Self Portrait Test

Just having fun in the studio today. While my computer turns out web pages from my shoot yesterday, thought I'd multi task and shoot a portrait of myself.

I placed a SB-800 strobe on a Justin Clamp and clamped it to the softbox frame to soften the effects of a small strobe. I used only one strobe and a Road Rags flag to prevent light striking the left edge of the background. This provided a nice dark area for my well lite face to contrast with.

The post processing was done in Lightroom, I selected Preset in the Develop mode called "Cyanotype"

New Mining Landing Page

Once again, my wife has produced another new landing page for my mining work. Please click HERE to see it.

I'm headed down to the Santa Fe Workshops at the end of the week. I'll be attending Gregory Heisler workshop. A very good friend of mine from Jackson, Mississippi will be going as well. I'll be attending Heisler's workshop and Kenny will be attending Eddie Soloway's workshop.

I have been looking forward to this workshop for sometime now. You may be asking yourself why would an accomplished photographer like myself be attending a workshop? I enjoy learning new things and who wouldn't enjoy a week shooting with a master like Heisler?

I'll let you know how it goes. I'll try to post while down there and upload some images, we'll see. DT

New Industrial Landing Page

I have got to be the luckiest guy in the world. My wife is a wonderful graphic designer and has recently freed up enough time from her clients to give me a hand. She has produce a new landing page for my industrial work.

You can see that page HERE.

I'll be posting soon regarding my D70 conversion to an Infrared camera. Here is another quick look at another IR photo. DT

Stepping Out Of The Comfort Zone

I have to admit, I was a bit taken back when I got the call to shoot a fashion/product assignment. This particular client found me on the web and I guess by looking at my industrial work, they thought I was a perfect fit?

There is a fashion trend in South America right now that involves ribbon bracelets which you tie on your wrist. Your suppose to tie 3 knots while making 3 wishes. When the ribbon ware off or brake off your wrist, your wishes are suppose to come true.

My client needed photos of kids and adults wearing these bracelets which are know as Brazil-ets. My day started with young children ages 2 years of age to 12 years. We than moved up to the high schoolers and than adults.

I really enjoy shooting subject matter that I don't normally shoot, I think it keeps me fresh and challenged. We must of had 20 or so people in the studio at any given time during the shoot. A few of those where there to try to catch a look at half naked women.

Here is a video of the photo shoot.

Wanting to post

I've been so busy these past several day and have not had the time to post to my blog. I have just returned from Florida where I have been photographing the construction of a large bridge. Erik and I have shot some nice video and I will be posting soon.

It is really hard to keep up when your shooting a lot and your schedule is packed, I'm doing my best. I leave on Tuesday for St. Louis for another assignment, back on Thursday. I really hope to post the video from the fashion shoot of a few weeks ago, video from the San Diego shoot and now from the Florida shoot.

I'm not a Chase Jarvis with a staff of people to help me, I'm truly a one man band. When I'm not shooting I'm looking for new business, answering email, working on mine and my late fathers taxes, blogging and trying to have some personal time with my family. I also have two workshops coming up in Feb. which I am looking forward to.

I guess what I am asking for is some patience, new videos and more comprehensive posts are coming. I know that it is a self imposed pressure I put on myself, I just wanted to let you know what's been going on. DT

The image posted above is from my newly converted D-70 camera to infrared. I'll have a future post about that also.

If I Only Had A DOLLAR!

If I only had a dollar every time I hear; You should have been here.... or To bad you can't be here.....

I here this stuff all the time. It's very frustrating to arrive on location and hear those kind of comments when your there to shoot an assignment. For what ever reason, your there and you have a job to do and you deal with it. On some occasions you actually hear, "your timing couldn't be better...."

I'm currently working on an annual report for a construction company with projects all around the U.S. I started this project several months ago and we are fast approaching the deadline for photography. Thus far, we've shot in Yakima, WA, Ogden, UT, Salinas, CA, Monterey, CA, San Diego, CA (last week) and Key Largo, FL (next week). I still have St. Louis, MO and another location (somewhere?). I have to have all work completed by Feb. 16th and time is running out.

I may be forced into a timing and availability (my availability) issue regarding the remaining locations. The Key Largo project has been scheduled to coincide with the placement of a major support for a bridge that their building. In St. Louis, it's all about weather!

It's hard to forecast the weather, I've been using weather.com for my forecasting. I try to look for a large window of good weather and book ticket as far in advance as possible. With 3 more locations to go and only a few more weeks available, I may be facing less than perfect weather. If that becomes the case, I'll deal with it. Inclement weather can and has, provide wonderful opportunities to create dramatic images.

I'll attach a few images from last week in San Diego, CA. This location was one of those, "to bad you can't be here ...." times.

We did have nice weather for our shoot, but not the amount of active we would have liked. My client was contracted for site clean-up from the Southern California fires back in October.

I have a up coming post about a fashion shoot I had this past weekend. "Fashion" you say. Industrial Dave is stepping out of the comfort zone. Here is a sample from that shoot.