| I just looked out the window to get an idea what time and in which direction the sun is setting. Ideas for the setting sun have been rolling around in my head recently.
I'll need to test to narrow down the look and get it right. This week, I have to look over 4 locations. If they are not facing the right direction they'll get nixed. This project is going to be somewhat challenging as exposure will have to be spot on for semi-back-lighting.
I will be working using a dome meter for this and back-lighting is normally easy but when you have a true equilateral triangle going on for lighting, well the shit can get thick. I have worked this before and gotten it right but am frequently off by about 1/4 of a stop a third of the time. Not a horribly unacceptable variance but the killer here is that this time one of the light sources will be constantly decreasing. Keeping 3 light sources ratio-ed properly as one decreases should be damned hairy to do. It's very important that I loose neither the warmth or enveloping quality of the sun for these.
Yeah, I need some test models, now. I need to have these locations nailed by the 14th for a session with a new outdoor fashion model. I have to start sending out emails right away.
-KevintheVerbose | comments: Leave a comment   |
| I updated the Culled Section of my website. I added 18 shoots to the site all but 3 of them are from 2007. Let me know whatcha think and if you find any mis-loads. Here are 2 old shots I believe from 2006. I used to work with both these two. Alexis is now working in the health profession and Kamal is half of a duo on a radio show, an actor, and play-write. I have photographed three fliers for him- two for his radio show and one for his play. This was to be one of many sessions I had with them both.
When you are looking at a lady like this it is just over. She is just gone.
Of the many shots I have taken of him this one still has a presence I like.
Please critique as you will.
Photographer: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) veilofgrey/Kevin the verbose
Models: Kamal and AlexisJ.
-KevintheVerbose | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| I am faced with a nagging dilemma; whether to post process my previous work with the new techniques I have learned during the past year (give them some pop) or just let the older shots stay as they are. I find myself very much wanting to solely work on the new sessions rather than to try to wade twice in that stream. Hell, nothing wrong with laziness either but when I look at them now, I keep thinking- "the black points, exposure, curves, etc. are all off," and it annoys the hell out of me. This annoyance is why I rarely post in this journal and have avoided updating my site. Shrug...we'll see if the annoyance is great enough to cause me to redo 3 years worth of shots. Ten years from now, it might do me good to see the changes time has wrought.
For now, these poorly processed shots are of JHM. I worked with her at least 2 years ago. I remember her damned fondly as she was a trooper- the morning we shot it was bitterly cold and she never complained; actually insisted I keep going at one point. In these particular shots we were in an alleyway, the wind had picked up heading southwest, having no outlet it would smack into the wall where she stood and go straight up and out. It produced quite a few Marilyn Monroe~ish shots which had us both doubled over with laughter. I don't know if JHM is still modeling, I doubt it...but she was one of the best.
-KevintheVerbose | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Hey, if you read my journal and have LightRoom you definitely need to know about this. If you upgraded to LightRoom 1.4 get that sucker off your computer right away. Some bugs got through in the update that will mess up your RAW and JPG files and EXIF data. If you converted anything in LightRoom 1.4 to DNG god help you, you'll need to use another converter to correct the error LightRoom introduced (time consuming).
Here's a link to the write up on this- http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal . In the comments section for the second post you can read all the problems this has caused. The update has been pulled from Adobe's site now. I hope this heads up helps before some one converts all their files to DNG. Please send this to other photography communities you belong to as it looks like this is going to cause many people major headaches.
Really damned annoying that they have not posted this at the head of their site. It is however up at photoshop news however.
-KevintheVerbose | | comments: Leave a comment |
| After working on the lighting below with bgirl420 I attended a local photographer-model shoot. If you have read my journal you know how I feel about these things but hey, palegothgoddess and JJ Plush were to attend.(JJ did not make it). So I went to see who had it and who didn't locally.
