FLICKR POOL SATURDAYS PART TWO!
(Giants are going to the Super Bowl Edition!)
A team that went 9-7 on the season, that included two losses to the 5-11 Redskins and another to the 7-9 Seahawks, won the last two games of the season followed by three straight playoff games and are now on their way to the Super Bowl. Seriously guys, this rules.
These two photos I picked to put in a separate post because like the other two shots, I just think they look good together. There’s something very weekend-morning about them both. Maybe it’s the lighting or the colour palette but both of these shots just really appeal to me.
I see them as a pair in two ways. When I look at Johnny’s shot first, followed by Patricia’s, I think of waking up in someone’s house after a party and with everyone hungover and leaving early to go home and get some proper sleep.
When the order is reversed, I see it as arriving at my girlfriend’s early on a Saturday morning and spending the day watching crap TV and making food. I really like the idea of how much sequencing can affect a photograph, even on such a small scale like how I mentioned. I’ve learned about reading a series and the importance of good sequencing in college but until you come across examples where you personally find differences, you don’t really understand it properly. This is one of those moments.
TOP: Johnny De Guzman
Showing more of the environment and making this less of a portrait is why this shot works for me.
BOTTOM: Patricia Karallis
Obviously the flowers in the window are the main focus of this shot but I’m really drawn to smaller details like the style of window that it is and the light bouncing off the door to show the hand marks and scratches.
Submit to the DF Flickr Pool to maybe see your shots here next week!
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FLICKR POOL SATURDAYS PART ONE!
(Week spent in bed Edition!)
Apparently I have cardio costochronditis or “slipping rib syndrome” and it means I get weird flashing pains across my rib cage and my bottom ribs are really sore to touch. The only thing the doc said I should do is rest and take anti-inflammatories. So that’s what I’ve been doing this whole week. I am so insanely bored. I’m up to date on 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation and I watched the last two seasons of a previously unseen Arrested Development (I know, my bad for waiting this long). I may have also watched three movies, listened to nine podcasts and only have 50 or so pages left in that book I won’t mention on here. It’s been a really boring week.
I’m splitting this week’s FPS into two posts because I think it’ll present itself better in the multi-photo layouts that Tumblr use. Just trust me, it looks nicer.
TOP: Katai Stienstra
Great composition. There are so many lines in this shot that it really doesn’t seem like a square shot when you look at it up close for too long. The cold tone suits the snow a lot better than if it was white balanced for sunlight and the absence of the model’s face in this shot makes it a lot more curious than a direct portrait.
BOTTOM: Pauline Magnenat
Again, the colder tone suits this shot better. It makes the brickwork behind the subject come across as a lot more substantial to the shot than if it looked warmer.
I love the Daniel Day-Lewis look to the model too. The scraggly beard, the style of shirt and the simple jacket. It really brings out a lot of character in the subject.
Click on any of the above photos to see them larger.
Submit to the DF Flickr Pool to maybe see your shots here next week!
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From the series “The Bayou Quiet”.
I finally had enough time to edit and produce a proper series of photos from my New Orleans trip in November. The series is split into two sections, Blue and Orange, based around the lighting palettes for each photo.
This shot is of my Dad at a restaurant named Antoine’s. It’s by far the classiest place I’ve ever been to. One of those places where the waiters wear tuxes and white gloves and call you “Sir” even when you’re 30 years younger than them.
You can check out the full series plus a video of the conceptual handmade book to accompany it on my site by clicking here.
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December 29th 1985 playoff game between the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers. Photo by John Biever for Sports Illustrated.
All that blue. Dominant blue. Giants and Niners are about to kick off right now for the right to go to the Super Bowl, but I really just want to look at this photo for a while.
LET’S GO GIANTS!
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FLICKR POOL SATURDAYS! (Giants playoff run Edition!)
Tomorrow, my (oft-mentioned) beloved New York Giants play the San Francisco 49ers. The winner will be going to the Super Bowl. There’s no way at Week 1 of the regular season would I have predicted they would have gotten this far, and in such dramatic fashion. I’m ecstatic. It’s been a good season regardless of the result but to say that I really want them to win this game is an understatement of Giant (see what I did there) proportions.
