There's a hurricane. My pants got soaked. I scanned my face.

I love the texture in the background. I left the lights on just to see what would happen, and it turns out it looks pretty cool. Otherwise it would just be blackness instead of the crosshatched grey.

I should be doing homework.

Editorials.

       In my Ad Photo class, our last assignment was to illustrate two articles, either by the article itself or just the title. I chose to illustrate two titles:

Wear a Lab Coat? Odds Are You're a Caffeine Junkie.

This one was a lot of fun to shoot. I especially enjoyed slowly becoming more and more hyped on caffeine with the model, Christina. 

I combined the aspects of both portraiture and still life to create compelling and interesting images. And yes! She really is pouring that into her mouth (and it's cola, not coffee).

 Another fun tidbit: Poor Christina was falling asleep during this part... for realism, of course.

Criminal Minds.

 This image shows a more humorous and literal view of the idea, showing an inmate studying how to be a more successful criminal, therefore, as I like to put it, "expanding his criminal mind".

 

The “criminal mind"—or the reasoning behind a convicted prisoner's actions—is often lost in the eyes of the average citizen, no matter what the criminal's or citizen's income, social status, or age. People tend to think of murderers and thieves and rapists as all the same: plain bad people. Outsiders don't want to hear the criminal's rationale; it will all likely be called crazy, controllable, or preventable (if it's even heard). I illustrated this situation by placing an inmate at the front of a classroom, frustrated by his audience of one, who doesn't even care what he has to say about his situation.

People people people.

Here are some portraits I did for my Ad Photo class:

This was the most fun to shoot. Emma was a spectacular model! I'd never had much success with hair flips, but this is by far my favorite hair action photo I've done.

I am happy Brea agreed to model for me. She has absolutely stunning features that I wanted to capture with dramatic and contrasted light.

Eric was fun to work with. He was the only model I used props for (he designed and created those puzzles himself), so it was critical that everything looked perfect and was evenly lit and displayed. He was willing to do what it took to get the shot I had in mind, and for that I am greatly appreciative.

Kyle was also fun to photograph. I had only met him twice before with a general "hi/bye", so I made the leap to ask him to model for me. Establishing a cordial relationship and eventually trust with a stranger for a photo shoot is an awesome feeling.

I took a more basic approach for Nate's portrait. I focused on achieving flattering light as well as prominent catch lights (the eye sparkles) combined with a strong pose.

Thank you all! You're awesome and I hope to work with you again!

Alien Life.

       Some of you may know I have rotten luck health/body wise. I usually sustain an injury or an illness once to twice a month on average. These past few weeks have been full of different wounds and sickness, but I would like to share this one specific incident with you, mainly because I have a cool picture for it.

       I was working in the RIT studios not too long ago, and I needed to use a collapsable reflector. Here's an image of a similar one from www.buycamerasa.co.za.

The black outer edge is a fabric-covered plastic wire which allows the reflector to be twisted and collapsed.

       I took the folded reflector out of its case. Normally one must bend the wire to pop it open. In this instance, it decided it was a grown up and could do unfold on its own... in my face.

       The edge of the wire subsequently pounded my open eyeball back into my skull.

I collapsed in pain as tears literally gushed out of my eye. I'm not talking drops; it was a consistent horrifying stream of water falling out of my head. I immediately went to the restroom to see what kind of shiner I'd soon be developing. Surprisingly, there were no visual signs of trauma. However, there were terrifying black squiggles dancing around my vision. Everywhere I looked, they followed; mocking me, taunting me.

Now here's the part only RIT students will understand:

After I was able to see a little more clearly (despite the black spots), I continued photographing in the studio for a good hour. Then I let logic hit me and called the doctor.

Anyway, one doctor led to another, and this happened:

I had only the one eye dilated so they could see what was going on inside. SUPER COOL.

What's not super cool is that they found retinal bleeding. But what is super cool is that it will heal in time.  

Some stuff.

The leaf from my previous post makes a cameo appearance.

Windex makes a good light modulator.