The Pandemic Lockdown Era
In a world where toilet paper shortages nearly brought society to its knees, and everyone was trying to avoid the spread of a novel virus, I was blessed and cursed to have ample time in the studio without anyone to photograph. As the year progressed and we learned how to find methods to safely interact I was able to really push my desires for conceptual execution and storytelling in my portraits.
Self Portrait Series • 2017-2021
While this series began long before the pandemic the bulk of my self portraits happened during lockdown. It doesn’t get any more difficult than taking a self portrait on a large format camera. If I’m lucky I have an assistant to help with the focus and triggering the shutter, but often I have to pre-focus the scene and perfectly hit my mark. In this series you can see my journey of making increasingly cleaner plates with more meaningful and expressive scenes that develop over time.
Form Studies • 2020
Using chiaroscuro, rim lighting, and other techniques — in addition to a black and white medium — it gives you a beautiful playground to explore the curves and contours of the human body. Given the limited amount of light and the limited size of my studio I am very confined with the compositions I am able to build with a body. Creative positioning, collaborative communication, and lots of lighting tricks are all necessary when making still-life from a body in motion.
Strobe on wet plate study • 2020
Strobes are fantastic addition to the toolkit. They put out a ton of light but the properties not always very flattering. Traditionally you would soften the light through large modifiers such as light boxes, umbrellas, and passed through multiple layers of diffusion. Unfortunately those modifiers drastically reduce the amount of available light on a very insensitive wet plate. Instead I’m reliant on precise placement and harmonization of harsh lighting to create flattering portraits, or to position things in a way that tells a story and sets a tone.
Diptych On Duplicity • 2020
I will often shoot with as many as four lights in a scene. One at high power on the subject to create the highlights. One at a low power, on the subject to gently fill in the shadows. One or two from behind to create foreground/background separation and to add a touch of drama. And sometimes another one to gently or intensely illuminate the background. When this arrangement doesn’t synchronize as intended, you get some very fantastic results. This sequence illustrates the duality of the character.
I love sharing this unique form of photography and print making with other photographers, models, nerds, DIY enthusiasts, artists, print makers, cosplayers, and pretty much everyone else.
See it in Person
Thank you for your time and interest
This page is long and there are a lot of things to look at. I really appreciate the time you took to explore my work. If you like what you see, I’d love to share my process with you and make a few plates.
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