State House Portraits

I had the opportunity to go out with a friend of mine and do a portrait shoot for a fashion assignment I had to do. This quick assignment turned into an hour long photoshoot and I took over 400 photos! I wasn’t planning on taking that many but it just happened, and they turned out really great. The goal for the assignment was to showcase her hat (Goorin Bros.) and glasses (See Eyewear) which are from shops in Charleston, SC.

We went to the statehouse because I wanted to use the stone as a backdrop to contrast the colors and flowers on her shirt. The flowers around the grounds were in full bloom so that was a nice change of scenery for the photos.

As for the editing, I tried to keep it light and pleasant. I learned how to do split toning to add a different and unique touch to them. I think it turned out really well for this shoot and will be adding that effect to other portrait shoots in the future.

Check out what we did!

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as seen from above: Columbia, SC

If you knew me, you would know that I have a drone and I love flying it around the city. It brings a whole new perspective to things I’ve been looking at all my life. Although I’ve been flying drones for more than a year I still feel like a little kid whenever I’m watching the preview on my phone as its in the sky. Drones can make the simple so cinematic and adds beauty to the most dull views.

I try to make short edits of the flights I take, and I’m certainly not the best but when you have a drone it makes everything look pretty darn good. I am really liking editing and am trying to learn more to take my videos to the next level.

Take a look at some of the things I’ve made: (and yes I know my titles are dumb…I’m not that creative)

a bird’s eye view: Williams Brice

This past Friday I was driving through the city and noticed Williams Brice lit up in the distance and I thought, man it would look cool to get footage of the stadium at night. So that’s just what I did. Great story right? I’ll let the photos speak for themselves…

Williams Brice Stadium @ University of South Carolina

Williams Brice Stadium @ University of South Carolina

Williams Brice Stadium @ University of South Carolina

Williams Brice Stadium @ University of South Carolina

To capture these images I used my drone, a DJI Phantom 3 Standard. I pulled off in a nearby parking lot and took to the sky to capture a unique perspective of the stadium. After about 5 minutes the security guard of the building I was at came out to see what I was doing, he didn’t have a problem with it and hung out and talked with us the whole time I was flying. Super cool guy. I’m looking forward to keep going out and capturing more of this beautiful city.

 

ps. speaking of stadiums, check out this little video I made flying over the baseball stadium

Over the stadium

Feature film shot entirely on an iPhone

You might’ve seen a trailer for a new horror/thriller film called Unsane, directed by Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike, Contagion, The Informant!, Oceans 11, 12 &13 among many others) and noticed that it doesn’t look like the crisp super high res movies we are normally used to these days. It might surprise you to find out that the entire movie was shot with an iPhone 7 plus and a handheld gimbal. Unsane is an experiment that challenges the norms of Hollywood and the traditional movie industry. Though it will most likely not be praised for it’s cinematic revolution or technical qualities, it will go down as a first for it’s kind and will remain a limited novelty. It is not the first film shot with iPhone’s but, it is the biggest release for a film film that is.

The movie follows a paranoid angry woman, Sawyer, who is committed to a psychiatric ward and is convinced that her stalker is somehow in there with he. For a good portion of the movie the audience (and Sawyer) is not sure if she is actually being stalked or if she is just paranoid and seeing things. It keeps things mysterious and suspenseful.

The not so clean look that the iPhone’s video quality has plays to the feel of the film by making things fuzzy and blurry, muddying colors, and messing up skin tones. But that adds to the creepiness of the story.

Instead of using the standard camera app on the iPhone, Soderbergh used and app called FiLMiC Pro that allows for extra layers of control over the camera in terms of exposure: shutter speed, color temp, focus. It also has a remote version so you can control the camera hands-free. External lenses from the company Moment were used as well. an 18mm, 60mm and a fisheye.

Unsane Trailer

fun with [controlled] fire!

Here’s a fun long exposure idea that is really simple and produces really cool results! Materials you’ll need: camera, tripod, METAL whisk (88 cents at walmart),  1-2″ piece of string or metal chain (or paracord in my case), a lighter, lastly, fine steel wool (00 should do the trick just fine, you can use more dense to lengthen the burn time if you’d like).

Step 1: find a location that is free from buildings, people, flammable materials, etc. you will flinging fire around in the air…

Step 2: expose your scene with a minimum shutter speed of 10 seconds

Step 3: place you person in the scene where you want them, compose the shot visually, then light them up with a flash light to get the focus dialed in, then switch back to manual focus

Step 4: once you feel ready, light the steel wool starting at the part that’s closest to the handle. you can spin the whisk around in different patterns/shapes, whatever you want and it’ll look cool! (keep your eyes peeled for flying embers!!)

Step 5: sit back and take the shot! (I would recommend putting the shutter on a 2 second timer so you don’t get any camera shake associated with pressing the shutter button)

[My camera settings: ISO 100, 20 sec, f8/10 depending on the ambient light of the scene.]

Fun in the artificial sun.

 

I’ll keep this one short and simple. I’ve always loved ring light portraits, there’s something about the simplicity of it that makes it stand out to me. When I was in the lighting studio working on a portrait assignment we pulled out the ring light at the end just to experiment. The results were really cool. I love how you can see the ring reflection in the pupil of her eye and her face is exposed well while the background is very dark. I’m a big fan. The “model” is Elizabeth, my best friend’s fiance.

“When you photograph a face, you photograph the soul behind it”. – Jean-Luc Godard

Meet The Voorhes

Oddly enough I stumbled across this couple, Adam & Robin, when doing research on how to right a bio for photographers. I was directed to their bio page to read a short, witty and informative write up about the two of them. I went searching around their site and was blown away. The images they create are stunning and somewhat mind bending. They do mostly commercial work of products for some pretty big name clients such as: AT&T, BMW, ESPN, Frito Lay, FedEx, GQ, LL Bean, Nike, Popular Mechanics, Time Inc, USAA and Wired just to name a few. They create stills, animations, videos, and documentary pieces. I’ll attach a few examples of their work to share. Check out their instagram pages to see more! @adamvoorhes @finlayrobin

sharing my angle

This is a photo I took while working at Camp Ozark in Mt. Ida, Arkansas last summer. I was a photographer there for about 3 solid months. It’s a nice silhouette of a counselor and two campers on a soft gradient sunset. At the time of this shot these guys were on a ropes course about 25 feet off the ground. The ropes course was one of my favorite places to shoot because of the beautiful lighting. The sun would peak through the trees at different angles making for really great views. I honestly don’t remember the thought I put into this shot before taking it, it was most likely a lucky press of the finger. To me, the strongest part is the color, I’m a sucker for smooth natural gradients. I love this photo because of the memories that comes with it, I think back to all the good times I had that summer and look forward to being there again in a few months.

“Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.” – Ambrose Bierce

About Me

I was born and raised in Chapin, SC, out on Lake Murray. I’ve been in and around Columbia all my life but have only recently started falling in love with it. I enjoy exploring it by night cruising on a long board. I took a film photography class in high school that kick started my passion for photography. We made pinhole cameras and learned the whole darkroom process, it was really fun. I started college as a media arts major so I was taking photo and video courses, figuring out how to use cameras and my craft as an operator. Currently I have a Canon rebel t5 with a few lenses as well as a DJI phantom 3. For post-production I use the Adobe Creative Suite (Lightroom, Photoshop, Premier Pro, etc.).

My portfolio site

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”  – Henry David Thoreau