I have found these kind of shoots frequently are not about getting good work while you are at the event. Ironically, at least my experience has been, many photographers and models getting together produces substandard work; unless the event is kept small. I go to these things now to see who has it and who does not. In the long run, it sometimes saves me one or more wasted shoots by eliminating someone from the potential contact list for a session.
I know who I can work with by the fourth click of the shutter nowadays so I show up late and the place is a madhouse. Like catastrophic madhouse. There are four 16 to 18 year old girls modeling against a backdrop while topless models are shooting against another one, people everywhere; workers from another floor, photographers, models, escorts who have became gawkers, and some guy who wants the host to move all our "god damn" cars so they can make deliveries upstairs.
Long and short I gotta get the fuck out of there before the cops show and ask, "Silly Negro, what the hell are you doing on a floor with scantily clad white teenagers and topless adults?" I know this does not count as sexual assault, etc. but there is some charge at play here that ruins and puts Black-men behind bars. So I find palegothgoddess, say, "Hey let's get out of here before the cops show and ask us why there are teenagers and topless adults in the same room?" palegothgodess laughs says, "Yes, let's go."
And that's when it happens, a pushy local girl, who on the net has the penumbra of a bad personality comes over to us. She asks straight out can she come and work with palegothgodess and I. Now normally this would be flattering. But pushy people do not follow conventional behavior patterns nor recognize their bad manners. The way this should have gone down is she should have pulled palegothgodess aside first, asked if it is okay to jump her train, then come and asked me. palegothgodess and I are speechless (I am not used to such behavior) we mumble something along the lines of, "Sure I guess." ...and while the girl is trying to find her clothes or what have you we break for daylight.
palegothgodess and I haul for outside, like across the road, behind a shed outside dig, and start taking some shots.
There is a local photographer, who shall remain nameless, save for the nickname he has been given by a few- the Butt-man. Some how I began channeling his spirit and took many shots of palegothgoddess's bottom that day. There are a few sprinkled through this long winded post referred to now and forever as "In the Spirt of the Butt-man."
Please critique as you will.
Photographer: veilofgrey/Kevin the verbose
Model: palegothgoddess | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | bgirl420, back to our irregularly scheduled journal entry | | Time: | 08:26 am |
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| After the shoot with Marissa below, bgirl420 and I had an experimental session. We tested different lighting effects with the intent of taking what we learned and using it in a formal session.
We went from rim lighting:
to making things glow:
and finally to creating an over-saturated border-less look:
I am happy with the experiments but believe the shots all need to be rescanned; there are obvious compression errors. bgirl420 contacted me yesterday and she and Mya are interested in following up with these experiments in the next few weeks. I am looking forward to it and using these effects with them and others.
The full set of images can be seen here- http://www.veilofgrey.com/Session356Kristi.htm
Critique as you will.
Photographer: veilofgrey/Kevin the verbose
Model: bgirl420 | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Well, I have been off LJ and the net in general as far as posting new work for some time. It was school induced. I am getting ready to enter an accelerated 1 year nursing program and the pre-requisite courses were rough. I just completed the last- Nursing Pharmacology, and that was a back breaker. One weekend I had to take 13 quizzes, dig? So there was no time, none whatsoever to shoot. However prior to this class I had quite a few sessions and will be putting those sessions on my site soon.
Here's a summary of where I find myself at photographically:
1. The Canon Eos 20d- had a focusing issue with this sucker that took me about a months worth of shoots to narrow down. Sucker just does not focus well on anything under f2.0, manually or auto-focus. I loose 3/4ths of the shots either way when I shoot at f1.8 or f2.0. Obviously a failing of the camera not the lens as that sucker is tack sharp on my film bodies through-out the f-stop range.
2. Post-production- The Canon Eos 20d did its job. I now know much more about post production work and have picked up Photoshop CS3 and Light-Room (should help me organize my photos with meta-tags and keywords). The new batch of work I make will hopefully show more post-production skill than was previously the case.
