Early into my conversation with Lauren about shooting her wedding in downtown Manhattan (specifically in gorgeous Soho), she made it clear that she was very interested in my shooting some quirky Holga photography for her.
I just about fell off my chair when she asked for it…
I’d never had anyone ask me to shoot with my beloved Holga before, so after a quick warning about its unpredictability, I absolutely jumped at the opportunity!
It’s been and continues to be incredibly busy. Eight shoots between Wednesday and this coming Thursday… They’re not all huge shoots, but they’re keeping me out there, shooting.
I love weeks like this. Sure it’s hard, but man does it feel good to generate some new work.
Here’s the last of my shots from my rolls of film from right after my trip to New York:
I never, EVER tire of going to New York…
I didn’t get a chance to really shoot much while I was there. I was way too busy meeting with clients and such and I was only there for two full days. Shoulda planned a longer visit.
On the plus side, two of the clients I was meeting were brides, and I’m very excited to be shooting one of them next month! Bonus visits to the city! 
Can’t wait to go back.
Here’s a mixture of 35mm and Holga shots:
I feel like a rock star.
I know that X96 is just a local radio station, I know that a sizable portion of the audience must have been crew and actors, but people I didn’t know went out of their way to shake my hand, give me a hug and tell me what an awesome job I’d done on my short film called Coming Soon.
I just feel like a total rock star.
Let me back up a bit.
X96 is a Salt Lake City-based radio station. I went to their film festival with no expectations other than an opportunity for a night out. I think there were 23 films in total and the rules required that the films run no longer than five minutes, including credits.
The pre-show is over, all the theater seats are filled, the lights come down and the films start playing. Just three or four films into the festival, my film begins… And now my heart is pounding, I’m shaking in my seat, trying to control my breathing.
Is the audience gonna like it? Will they get it? Will they laugh in the right places?
The first joke comes along…
The audience roars.
I can’t believe it. Forget that I can’t believe it, I’ve never even heard such a large audience laugh to one of MY films! The film manages to offer perfect timing for the laughter to die off just before the next joke rolls around. The audience roars again.
This went on throughout the whole film. What a joy it was to hear so many people laugh! But once it was over, I could breathe normally again, I was no longer shaking and I could just enjoy the rest of the show.
So all the films are done and it’s time to announce the nominees. There were only six categories. Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Drama, Best Comedy and of course, Best Picture.
Ready?
We got nominated for Best Actor, Best Drama AND Best Comedy as well as Best Picture.
We won… Best Actor and Best Drama and shoulda won Best Comedy if you consider the audience’s reaction to our film compared to the contender (basically the other film’s cast and crew cheered louder than we did when the nominees were announced).
When Bijan got called up for Best Actor, I cheered like a maniac. I was so excited for him and he’d done such a terrific job. When I got called up for Best Drama, I hesitated, thinking they’d made a mistake… I don’t know what I sounded like up there on the stage, but I’m told I did fine. Even got a few more laughs.
And the suspense when they got around to announcing Best Picture was excruciating… I remember the auditorium fell silent, Bill Allred proclaimed, “And the winner is…………”. A loooong pause… Someone behind us yelled out “COMING SOON!!”
Sadly, the X96 film festival announced, big surprise, that the film called X96 (I believe the word to describe that title is “pandering”) would win for Best Picture…
To their credit, the film titled X96 was something to behold. Good photography and great effects.
I don’t feel cheated in the least and frankly, I feel like this is a huge win for me. Gauging by the audience’s reaction to my film while it was playing and even afterwards, given that we were nominated for so much…
Well…
I feel like a rock star.
There’s nothing quite like beautiful light on a movie set. And this one had it in spades.
I always love being on set. It’s just so much fun. Mind you, this is coming from a guy who’s never been on any set other than small independent productions. I just love them to death, and I go shoot them whenever I can.
So when my good friend Andrew James called me and asked, “My brother Danny is shooting a short film in a really cool location, can you come shoot behind the scenes photography until midnight or later for no pay?”, I didn’t hesitate for even half of a hundredth of a second to jump at the opportunity.
Because first things first; if you’re a photographer expecting to get paid for shooting on movie sets but you don’t live in LA, you’re deluded.
And since I’m not deluded, don’t live in LA and love what I do for a living, I was on-board in a heartbeat, no pay and all.
Here’s some of what I got from the set of The Piano Man. There were a lot of pink and purple colors that I wasn’t so crazy about, so a lot of them are black and white. Besides, it focuses you on light rather than color.
Enjoy!
I am completely enamored with film photography.
Shooting with my Holga camera (as seen on my other website‘s HOLGA section under the gallery called THREE), has been quite the struggle to say the least. Mine is not modified at all, so the results I get are almost a complete surprise because of the incredibly poor way in which it was built. That’s just how Holga is. It’s part of the fun.
But then I bought the Canon EOS Elan 7E for a ridiculously cheap $55, and now I actually have a light meter! I actually have focus points! I actually have access to great lenses (the same ones I use professionally)!