To mark the occasion of this glorious playoff run that the team has gone with a blueish palette for my selection of images this week. If you cross your fingers and send good thoughts towards my boys in blue this weekend, you’ll enjoy these photos more, just saying. Anyway, enough football, here’s some photography …
TOP: Zach McCaffree
This photo actually makes me feel cold. I’m sure it would have been tempting to white balance this photo against the snow but that tealish-blue cold tone adds so much atmosphere to the shot. Those red light streaks are subtle enough to just add details to the shot rather than draw attention and the mistiness of the horizon keeps you focused in the foreground. Outstanding shot that probably looks the business in print form.
LEFT: Leo Beirne
If Zach’s shot made me feel chills then this has the exact opposite effect. The love how exposing for the highlights in this situation just adds to the deep blacks of the hair and swimsuit. In fact, there’s only really four colours here, aqua and beige coupled with high end whites for the clouds with those previously mentioned blacks really scorching through the centre of the image. Deviation in hair or swimsuit colour and this picture wouldn’t be half as effective.
RIGHT: Daniel Swanborough-Nilson
For me, this shot is about two things. Firstly the gaze, wow. It’s rare to find subjects that intense that don’t give off an overacting-vibe. And secondly, the colour of the shirt fitting with the bags under his eyes, really great touch, if even accidental.
Click on any of the above photos to see them larger.
Submit to the DF Flickr Pool to maybe see your shots here next week!
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What DigitalFaun might look like with SOPA/PIPA in place
I understand I live in Ireland so it wouldn’t immediately affect me but setting a precedent of this sort of thing is dangerous. Anyone outside the countries affected cannot assume to be safe from this level of web restriction. Oppose it in any form you can. Anything and everything will help.
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FLICKR POOL SATURDAYS! (Landscapes Only Edition!)
Isn’t college lots of fun? The past week I’ve spent hand-binding a book, writing about Nazi-themed orgies and now I’m attempting to write about a concept called “the Everyday”, that by very nature is ambivalent. The question even uses the word “ambivalent”. Lots of fun indeed. What all this has to do with studying photography, I don’t know. Perplexing to say the least.
Oh and the current book I’ve been reading, which will remain nameless until finished in case of spoiler trolls, is getting me down in a big way. I see far too much of myself in a minor character that things are not working out for. Wow, writing about an unnamed character in an unnamed book. There’s something to feel ambivalent about.
I decided to go all-landscape this week due to the high number of portraits I post on here. It just doesn’t get as much attention in a world dominated by photographs of pretty people. So here they are. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
TOP: Kiriakos Papachrisanthou
My favourite part of this image is how little civilisation you can see. You get gorgeous vivid colours but not in the Adobe-saturation sense of the word.
Additionally, the stratified effect produced by the tiered landscape works perfectly. It could so easily be reduced down to simple rectangles if needed.
LEFT: Bogdan Slovyagin
I love the desolate Eastern Block look to this shot. I think you could tell it was from that area even if you couldn’t read the photographer’s name above. Bogdan, who currently lives in Belarus according to his Flickr page, absolutely perfected this image. I think there’s a tendency to want to zoom in and get up close to a place like this but by keeping a distance to the house, it keeps that terrifying curiosity.
RIGHT: Alex Morvan
Simple touches like shooting this from inside the building instead of outside keep your mind on the photo slightly longer that usual. The lack of greenery on the tree until the top is really captivating and the pale exterior of the building suggests that it’s an important one or at the very least, an expensive one. All of this keeps narratives spinning in my head as to why the photographer was here and what the building is for.
BOTTOM: Dale Rothenberg
Photographing small-town-America is the way to my heart. I’m in love with all the imagery and lore associated with it and when you capture a photograph as encapsulating as this one, you’re going to catch my eye in a major way.
Click on any of the above photos to see them larger.
Submit to the DF Flickr Pool to maybe see your shots here next week!
