My son is currently two years old. I am fascinated by the way a two year olds mind works. One day, off in the distance, the clouds were growing dark and slowly intruding upon us. As they crept in they began to announce themselves like a slow rolling mallet on a loosely fastened base drum. My son looked to me suddenly with eyes big and wide and I calmly told him, "that's thunder buddy." He looked to me and inquisitively said "Ohhh, thunder, Hold it!" My son loves to hold things, insects, frogs, food, keys etc, anything you have especially if it's new but thunder was a new one. I believe I reacted in a quick laugh thinking to myself what a silly request and slowly thought about how creative that line of thinking is. I love the fact that to me it is such an abstract idea to hold the thunder and to him it was a simple request. I try to encourage this type of thinking in hopes that one day he will hold the thunder.
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A short tour of Las Vegas with the incredible Magician Justin Flom
I had the great pleasure to meet an extraordinary and incredible individual during my trip to Las Vegas. Justin Flom is not only an especially nice and approachable human being but he is a real life wizard defying the laws of physics, hiding as a magician. I have no doubt that he is destined for great things and will play a crucial role in the evolution of entertainment what we think is possible. He took me on a quick tour of Las Vegas in search of interesting locations that resulted in the photos shown here. If you aren't already familiar with him (Soldiers Deck of Cards) please check him out here.
Portraits of Love and Nature
Canon 5D Mark III in camera Double Exposures - September 12, 2015. Derek & Becca, Jacksonville, Florida.
A morning with Robert Forbes
in Three Snaps
Rob is one of the first people I met in Jacksonville through photography and easily one of the coolest people you'll come across. Robert is not only a talented photographer and business owner but he is the only person I know with a zombie finger. You can check out some of his work here.
Double Exposures with the Fuji X100s - First Attempts
I’ve always been intrigued by double exposures. I find that they add an extra layer of storytelling to an image. I’ve learned over the past year that executing an idea with a double exposure is very tricky and is an art in itself. I began creating double exposures on an iPhone which gave me the luxury of taking two separate photographs from different times, places, locations etc. and storing them for later when I had the right image to layer it with. I really enjoyed the creative process but it wasn’t until I about 6 weeks after I started shooting with the Fuji X100s that I realized it had a double exposure setting. This setting emulates that of a film camera where you take one exposure directly on top of the other simultaneously. This adds a layer of complexity and forces creativity as you lose the luxury of choosing the images you want to layer from a previous photo shoot. Some more expensive cameras such as the Canon Mark III have the option to choose previously shot exposures (currently out of my price range). It is also possible to process these exposures from a DSLR or Mirrorless camera in Photoshop but in my efforts to stretch my creative process I chose not to use this option and test the X100s and myself to see what I could do with these Double Exposures shot simultaneously in the same setting.
The main thing I found in my first few attempts is that lighting is everything. That is true of all photography but especially with the double exposures as the camera underexposes each image so they will come out darker than they appear in your view finder. You can correct this in Lightroom by increasing the exposure but you want to avoid increasing it too much as it start to show distortion in the shadows. This leaves the option of creating the right lighting environment for the double exposures. I started with a single external flash shot through a simple white umbrella to soften the light. This simple setup provided a great basis of comparison. I look forward to adapting this technique to natural light (when time allows) and will share some more image when I get the chance to. Included here are a few of my first attempts at the double exposures shot with the X100s. All images were created solely in the X100s, simultaneously shot though some correcting has been made in Lightroom including exposure, shadows and VSCO film emulation.
Interview with Kate Wesson from iPhone Photography School
in Interview
I'm deeply honored to have the opportunity to share some insights into my work on the incredible iPhone Photography School site. Big thanks to the talented Kate Wesson for this opportunity!
This is a blend of a photo provided by Eric Rubens (@erubes1) for the current week of Mextures Collective edited by me. I used Union App to blend the double exposure as well as mask out the background outside of the clouds in the sky. I used VSCOCam for the soft tones and blended again in Union App to reduce the saturation in the sky by blending it with a black and white version of the same image to bring focus on the subject and the house.