to be a photographer (I personally studied science throughout high school and college).  That being said, I do try and take every opportunity presented to me to participate in workshops.  I am currently involved in a 10-week workshop taught by a fantastic photographer, Ken Merfeld.  Although Ken is a master at wet plate collodion, this workshop is about both working in series (which he does using the wet plate technique), as well as getting us out of our photographic “boxes”.  To facilitate this he gives weekly assignments…my first attempt at pet portraiture was one of these assignments.  Last week’s assignment was to shoot two portraits using the concepts of “white on white” and “black on black”.  As a reference for the low key image, he asked us to research a photographer by the name of Roy DeCarava.  This man (who recently passed away) was a master at shooting “black on black” without losing detail.

Here’s what I came up with:

Special thanks to Jolette and Moses for modeling and to Seana Gorlick for doing hair and make up.

I’d worked with Jolette previously, and her and I get along really well so we decided to take some time and try something I’d never done before…using a slow shutter speed (about 1/4 sec in this case) with strobe.  Jolette practiced her hair metal moves while I waited for what I hoped were good moments to press the shutter.