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Nicolette Cristina
Nicolette’s what like 16? 17? She came to me asking for advice on her portfolio submission for college last week and I was blown away by how good she was considering her age. I know it’s not fair to judge someone based on their age, (what I’ve come to call the Olivia Bee argument) but it is 100% totally okay to judge them based on potential. Nicolette has bags full and she’s gonna take it all the way to her portfolio review and hopefully whoever is examining hers will see it too.
Understandably like anyone her age she’s prone to certain things like posting too many shots from an individual shoot on her flickr page and inconsistency in editing but if those were my main problems when I was as inexperienced as her, I’d have been ecstatic.
By the way, anyone needing feedback on portfolio submissions or general advice, always feel free to hit up my ask box or anything listed in the contact details section on the main page.
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I’ve seen a lot of Brian Bielawa’s stuff as of late and the more I see the more I like him. He’s been featured in a couple of FPS features on here but it’s about time to give him a spot of his own. This shot and another really similar one totally convinced me.
The main reason I love this shot is because of how little the girl actually stands out from the background. That’s kind of the wrong way to shoot a portrait but who cares when it looks this good.
Secondly, car headlights are such an underused way to light a scene. It’s a really effective way of creating dynamic lighting in outdoor situations. Sure it’s not going to work as well as a portable lighting pack, but its not only about making the best of your situation but trying new things.
The only thing I’ll say negatively about this photo is, boy, clean up your dust. There is absolutely no excuse for having dots and lines distracting from how great this photo is. CS5, content aware spot tool, it’s your new best friend.
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This Wednesday, Darek Fortas, one of my favourite Irish based photographers, opens his exhibition, “Coal Story” in Copper House Gallery, Dublin. I realise the number of Irish people who frequent this page is much fewer than say US readers, but I thought this was worth mentioning regardless.
Darek developed this series as his final year college project when he studying the same course I currently am. It blew me away when I saw sample images in a group show last summer so now the opportunity to get to see more in a solo show has me very excited.
I don’t normally plug exhibitions to go to, partly due to the aforementioned readership problem, but I am in this case. It’ll be worth it. I promise.
“Coal Story” by Darek Fortas launches 6-8pm Wednesday January 11th with an opening by Anthony Haughey. The gallery is open Monday to Friday from 10am to 5pm and the exhibition runs until February 3rd.
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I’m really liking this latest stuff by Megan Tilley. There’s nothing crazy or complicated about it. They’re just simple, well taken photographs and it works. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her stuff throughout the year.
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FLICKR POOL SATURDAYS! (Last post of 2011 Edition!)
2011 was a great year. If 2012 is even half as good, I’ll be very happy with myself. I didn’t do any year-round-up posts on DF yet for a reason and that reason is … IT’S STILL 2011! What a shocker. It doesn’t make sense to count 360 days as a year and I doubt any current best-of-the-year lists that were put online this week included the last week of 2010 in their selections. Yeah, didn’t think so. I have a nice plethora of college work ahead of me for the next two weeks so expect a well thought out 2011 post as I procrastinate to the extreme.
Hope you all have a good night tonight! Remember, drink too much and make mistakes. Tomorrow it’s a new year and you can start afresh.
On to the pictures …
TOP: Katai Stienstra
This almost looks like a fake background, like it’s a museum display or something. The hair in front of the face adds to the unnerving quality but it’s still an oddly comforting photograph.
LEFT: Jordan Swartz
Dark enough to require lights indoors, bright enough to be considered daytime outside. That purply light in the middle window and the four tungsten lit windows to the right just totally make this photograph.
RIGHT: Dale Rothenberg
Oh man, I love that pearlescent look this image has. If you can make the photo itself actually look like it might be wet to the touch, it’s a job well done in my eyes. The specific colours themselves are really gorgeous too.
Click on any of the above photos to see them larger.
Submit to the DF Flickr Pool to maybe see your shots here next week!
