Category Archives: Personal

Over the years I’ve found that, when it comes to my photography, personal projects keep me most excited about shooting.  I can’t thank Bryan enough for asking me to join him on this recent shoot.  Hidad, our gracious subject on a recent Sunday afternoon, was interested in having some portraits done.  Bryan found a great space to capture him, and Hidad put up with “left…right…up…down…this way….no that way…I changed my mind, back the other way”  for over an hour.   On this shoot, I wanted to experiment with mixing flash with natural light.  Personal projects are like gold: I can experiment (with plenty of room to fail), I always learn something new, and my excitement for photography is reinvigorated every time.  And then I get to use my new tricks on client shoots.  I was so excited about these results that I scheduled my next personal project shoot as these images were downloading.  Stay tuned!

 

 

 

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My nephew, Josh, and I took to London for the 2013 holiday season.  I was so thrilled to take him on his first trip to Europe.  He was (almost) as excited to be my on-call photographic subject for 10 days.  You can tell by his expression, right?  Let’s do it again, Josh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I cant say enough about how incredible this city is.  Click here for the full set of images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • kimochi

    Amazing…. Wonderful photos. I would like to visit Istanbul.

  • Weekend links! | eLLe PHOTOGRAPHS!

    […] * This Instagram paradoy is hi-lar-ious. * Check out my friend and fellow photog Dana’s pictures of Instanbul (as it was to Constantinople . . .  anyone?  get it?). * I just love the high fashion weddings […]

To celebrate the holiday, I decided to shoot today entirely using a technique that I’d never tried: freelensing.  It’s basically shooting without the lens physically attached to the camera.  Instead, the lens is held close to the lens mount, tilted, manually focused, and, in my case, prayed over…all in hopes of getting something interesting.  The effect is somewhat similar to what can be done with a tilt shift lens: the focal plane can be manipulated all over the frame (and even back and forth in the Z-dimension) depending on how the lens is held and focused.  So far I would describe the technique as “impossible.”  But I did like a few images from today, including a couple of rare shots of my sister.  All images were taken with a 50mm lens wide open at f/1.4.

 

I love this image, because its CRAZY to shoot at f/1.4, from this close, and have both her chin AND her eyelashes in focus.  Awesome.

This image was actually taken the “normal” way, with the lens attached.  But I always love images of my niece, so it somehow found it way into this post:-)

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  • jon

    nice work. last two are particularly awesome.

20 years since Jon Theodore and I have seen one another.  Since we were classmates at Gilman School in Baltimore.  In the meantime, he’s become an acclaimed drummer, first for The Mars Volta, now with One Day As A Lion, a collaboration with Zack de la Rocha (click here to check out “Wild International”, one of my favorite ODAAL songs).  After his most recent tour, we were able to catch up in the Haight.  Good times!

 

 

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