Warm weather

Last weekend I was able to escape the snow and spend some time in Greensboro. The weather was beautiful and I spent a great deal of time outside with friends. It was absolutely amazing simply to see grass again. I had forgotten what lovely little greens blades in the ground do for your winter spirit.

Anyways, a few of the pictures I have been editing in different ways and creating a grainy effect in post. This isn't normally something I do but I thought the results were interesting.

Just a little messing in between work.

Thanks

jh

Developing

Early tonight I finally finished developing all of the negs from my past weekend. I have a few photos edited with many more to come.

I'll post when I've finished them all. Enjoy

jh

Personal Work Again

This past weekend I traveled back home (6 hours one way...) into the snow to continue photographing people for my personal project. A few post back I posted some black & white images from my "life long project" of people who have impacted my life. These images are a continuation of that same project. Over the weekend I roughly ended up shooting 70 black & white 4x5 negs (13 people) but I also took a digital snap shot of everyone incase something happened during development.

I'll give you a run through on the lighting before showing you the images.

I ended up shooting all of these in my bedroom and I only used 3 lights. On the background I had 2 lights and the subjects were lit with a 3ft octa. Since I was shooting in such close quarters the lighting was a little tough but I survived. I'm going to start the wonderful task of developing those 70 negs today. I'll keep you updated along the way. A big thanks to everyone who ended up coming out over the weekend to be photographed!!

Here are the digitals:

Dad

Mom

Bunny

Janel

Uncle Walace

Aunt Jo

Audra

Mr. Roby

Mrs. Roby

Mr. Jim

Miss Lana

Tabor

Pat

I know it's a long post, but at least it's pictures right? Anyways, you might have noticed the floor in my room and seen that it's just plywood. There's an explanation for that. The upstairs of my house is having hardwood floors installed and they were supposed to install mine on friday, but didn't. So everything was moved out of my room and the old floor was ripped up. That's why you see plywood. I just thought an explanation was in order.

Thanks as always and I'll be posting more images as soon as I develop them!

jh

Archiving...

Everyone does it, and everyone does it differently. Archiving images has changed drastically since digital has taken over the industry. I'm still unsure of how I will be archiving my images in the future. All I hope is that the system I use now will easily integrate into the futures systems. If you ever shot film how often did you throw out your negatives? Probably never. But storage is expensive and multiple back-ups cost you more money (valuable money that you could put towards lenses, lights, and travel) Digital storage is something I try to keep up to date with as often as possible. My favorite brand for storage devices is G-Technology. I first experienced them in NYC when I interned there 2 years ago. The photographer I worked for used G-tech drives for his archiving. I loved the drives (since I spent a lot of time archiving and editing) and since that I have bought several of my own.

Anyhow, not to go off on an advertising campaign or anything (just love the gear). The point of bring up archiving is because I do a lot of it. I'm constantly shooting therefore I'm constantly backing up and archiving. Yesterday while I was organizing (a constant up hill battle) I stumbled across some old ideas I messed around with for a little. The beauty of having everything backed up. These is a small series of images I took last year, and basically it's the result of locking myself in the studio with a bunch of fruit. (Food photography rocks because you can eat it afterwards!) Now, I'm not a "food photographer" but I am always trying to expand and gain knowledge to make myself a well rounded photographer.

Yes, this is me dabbling in photography, and fruit. Hope you enjoy, thanks again!

jh

Motivation.

What is motivation?

Do I possess motivation?

How do I maintain motivation?

Those are questions I am constantly asking myself. I have struggled with staying motivated my whole life. I often want to do great or be the best at whatever I do. I guess it's my competitive nature. But whenever it comes down to really working hard at something I have given up in the past. My motivation for success seems to vanish when I realize I'm not the best. I tried baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, biking, skiing, architecture, mathematics, and physics. (just to name a few things I've tried in my life)

I keep thinking eventually I'll find something I'm naturally talented at or something I can excel at without trying. You know, like those people who you hate because they know EVERYTHING. I've grown up enough to know that isn't going to happen. I know I need work as hard as possible at everything I do if I want to excel forward.

Photography I've made the exception to my motivation. Photography, like everything else in my life, has its ups and downs. But, as long as I work just as hard during those ups and downs is going to be the key to my success in this business. I'm not about to give up on photography simply because I have to work hard at it. I'll be the first to tell you; I'm not supernaturally talented in photography, I just try to work hard and shoot a LOT of pictures. I have to many goals to not stay motivated.

more pics hopefully soon, thanks

jh

(btw the way, Wikipedia defines Motivation as such: Motivation is the activation or energization of goal-oriented behavior. )

Cold Nights

Late at night I often choose to shoot indoors rather then outdoors for two reasons.

1) Shooting outside when it's completely dark using 1 or 2 speedlights is difficult when you're trying to interact with you surroundings. However, not impossible, and sometimes I really enjoy shooting late at night outside.

2) (And probably the main reason) It's been super cold at night.

Instead of going out the other night my friend Meg came over to stay inside my warm apartment. We ended up only shooting for a little bit, and looking back I wish I would have continued to mess around with the light. This is one of the first images I got from the night.

Inside the closet were 2 speedlights (an SB-800 & SB-900) both lights were powered up by 1 stop. The light from the closest is really cool, but I wish I would have kept messing and changing the light.

Here's another shot I got, and unlike the first picture, I played around in post with this image.

Post work is something I need to continue to improve upon. Every time I sit down in front of photoshop I learn something new. This is both good and bad. I enjoy learning new things; however, I still only know a fraction of photoshops capabilities.

Many thanks to Meg for being so willing to model for me!

Thanks again

jh

Side note: It's already February? Where are my days going?

Headshots

Lately I have been shooting a lot and often multiple times a day. Please forgive me if this post is short, I have a great deal of editing to do. Anyhow, I had the pleasure of shooting one of my friends Ryan Davenport yesterday for a bit. Ryan is an actor and I had him "act" out several emotions for the shoot. Here are a few of the selects.

Most everything you see in these pictures was done in camera. Post was just a little sharpening. I might tweek them out a little more later. Can't decide. The lighting set up was pretty simple for these portraits. A main octa above me, a light behind Ryan on the syc wall, and a light pointed at the back of Ryan's head for a little highlighting. Props to Zach Stirewalt for the assist.

After I was done shooting Ryan and got home when it started snowing (and I'm not sure if it's stopped yet). My friend Kaitlyn decided we should go out and shoot in the snow. Her roommate Emily was kind enough to model for us in the cold snow. I was able to grab this quick shot before my hands froze.

One SB-800 with a snoot on the right shooting thru an umbrella to soften the light.

Thanks guys and I'll post more once I get some of this editing done.

jh