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“Railway Street Snow” by Lauren Pritchard
I was fortunate enough to have two Christmases this year. The first was on Wednesday with my girlfriend Lauren, the girl who took the picture above. She was going home to Cork for the holidays to spend it with her family so we celebrated it half a week early. We went to a private concert by Rhob Cunningham, of which only 30 tickets were available, and followed that up with pizza and several episodes of The Office.
We set a 10 euro price limit on presents this year so as not to get into a gift-escalation-monetary-love-value type scenario and I think it’s possibly the best thing that can happen to present-giving since the days when you’d get presents from Santa and your parents.
I made her a 44 page zine about the two of us. I met her on the first day of college back in 2008. She was the first person I talked to when I arrived all nervous and out of breath. It has lots of mushy-coupley-stuff that I absolutely adore but am in no way going to share. I based the cover around the design of a box of black and white Ilford paper and there’s a ton of photos of places and things that mean a lot to the two of us, along with a story written about our history. It was as much as gift for me to be in a position to make it for her as it was a gift for her.
In return she gave me a framed photo of my favourite photo of hers. A shot from her old apartment window that she took in February of our first year of college and wrote an inscription on the back that makes me really understand how little touches can make the difference between a good gift, and the best gift I’ve ever gotten.
So now today, I was able to wake up to my second Christmas morning in less than a week. My family exchanged gifts around the tree at a reasonable hour for anyone that didn’t go to bed at 5am and then settled in doing our own thing for the day (sleeping in my case) until our big Christmas dinner that I’m still feeling the effects of. Christmas dinner as a vegetarian is flavourless misery drowned in gravy but my Mom’s roast potatoes can put a smile on my face any day.
Tomorrow is the 26th of December and it’s both the 1 year mark since the day I stopped taking medication for my anxiety disorder and the 6 month mark for myself and Lauren going out. This time last year I would have put all I own on that combination of things not being true right now but I’m lucky enough to be able to say they are.
I hope everyone who follows this blog gets to see their loved ones over the holiday period at some point and failing that, at least gets some tasty Christmas food into them.
Merry Christmas from a very lucky guy indeed.
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FLICKR POOL SATURDAYS! (All-I-Want-For-Christmas-Is-A-New-York-Giants-Victory Edition!)
It’s Christmas Eve. As I begin to write this, there’s four minutes until kickoff between the Giants and Jets. The loser is almost guaranteed NOT to make the playoffs. I want a Giants playoff game. Even one. Please?
I’ll save all my actual-Christmas stuff for tomorrow and just get to the photos now because I’m really excited for this game about to happen.
LEFT: Brittany Nicol Fabry
This isn’t Brittany’s usual style which makes it even more impressive. I’m more used to Brittany’s high quality, perfect toned, almost fashion-esque portraits but to be honest, this is more the kind of stuff I like. I love the stare from both the girl (fellow photographer Chelsea Muller) and the dog (a husky my girlfriend would kill for).
The flag is a nice touch, as are the details that show that this isn’t a solitary moment. It adds tension a lot of tension to an already buzzing photograph.
RIGHT: Anna Kieblesz
When I first looked at this I thought maybe it was a photo of my friend Amy. She has the same hair and a similar stance.
The best part about this are the red tones. They’re incredibly deep and make those orange highlights seem a much brighter yellow colour.
BOTTOM: Laura Wastnage
Laura took a photo of her friend Sophie (Davidson, also a great photographer) wearing a beanie cap in New York. Of course I’m going to like it.
Click on any of the above photos to see them larger.
Submit to the DF Flickr Pool to maybe see your shots here next week!
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Bobby Doherty
I remember messaging Bobby, back when everyone used deviantArt, asking just how he got his photos to have such intense clarity and he replied saying it was low ISO film.
So I went and learned all about how ISO affects a photograph and started using low ISO numbers in my photos.
But that still wasn’t it and I messaged him again. He replied saying it was his Hasselblad camera. So I went and learned all about medium format cameras.
I’m pretty thankful that Bobby replied to the kid with horrible photo-filter ridden snapshots five years ago because I learned a lot about photography by asking questions, even the stupid ones, and sometimes especially the stupid ones.
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