3. First shoot of the new year will begin today with two radio disc jockeys from 102.7. They want some work for their fliers for promoting the show, open mike events, and the like. I have shot work for them before and it will be nice to do so again. Contact actually I have shot, I believe, now 3 fliers for the plays he has either acted in or directed.
Anyway, I am looking forward to this years worth of shooting and am thankful to actually be able to take pictures again. Anyone interested in studio sessions or braving the cold let's get a date down and start shooting.
-KevintheVerbose | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Okay, I have completely neglected this journal for some time, for good reason. I am currently finishing pre-requisites for a nursing program which has been quite demanding. Here are the recent updates in order briefly, all of them I hope to talk about at length when I am not studying for finals.
1. Worked with 5 models. Some green, some not so green...not keen on the work with 1 of them.
2. Nice model contacts me, nice model becomes a nut-case, nut-case gets banned. Horrible recommendation by another model. WTF.
3. Put up a message letting models know I am on hiatus and then I get contacted to work with one. She wanted to shoot the day after my classes ended. Had to decline because my hiatus end date was an estimate. Would have really liked to work with her but I hate to cancel; unfortunately the possibility existed that I might have to.
4. Got an invite to a Haunted Mansion-ish shoot in Ohio. Not actively scheduling because I was studying my ass off. Got contacted by 3 models , 2 of which I am sure can bring IT. Very happy and flattered as these 3 are the ones I felt would be the strongest. (there are two more but I am still not actively scheduling; one is mentioned below #6)
5. Bought a digital camera (Canon Eos 20D) on ebay. Should be here before the weekend. Will sell if I do not like. My hope, it forces me out of my, "get it right at the time of the shot," attitude into learning some much needed post production skills.
6. Today I get contacted by one of the few models who intimidates me as a photographer. All men at some point or another can become sheepish and deferring around the right lady, very rarely does this happen to me; as a photographer it is rarer still. However this lady just brings IT consistently. Very flattered someone with her skill set actually not only looked at my profile but contacted me. We are setting up plans to shoot.
(I was worried some what as to how the newer work from the tale end of last year would be received. I have heard good and bad. The good for me, outweighs the bad. When models who you think can kick other model's asses give you the nod or contact you out the blue, you might be a redneck Jeb.)
7. Hiatus ends next week. I have a weekend shoot scheduled with a lady from work who saw some shots I'd taken lying on my desk. She seems About It, let's see if she can bring it and let's hope she does not kill IT before it starts, dig? Sunday morning, she and I against the town.
8. Started planning things for a shoot with Pale, night work. Back at it again.
Later.
-KevintheVerbose
P.S. If you are a Michigan/other model that contacted me about a shoot, get off the stick already and set something up. Either you are about it, or you aren't. I like About it people. After all they are the only people who you can create something with. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Well, I just finished scanning the weekend shoots I mentioned below. Some ring rust issues but nothing grossly out of line; I still know how to focus and all that. Some of the shots were shot in direct sunlight with the model back-lit. Normally I nail the exposures on these kind of shots, this time I did not compensate for the light and consequently the shots are to my eye underexposed 1/4th a stop. Mind you nothing most would even notice but I did. Just a ring rust issue nothing to be freaking out over.
I got quite a few stunners that I am looking to play up. Noticed that harsher sunlight does exactly what I have always avoided dealing with on my shoots; create annoying hot-spots. Thankfully, I knew this and was able to play the hot-spots up as part of the composition. A few times the sun was an ass however and managed to just rimlight an area right on the edge of the negative. Since I do not crop my negatives I will have to burn a few negatives along the edge down.
Major pluses- even ring rusty I am much more consistent than I was any previous year, I can work on my feet while keeping that consistency, and I worked with two very charming ladies. Yep, Kev's a lucky guy.
Tomorrow I have a shoot with possibly two models; one of the ladies is doing hair and make-up and my model as well but not sure yet. Gonna get a good nap in preparation for that shoot and go out tonight and buy those things construction workers wear on their knees when they have to work on the ground. I plan to do a lot of moving around and squatting for this shoot.
