Just thought I’d post some photos from shoots in the past couple weeks. I haven’t done as many shoots this December but come the beginning of next year I should have a lot of new photos up. I’m traveling to Florida and Southern California in the next two months so I should have some pretty cool photo shoots from those two trips. I also have a lot of headshot shoots and various other gigs coming up so I probably won’t be doing as many tfp/tfcd shoots in the coming months.
In other news, I bumped into another photographer, TJ Cameron, at the gym a couple weeks ago and we got to talking. As a result I’m going to be doing some photo editing work for him. It’s crazy sometimes where I find my work. But then in the world of photography you never know where your next job is going to come from. The best thing to do is spread your roots and network with as many people as possible and do whatever you can to get your name out there.
At the shoot Peter mentioned to Lane that I made movies as well as being a photographer. Lane quickly jumped on this and asked if I would be interested in making two short films for his show. Knowing this would be great exposure for my work I agreed (Lane is fairly well known throughout town).
In August and September, after all the pre production planning of the shorts we started filming. Lane’s friend and fellow performer, Eowyn Barrett, helped out on the shoot. Both Lane and Eowyn were very professional and fun to work with and as a result the production went on without a hitch.
This past weekend (Friday and Saturday) Lane’s production “The Beginning is Near” played to packed audiences at the Wonder Ballroom in NE Portland. My two short films oppened and closed the performance. I attended on Saturday and I’d have to say Lane gave out one of the best plugs/thanks to me in front of the audience for my contribution of the two films. We’ll definitely be working together in the future.
In the program, instead of standard bios, Lane decided to do tankas. Here is Lane’s tanka of our encounter (used as my bio in his show’s program):
Two renaissance men / Meet at an awkward film shoot / volunteered to help / turns out, these aren’t home movies / (Jaw drops) these films are for reel.
Bellow are the two films. I used youtube to upload them so they aren’t the best quality. Once I get my website working again I’ll post higher quality versions on there.
E Jeff Einowski, of Open Mic Scout, and I are continuing to record and photograph Zilla Sake’s open mic night. Here is a recent poster I made for the open mic night.
The last couple months have been rather dead when it comes to paying photography jobs. I’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming on the best way to increase business and I keep coming back to the same thing, networking and getting as much exposure on my photography as possible. I’ve been trying to get in contact with as many up and coming artists as possible to do shoots with. So far I’ve been successful with two; Dan Torres (musician) and Wade McCollum (actor/musician).
On Friday I had the pleasure of working with Dan Torres, an up and coming musician.
Most of the time I’m not a fan of myspace for the obvious reasons of being a big time waster, getting constantly spammed by women who have fallen in love with me and as a result want me to come watch them strip on their webcam, and not to mention the frequent 16 old girl (who is actually real) who thinks I’m super cool and wants to meet up ( I don’t think so). But then, just like anything else, if it’s used right it can be a very valuable tool. I’m friends with a couple musicians on myspace but for the most part you befriend them and its very one-sided (which makes sense when they end up having thousands+ friends) but when I befriended Dan, he actually messaged me back (gasp . . . to think he is actually a real person). He lives in Portland, when he’s not performing in New York, so I decided to ask him if he’d be interested in setting up a photo shoot, with my goal of gaining more exposure through my photography being seen on him myspace profile. He was excited about the idea and thus Friday happened. Dan was great to work with and still has his head firmly planted on his shoulders. He’s got a lot of talent and I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes big name in the music world in the next couple years.
Here are some photos from our shoot (for more go to my flickr site):
Then today I did studio shoot with, recently local but now lives in New York, actor Wade McCollum. He last appeared in Portland Center Stage’s Cabaret. He was wonderful to work with and a very mellow guy which you wouldn’t expect after seeing him perform on stage.
Here are two photos from the shoot (more to follow soon):
I swear that all this free work I’m doing and good karma I’m getting as a result will get me paying jobs very soon . . . it better.
Being Fall/Winter in Portland it’s getting harder and harder to shoot outside because it’s constantly raining (and as I write this extremely windy). That being said I found a local photographer that is renting his studio space for $5 an hour. When I first heard him say $5 an hour I felt like I needed to check my hearing to make sure I had heard him correctly. I had heard correctly. For $5 an hour I get to used the studio, complete with backdrops and lights. To give you an idea of how good a deal this is most places charge $100+ an hour for studio time.
Last wednesday was the first time I used the studio. I shot with Teresa Decher who I had previously met on the set of Berlin, in which she played the part of a waitress. Teresa was very professional to work with. She has the most amazing expressions, not to mention some of the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen. Not to mention she was able to produce tears on command for the latter half of our shoot.
Here are some of the photos from our shoot (more can be seen on my flickr site. Also more to follow soon):
In closing, I think I prefer to shoot outdoors but studio shooting still rocks, especially when it’s pouring and really windy outside.
