Four years ago, Kai-Huei Yau had an idea. During a presidential election year, why not create a series of high school football preview photographs that tie into the political atmosphere? This year, the Tri-City Herald photographer finally put the idea into motion. His “Football Campaign 2012″ series features portraits of local high school football players that make them look like they’re running for office rather than preparing for a season of war on the gridiron. Read more…
Moscow-based photographer Alexander Khokhlov has a striking series of portraits of models with various designs painted onto their faces. The faces are either painted completely black or completely white, and then used as a canvas for some kind of artwork (e.g. a Mickey mouse face, a silhouette, a keyhole). Khokhlov calls the series Weird Beauty. Read more…
Legendary American portrait photographer Gregory Heisler was recently invited to give a talk to the American Society of Media Photographers in Oregon. Prior to the lecture, Stumptown Visuals caught up with him to ask him for some words of wisdom. What resulted was this 8-minute gem that contains a good deal of advice you can apply to your own portraiture. Read more…
Starting in 2007, Disney and portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz have collaborated on a series of advertisements called the Disney Dream Portrait Series. Each ad features a portrait of one or more celebrities dressed up as famous Disney movie characters. Along with the advertisements, Disney has also been releasing some behind-the-scenes glimpses showing how the photographs came together. The video above shows actress and model Olivia Wilde posing for Leibovitz as the Evil Queen from Snow White. Read more…
In Russian art museums, older ladies are hired as guards for the pieces in the collections. Photographer Andy Freeberg noticed that these women were a constant part of the visitors’ viewing experience, silently hovering near the artworks as they’re being enjoyed. Finding these women “as intriguing to observe as the pieces they watch over”, he decided to photograph them alongside the works they’re tasked with guarding. The project is titled “Guardians of Russian Art Museums“. Read more…
The subjects in portrait projects are often selected for something they all have in common. The people seen in Brooklyn-based photographer Caroll Taveras‘ project You Are Here have this in common: they were lost at the Olympics. Commissioned by Mother London, Taveras finds tourists at the Olympic games who are hopelessly lost, and then guides them to their desired destinations in exchange for a portrait. Read more…
Los Angeles Times Jay L. Clendenin spent four weeks leading up to the Olympics traveling around Souther California, making portraits of athletes on the US Olympic Team. While he certainly wasn’t the only one shooting the athletes, Clendenin chose an interesting way of capturing them: in addition to using Canon 5D Mark IIs for digital photos, he also used a 4×5-inch field camera and a 100+-year-old Petzval lens. When displayed side-by-side, the photos show an interesting contrast between “old” and “new”. Read more…
Superheroes usually do their world-saving work in big cities, but what if they lived lives that were as mundane as the civilians they’re sworn to protect? Photographer Chow Kar Hoo has a creative series of photographs that show well known superheroes living rather ordinary lives in Hong Kong. Batman is seen strolling a night market, Wolverine is found making a living slicing up meat at a butcher shop, and Hellboy is spotted enjoying some late night hot pot. Read more…
Photographer Dona Schwartz, a professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, has an interesting pair of photo projects titled “On the Nest” and “Empty Nesters“. The first shows portraits of expecting parents as they prepare to welcome a new member of the family. The second features portraits of parents who are coping with an empty house after their children have grown up and moved out. Read more…
Who said that hi-end lighting equipment has to be expensive? And who says the only way to shoot with fluorescent light is to use the flicker-free Kino Flo lights that can cost you thousands of dollars?
I began using my fluorescent lighting technique nearly 10 years ago, long before Kino Flo’s and Peter Hurley became popular. I have been asked to describe it so many times that I decided it was time to put together a few tutorials to show how to build it and how to use it. In this article, I am going to deal with “how-to use” the fluorescent studio lights. Read more…
