Day 47/365

Dani is a terrific model I’ve had the privilege of working with before. We’ve been trying to schedule a time to shoot together again, but our schedules haven’t been too kind to either of us. Anyway, here’s the stuff I’ve done with her before:

Last night, I worked with her on a slightly different project than I’m used to.

She invited me to shoot alongside another photographer, so I said yes. The concept was body paint. Now, I’ve seen some body paint work in the past (online only – never in person), so maybe that’s spoiled me and given me unrealistic expectations for last night’s shoot, but I was disappointed with the results there… Dani did fantastic as usual, I think I did alright, but the body paint…

You be the judge.

Day 46/365

Shooting pictures of male models is something I’ve been meaning to do forever. I tried starting it up late last year, but October 1st was the last time I ever did a male model shoot. Here’s what I ended up with on that shoot. I was pretty happy with the results.

After that shoot however, the effort to book male models completely died. Female models were coming to me with almost no effort on my part and I had many, many other things to tend to. So the male model “project” was dead.

Until now.

Because now, I’ve got 10 male models to look forward to shooting with, not counting the female models, weddings, engagements, etc. Oh and the avalanche of emails from other male models that I’m still trying to keep up with and book.

All in all, I’ll probably end up with about 15-20 male models between now and April. That’s a lot for me to handle given an already heavy workload, but it’s been getting pushed off for far too long and I’d forgotten just how easy, stress-free and just plain fun it was to shoot with good-lookin’ dudes.

It’s just a completely different dynamic.

I don’t have hair and makeup to worry about, I don’t have a giant wardrobe to choose from (models bring a selection of clothes with them – girls usually bring everything in their house), I don’t have as delicate a balance to walk when talking to my subjects, and on and on.

And when male model shoots work, they make me very, very happy. Like the one below did.

My personal favorite:

Looks like a young Robert Redford to me:

I’m going to be shooting both an engagement session and a model session tonight. So I’m going to be a day behind again.

I’m far too tired to post today’s pictures, but I did shoot a male model today, for the first time since last year in October. I’ve been meaning to shoot a lot more male models since late last year and just haven’t gotten around to doing it until recently. Now that I have started however, I’m looking forward to about 15 models, not counting any of the other photo shoots I’ll have going on

It’s gonna be a crazy few weeks…

Anyway, today’s shots turned out amazing. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Day 45/365

“Every cloud has a silver lining”, and here’s what it looked like for me today:

Ironically, these pictures would mean more to me by the end of the day when I was forced to search for that silver lining.

Day 43/365

Unless you are a very close friend, an actor, a model or a family member, you will never see this in person.

Never!!

I just put up a couple of my recent(ish) model shoot prints to finally replace the old shots I had in those frames. I’m about to do the same in another room in the house (though they’re not pictures of models).

Oh and one last thing…

I officially declare this blog’s picture THE worst picture so far in the 365 day project! It’s a picture of work I care deeply about and think is pretty good, but the picture itself is absolute crap.

Tune in tomorrow, maybe the photography won’t suck

Day 43/365

I mentioned a few days ago that sometimes, models don’t show up. Well, today was another one of those days… Last time, the model wasted my time. Today’s model wasted my time AND Jaylene’s time.

Here’s Jaylene’s brushes all laid out and ready for, as it turned out, nobody.

Day 42/365

I did a couple of engagements today. I just finished Photoshopping them and it’s very late, so I apologize, but this is going to be short on text and longer on pictures.

Now that I think of it… some of you may be cheering… which really hurts my feelings…

Ok, enjoy!

Nate & Shawna

Julio & Justine

Oh I have to mention something on this first shot. Yes, it’s intentionally blurry. I actually missed focus during the shoot, but I decided it might still look cool if I accentuated the blur. I like it with more blur. There’s an honest quality about it that the extra blur emphasizes.

Day 41/365

I almost forgot to shoot today. Well, not quite. I shot some awesome new stuff with my film camera, the Pentax, but I almost forgot to shoot something I could actually post.

Once I develop the roll of film, I’ll share. In the meantime…

“It’s a bird! It’s a plane!”

No Bob… It’s a keyboard… Get your eyes checked, will ya?

Day 39/365

Models sometimes don’t show up.

It’s upsetting enough with new models, not to mention a complete waste of time, but I was surprised to be left hanging by a model I’d worked with once before, after having made the trip to downtown Salt Lake just to find myself texting and leaving messages with no response whatsoever.

Here’s a few pictures that resulted from a little scouting around once I realized I’d been stood up.

The Hoberman Arch by the Rice Eccles football stadium:

Have you noticed how exciting traffic can be? Look! That red car just took the lead at 500 miles an hour!! Granted, the driver lost control, crashed into a retaining barrier and then exploded, but still! Exciting stuff

Day 40/365

Do you see that green glow?… Those tiny, beautiful little green lights on the front panel?… Ahhh… I love them when they come on and I miss them when they’re gone… It’s a beautiful sight.

And now for an explanation as to why I’m apparently attracted to green lights.

In the past week, I have fought… and fought… and fought… and then fought some more, with the installation of a music program called ProTools.

Digidesign, the manufacturer of both the software (ProTools) and the hardware to run it (in my case, the MBox 2 – pictured here), insists that ProTools simply will not work on the 64-bit version of Windows Vista, which I have.

To which I naturally say, “Watch me!”

Hey, it’s worked before, it’ll work again.

And obviously it did work (the green lights are on!), but not without a long and gruesome fight. It took me days of endlessly installing, uninstalling and doing something a little different with every try before it finally came back to life and stayed there.

Now it’s alive again. Glowing beautifully by my side.

Ahhh… Life is good.

Day 38/365

Pretty straightforward title, isn’t it?

Mmmmm:

A few side notes.

I remembered that I needed to talk to you about something, my dear audience, when I finished my recent model shoot twelve minutes past midnight. I knew I needed to say something before the shoot, and finishing that late to try and stay true to posting every day reminded me of the problem.

And the problem is, I’m just not going to be able to post every single day sometimes.

The initial point of this project wasn’t to blog every day, but to shoot every day, so at least in that respect, I’m staying faithful to the idea. When the rush of wedding season hits, you’re just going to have to trust that I’m sticking to the plan and that I’ll get back to blogging so I can show you the shots for each of those days.

I don’t expect to ever fall behind by more than a few days on the blog, but if there are some of you out there that are obsessively checking this blog, first of all, please don’t hunt me down and kill me.

It’s not polite.

And second, just hang tight, I’ll eventually get back to blogging.

Tomorrow is a busy day. I have a model shoot in the afternoon and I’m wrapping principal shooting on NURF Wars, my (not so) little short film, at night. So tomorrow might be the first day I fall behind on the blog, but at least I’ll still be shooting.

And last on the list, today I managed to find the time to start composing an instrumental song. Don’t get too excited, it’s electronic music, so I know I’m going to bore the living crap out of much of my audience. But I grew up in Europe (Belgium, to be specific), so I had a strong influence from the electronic music scene.

If I decide it’s not terrible, I just might share.

Stay tuned.