As you’ll see, I opted for a spotlight approach for these photos. It was a single strobe overhead with a 30º honeycomb to direct the light. For the first two shots, where the boxes are included, I placed the light directly overhead, and used a bit of my on-camera 580ex to both fill in detail on the boxes, as well as trigger the strobe. For the second two shots, I wanted the bottles together to contrast the first two, and so I moved the same strobe back, and angled my 580ex so has to have no effect on exposure. Whereas initially the light spots the “ground” that the bottles sit on, the second two then have the light spotting the back “wall”, and thus silhouetting them quite dramatically.

Enjoy.

These two you’re seeing here are two people I only recently met. I met Danny a few days ago, and Abbey just today at the shoot. I have to say, they’re a darn good looking pair, even if they are brother and sister.

Well today I finally put it together. I won’t go into details as far as what causes the look, but any astute reader and viewer will be able to determine what’s happening lighting-wise in these photos. Apparently all it really takes is a couch… Not a normal couch. This one has seat belts.

One thing that also was somewhat important was the feasibility of color photography with this setup. I do a lot of black and white, especially in the studio, so I decided I wanted to branch that out a bit, but at the same time not lose the drama that I’ve come to enjoy very much with studio lights. A red couch is essentially perfect, as it’s eye catching, but because of the surroundings (read: lack thereof), it doesn’t become a distraction. Even from a single day of shooting it becomes quite clear that people react with some variation to the couch. Some sit straight on, some lie down, some a combination of the both. It’s simply wherever you feel most comfortable that you fit.

Nevertheless, I found that black and white photography also looks great with this setup when additional drama is needed.

Today also marks the christening of Folk 9. For those of you either not on facebook, or who have not friended me in said domain, it bears mentioning that many of the photos I post here are uploaded to facebook, which has a 60 photo limit per album. It seems like just yesterday that I created the original “Folk” album, and right around Folk 5 I printed a book by the name Folk. If/when I have a true publication of a coffee table book or anything, it will almost certainly follow that pattern assuming the publisher allows.

At any rate, enough blab. Let’s talk photos. They’re worth more words anyway.

Oh yeah, a few more words, accompanied by thought. The best kind of words.

I have been thinking about how my photography is the same or different from photography at large happening around me. It’s a big industry, and certainly there are many styles and objectives and looks and methods. That being said, I feel as though the most common theme among all of photography today is the attempt at telling a story. Every photo should contain a story.

For a long time this has been somewhat discouraging to me, because I have difficulty seeing my photos this way. They don’t really seem to be stories… they seem to be isolated events. Moments between moments. At once a perfect example of the time during which they were taken, at at once a single moment unlike any that has ever existed before or since. When I look through my own photos I don’t see movement or plot. I see a perfect sense of calm. A motionless still that feels as though it exists only for itself. A moment that doesn’t need any other to be complete or to be satisfying.

If there is any story told, it happens in the eyes of the subject. A person’s whole life and emotion encapsulated in a single frame. An impossible task, and yet one I attempt with every photo I take.

And the birthday girl, Ms. Beth Wall.

This last one has to be explained, because I seriously couldn’t make this guy up. He and some friends went to an island, got drunk, and fell asleep (note the colt .45 in his hand). When they woke up, they found themselves totally surrounded by bones, which they established to be geese bones. So they then collected 20-odd skulls, and a huge sack full of bones, and decided to make musical instruments out of them, including a xylophone. This guy, who I believe is Dave, decided to make a washboard, which then seems to have made into a necklace thereafter. So there you have it.