By the way, ever wonder what happened to the models in Michigan that said they wanted to shoot in my live journal but have not gotten in touch with me? I am thinking an earthquake got them all. (wink) Gonna be a good year.
-Kevin the verbose | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Over the weekend, I had two shoots, Saturday and Sunday respectively with LissFury and Alexis.
LissFury and I started off shooting Saturday at 8am. We began shooting Curves and Concrete and a new series I am just starting out (needs alot of work) with models shooting with my vintage cameras. After we hit a second location we shot work for my Derelict series. I wanted to do some shots for the Tundra of the Town series but the area had not fully recovered from the winter and the ivy had been torn from the location.
While there I noticed that Liss' hair was braided and a bit flat for the work I was looking to do. This is LissFury man, you want to see her hair, you don't want it laying flat. It is as if a lion had its mane permed so we spent about 45 minutes in the cold, un-braiding it. It was not grueling. We spent the time talking and catching up on things. I tried to block the wind from her as much as possible and thankfully one of the advantages of being allergic to sunlight is I give off a lot of heat so I was able stay relatively warm. We laughed a helluva-lot and I say it openly, I really enjoy working with LissFury and am sure we will be working together when she has time again.
The shoot was a shake the ring rust off type of session- read I had not shot a straight set in a significant amount of time. I think we'll get some good stuff. As I start shooting more, I will be bring back more stunners click after click.
Sunday worked with Alexis. We too started off in the same area doing more Curves and Concrete work. Alexis is tall, muscular, and leggy. She stopped traffic a few times, received more than one car honk, and cars literally would drive around the block multiple times to see her. We laughed and talked about how this is just the way it is for all shooters working with pretty girls. I was used to it, hell it had happened the day before as well.
Alexis really started to come into her own for this shoot. I was able to suggest a theme and she would pose herself. It was very nice to see. We left the Curves and Concrete and then headed downtown to get some Alleyway work. Although I had worked this alleyway often enough, strangely I had never shot it with Alexis. She did really well and I am sure I will be happy with the results. Shook off more of the ring rust and learned, finally, that Alexis works better if I just stay out of it- let her move and click when I see it. Suggesting then showing her what I am going for freezes her up, letting her work within the frame work of an idea and she is spot on. I had thought she would work best this way and it was great to see that I was right on this. Looking forward to working with her again also.
On Monday, I was driving around and think I may have found a few secluded spots for the Tundra of the Town series and for Nudes if I find anyone interested in this.
-KevintheVerbose | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Well, I ain't dead. I am alive and well. Here is what has been going on which partially accounts for why I have been away.
After buying the new computer I had crazy issues with the purchase such that I returned the monitor as well as service agreement- CompUSA is closing for all intent and purposes. Then I had trouble with two companies hosting my site such that I have now switched to a third to gain posting access to my site. I found a calibration issue between my film scanner and photoshop and believe that now to be resolved. Sigh....to make a long story short, I am back on the web again.
I have finally put up all the work from 2006 on my site at http://www.veilofgrey.com. The new Culled Section showcases the shoots in their entirety while the new Portfolio Section shows the basic themes I was working on those last and somewhat cold months. Please drop in and let me know what you think.
Currently I have tentative plans to shoot with a few models, not as many as I would like, but not so many that it is a problem. I have found Model Mayhem in the past few months seems to have a ton of new girls locally who want to model but really don't want to model, dig? I have no idea why they are wasting their and other people's time. And turns out that I never should have deleted that post below, I was absolutely right about the model.
Anyway, on the photographer's front- I have a shoot on Friday with Alexis (you will all love her), Saturday with LissFury, on the first with Brittany (fingers crossed), on the second with Kjohn, and tentative stuff after that. All in all I am alive and well. I return to updating about my shoots momentarily.
-veilofgrey/ KevintheVerbose | | comments: Leave a comment |
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