I know you are wondering, since it's been a while between posts. All three of you reading this were waiting with baited breath for the next installment, so here's an update about what's new in my world, sorry I kept you so long.
Actually, my unique reader count just passed 30,000. I am pretty excited about that. Still building slowly, which is all I could hope for from this blog. Several people are clicking through and buying things via referral links, again, it's only a few dollars a month, but it's also moving in the right direction.
My Book, while pretty much staying flat, is now also available as an audiobook, and has sold two copies. I didn't really think about trying to make an audiobook version, because the visual seems integral to a photography book, but turns out it was totally free to do, I just split the audio sales with the voice talent, so I figured what the heck.
My stock sales are slow, but consistent, again, only a couple of bucks a month, but it's better than nothing.
I had my application approved and am now a photographer on Model Society, and one of my shots is in the rotation on their cover page. I saw that site a couple of years ago when an awesome aerialist/model/yogi friend of mine was featured. There are lots of amazing images all over the site and some really inspirational photographers. I only recently felt like I was doing good enough work to put something on there, so getting accepted and having a shot picked for the cover rotation was nice validation.
I also finished my first ten levels in the Arcanum, and am now moving into the first Sphere as an apprentice there.
More important, I have been getting asked to do shoots, and am actually even getting paid for them! WOOHOO!!!
I had an aerial duo ask me to do some promo shots for them, so we went out to a really awesome bridge nearby, hung a trapeze, and went to work. We had to shoot in pretty much the worst mid-day light because of how our schedules worked out, but I think we did ok. And since they were so darn buff, I even got to play a little bit with some dodging and burning when it came time to edit.
We actually had a stylist for this shoot, one of my friends, a fellow aerialist and an awesome model. She is also quite a fan of Black Milk Clothing. So, when your stylist is an awesome model, you have a great location, some extra time, and she happens to be wearing some fabulous stuff, what else do you do but keep shooting? She spent years perfecting her supermodel hair flip, and when I looked at the back of the camera to see how we timed it, I pretty much said, "it's a wrap, we aren't getting better than this."
Black Milk agreed and put the shot in their online feeds. Do tear sheets still count when they are screen grabs? Whatever, I'll take it. She's one of my favorite people to work with on either side of the camera and this hair flip was epic.
The next shoot I had the pleasure of doing was with an aerialist and professional ballerina friend of mine. She is also an amazing photographer so I was stoked that she would choose me to work with when she wanted to get in front of the camera. She wanted classical, well lit shots, so we grabbed some down time in the aerial gym and spent a few hours playing around. I think we got some good stuff, and I am definitely getting better at lighting my subject without spilling onto the background, so editing is getting much easier.
I have decided that I need to invest in some serious studio strobes as soon as I can afford to, especially when shooting aerialists. Speed lights are great, but when I want to do very specific lighting on a moving target, I think I really want the help of modeling lights. A lot of the frames wound up not being ideal because the light was focused for one spot and my model either spun or was at a slightly different height, just enough to put the focus to another area of the physique. I am getting used to the throws of the speed lights with my various modifiers, but modeling lights would make the process much easier. (and yeah, I know the framing on that last shot was bad, I cut off her hand.... it actually was just a lighting test show, but it turned out to be one of my favorites from the set... moral of the story is pay attention to detail even when you think it's just a throwaway click....) She's shot with Joe McNally before, who is pretty much the god of Nikon speed lighters, and apparently he liked this set, so SCHWING!!!!!!!
Finally, for this post, another aerialist friend of mine decided she wanted some studio shots, not just the live performance shots I had taken of her. She was worried that she really wasn't photogenic at all and usually took horrible pictures. Still working on the edits of the full set, but I think I was able to prove her wrong.
This shoot was fun, and easier than the ballerina because this model brought her husband along so we had a third person to turn her and spin her into the right positions between frames. I think I am going to make a positioner mandatory on aerial shoots from here on out, not sure how I ever survived without one. And, once again, my favorite stylist/model/aerialist also showed up to help out, and we couldn't resist some clowning around... I mean... testing the lighting..... during outfit changes....
My fiance set me up with one of her friends who is an awesome yogi at the studio she works for that wanted some shots. Didn't try to do anything crazy with the lighting, just wanted some classic shots of a seriously hard core Ashtangi. Learned that a lot of times a technically correct pose doesn't necessarily lend itself to the most flattering photo posing, I think a lot of the yoga shots the world sees sacrifice form for the sake of a good image. It was hard trying to get good angles of the best poses. But I think we managed to get a few where the pose and the shot worked together and looked amazing.
Of course, because it's me and I like to have fun on shoots, I even got the hard core yogi to break into a smile and dance a bit, thinking the camera wasn't ready....
I might get smacked in the head for posting that one, but I have learned that if I can connect with my subjects and get them laughing and having fun, even on a serious shoot, we're gonna get good images. If we can't laugh together and make some sort of connection, it doesn't matter how great the model is or how good a photographer I am, the images will wind up flat and missing that little something that makes them sparkle. We wound up having so much fun that my finance even jumped in for a few shots as well...
So, to summarize, having a hell of a lot of fun, doing lots of shoots with some awesome friends, and starting to even make a little bit of money for it. Life is good. I also did a couple NSFW shoots with models I hadn't worked with before, one ballerina in the studio and another outdoors on the beach. Still editing those so consider this a tease, more coming soon, until then, that's what's up with me, I missed you too, let's try to stay in touch more often.