In short, now I finally have the control I need from my rolls of film, and I can get what I want rather than hope for some happy accidents.
Let me start with one shot from my beloved Holga, then the rest is all taken with the Elan.
Oh my… What beautiful colors you have…
These are from a photo excursion with two special ladies in my life. Lori, thanks for tagging along in the cold, and Brittany, thanks for inviting me. Where are YOUR shots anyway?? Here’s to you both
Sledding fun with the boys!
This is from a recent engagement shoot (coming soon), a past model shoot and then a random shot from wandering around on a recent foggy afternoon.
I know I’ve been awfully quiet around here since a couple days before Christmas, but I should be back to normal now. Keep your eyes peeled for more… stuff
This will be the last time I ever mention NURF Wars, and before you click to play the video below –
WARNING!!! NURF Wars would probably have been given an R rating for graphic violence and strong language. DO NOT click on the link below if you are offended by any of this!
Can’t say I didn’t warn you
Part 2 is here! What? Did you think I’d forgotten?
Well you’d be kinda right… I almost forgot. I’ve been Photoshopping furiously all day trying to get a very large sample album prepped for design. One of 5 more that I need to work on this month.
Anyway, so here is part 2 of my trip to NYC, in Holga-mode. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Can’t wait to go back in March.
Oh and I LOVE medium format film! I’m finally starting to get the hang of my incredibly light-hungry Holga and it’s making me want to have some more control over a roll of film.
Now, although I’d love a medium format professional film camera like a Contax 645, it’s much more expensive than I’m willing to spend on one right now (several thousand – not to mention development costs and then you have to think about lenses and I’m stuck having to buy cool but very expensive Zeiss lenses), so I bought myself a 35mm Canon Elan 7E for an awesome $55! I should be able to use the lenses I already have on it. Bonus!
Some of you seem to have enjoyed my randomness a while back, so here’s something random, though possibly somewhat predictable:
I adore the movie Inception.
Absolutely adore it.
I haven’t felt this excited about a movie since The Matrix came along. Whoever coined the phrase “everything has already been done” was ignoring the fact that wonderment and fresh ideas could still originate from what we know.
The Matrix took a boatload of old ideas and still managed to come across as if nobody had ever so much as imagined the concept they laid out in the film. I mean, machines rising up against their creators? That’s The Terminator isn’t it? As for the alternate reality aspect of it, seems to me we’ve seen every permutation of an alternate reality from The Wizard of Oz to Lord of the Rings.
So yes, “it’s all been done before.” They just mashed together two well-known concepts and decided to make a movie out of it.
But if the quality of a movie or even an idea, doesn’t depend on whether or not it’s been done in the past, it’s the story that matters.
And as with any good movie, with Inception, story is the undisputed king.
And really, everything takes a backseat to the story in this film.
EVERYTHING.
You can talk to me about how cool the effects were, you can cheer at the filmmakers’ choice to cast DiCaprio in it and how great he turned out for the role, you can rave about the score or the lighting, but make no mistake, in the end, it was the story that took it all.
The brilliant execution of everything surrounding the story was what made it shine. If you compare all the elements of Inception like the score, the acting, the lighting, and so on, to a knight’s armor, then the goal is to keep the armor from showing any cracks or vulnerabilities…
So long as you don’t forget that the armor is only there to protect the true essence of what’s actually being marveled at.
You don’t marvel at the armor.
You marvel at the knight.
The armor becomes almost irrelevant. It’s just a shell to help make him appear more fierce than he would without it.
And just the same, despite being well shielded by a terrific score, amazing visual effects, great acting and beautiful cinematography, it’s the story that we marvel at.
Now, I’ve heard a lot of people just blurt out how much of a trip the film was. “Wow, dude, trippy movie!”
To me, that’s almost an insulting oversimplification.
Yes, without giving anything away, there are a lot of elements to the story that are mind-bending and out of this world. But to reduce such brilliance to a “trippy movie” likens it to any other forgettable experience.
And that’s just not right.
Because despite having seen this film all the way back on July 16th, on the very day it came out, it still haunts me. I haven’t seen it since but I think I’ll be going again soon. In the meantime though, I believe it’s hands down, HANDS DOWN, the best film of 2010.
But I’m gonna go much further and say that I think Inception will, or at least should go down as one of the greatest films of all time. It nailed the story every step of the way. No surprise twists and turns or weirdness just for the sake of itself. Just brilliant cinema throughout.
Please, don’t turn it into a franchise. Never make a sequel to it. Or a prequel. Or a TV show. One of the all-time movie greats deserves better than that.
I can only hope that someday I can produce something with as much storytelling brilliance as Inception managed to do.
My Diana F+ finally broke…
I brought it along for a recent wedding and when I pulled it out to take some random shots I realized it was missing the front element of the lens… I have no clue where it went to. I had already loaded a roll in there so I wasn’t about to let it go to waste.
Here are some out-of-focus shots that will make you think I’m weird for bothering to post these at all.
Now I also have an excuse to buy a new Holga.
Enjoy!
