Monday, May 7, 2012

carryaround camera

I’ve blogged about it before. It used to be I’d never leave the house without a camera. These days, I’m generally guilty of only having my iphone camera on me when I’m not working. It’s both liberating and regretful, depending on when you ask me. While instagram has become a fun way to always be on the lookout for interesting images (and a great photo community on top of that!), relying solely on the iphone camera is sometimes a big crutch. When I picked up a new Canon 5dm3 it allowed me the perfect motivation to head out with no assignment in mind, no editor dictating my images and no real gameplan. It’s been fun playing with the camera and testing its capabilities–specifically in low light environments which really allow you to use light sources previously not very possible. For example, check out the portraits below with the purple edge light, which were shot at f2, 1/4 sec, ISO 4000 with an on-camera fill flash on the lowest setting possible. It looks pretty nice for ISO 4000 and really opens up a whole new world of what you can do with lower powered, available lights.

The first bunch of shots were drunkenly taken at Beauty Bar on my first night out with the mark3. The rest are a scattering over the past few months. Namely, in order of appearance: snowy truck (panasonic gf1), night house/tree (canon 5dm3), cats (5dm3), Fiona Apple (gf1), fried chicken social (gf1), set shots from a recent job down in Miami (gf1), and a trip up to Milwaukee for my friend’s bachelor party (gf1).

Posted in: photos

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Thursday, April 26, 2012

gemini club

It wasn’t long ago I was figuring out how to make good images at concerts; paying a cover to some far away venue where I’d take multiple buses just to get there and fight my way to the front of the crowd, bust out my Canon 20D with a few crappy lenses and do my best–shooting JPG the entire time. I really had no idea, but it was a great learning experience. I was afraid of RAW mode, afraid of flash, and if the stage lighting wasn’t at least decent, I’d get maybe 1 or two passable images out of many hundred. Since then, I’ve learned to embrace RAW (seriously, how did I even not use it??!), figured out how to shoot properly, use photoshop to my advantage and have much better equipment to boot. I write all of this obvious stuff because, well, had I been Clayton of five years ago at this concert, I would’ve been fucked. I was excited to shoot my first show with the fantastic-in-low-light 5Dm3 and boy did I need it. Admittedly, I still have a lot to learn about my new tool. I lazily (see: drunkenly) shot most of the show in AV mode varying between f1.4-f2.8 and, because of the drastically inconsistent light (both colors and intensity), I was getting a huge range of shutter speeds. Because I was experimenting with higher ISOs, some of my shots were being taken at shutter speeds I never expected to see at a dark show. 1/1000sec exposure–serious?? As a result, my memory card could not keep up with my usual concert shooting pace and on top of that I was getting strange light color shifts I’d never dealt with before. Nerd talk aside, I’m glad to have an updated body and think I got some good stuff at what was a challenging show to cover. (also excited to see how Tasha Schalk takes advantage of the new body with her concert photos)

The show was Gemini Club’s sold out EP release show at Lincoln Hall on Saturday, April 21st. Their new EP is called Here We Sit and you can find it on spotify (that’s the only place I listen to music these days). The first few shots below are of Made By Man, who opened the show. The bottom stuff is from the default Lincoln Hall afterspot Allende and Alice’s Saturday night karaoke, which has been my jam lately. B/W conversions done with VSCO film filters.

Posted in: music // photos

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

rusko for dj mag

Earlier this year I drove up north to Milwaukee to photograph Rusko for a DJ Magazine cover story. I packed up my new Ford Focus to the brim with a rented profoto pack and some heads & beauty dishes along with all my personal miscellaneous stands, strobes & whatnot. It was a major regret not bringing along an extra hand to help me load everything in and out of the massive Eagle’s Ballroom location where Rusko had his show that night. Luckily he arrived well before doors opened so we had some time to do a few portrait setups downstairs, along with the more candid shots of him doing sound check and of course the live show later that night.

I’ve never been much of a dubstep fan, yet Rusko has always stood out as a solid artist and I’ve enjoyed most of his stuff. It was great that he was also super enjoyable to work with and up for whatever. He’s got a fun & goofy personality which just let me sort of put him on auto-pilot and make adjustments when needed. I wish we’d had a chance to do some environmental portraits as well but it wasn’t meant to be.

All the live shots were shot with the 24mm/f1.4 without flash. The portraits were done with a couple simple lighting schemes, using profoto for my key and some canon speedlites as fill, when needed.

Posted in: editorial // music // nightlife // photos // portrait

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Santi - Nicely done Mr. Hauck!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

trenchermen tortellini for bon appetit

I recently photographed a dish from the highly anticipated Trenchermen restaurant here in Chicago for Bon Appetit magazine. Since Trenchermen is still under construction, we turned part of Bangers & Lace into a tabletop studio, as you can see above, so thanks to them for letting us use their space for a few hours. I had the camera boomed partially out of convenience but mostly because it was perhaps the darkest day of the year with thick overcast clouds blocking a great deal of the sunlight. I ended up shooting everything at like 1/10 second or something just to get the proper exposure at ISO100. Aside from that, the bounce cards and window were my only light sources and for a few frames, including the top image, I added a negative fill black card above the dish to intensify some of the shadows and contrast.

Posted in: editorial // food // photos

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Monday, March 26, 2012

chicago tech start-up

A center for Chicago tech startups, dubbed 1871, is taking shape in the Merchandise Mart. I was recently given a tour by project chair Matt Moog for a story over on WSJ. It’s exciting to see new developments in my home town, especially in a field such as technology. I wish all the best to the team involved in transforming the space, which is looking fantastic and should be a great addition to the cities’ business infrastructure.

Posted in: photos // reportage

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