I didn’t have much else to do today, so I went into the student and tried to do some still life shots with some nail polish. In the process of shooting this stuff, I got it all over my hands and had to go to the store to get all off my hands and the infinity table. I thought it was never gonna come off.

Here are 3 very different images from me, all taken today. I so wish I didnt have his hands cut off in the first two shots!

We were given an assignment where we had to reference a historical art painting. I was trying to find a painting that I could do something like a beauty or fashion shot with, then I came across Tom Wesselman and the paintings he did on women smokers. He has an entire series of them. I picked Smoker Study #9 to recreate. I decided to take a more pop art inspired feel on mines. I really liked how it came out.

Here is the original

Here is mines

I was given an assignment in school where I had to photograph a kid in the studio under 8. I have to admit that I wasn’t thrilled about this assignment when I first got it, cause its just something that I’m not into. But, then I thought about ways that I could make it different and approach this assignment in an unconventional way that would bring back some excitement. So, as a nod to one of my favorite photographers, Martin Schoeller (close-up) and his Close-up series, I decided to take a character study approach.

Now, I know some people will not think much of this shot because it may not be the typical cute child pic. But, it has more meaning to it at least in my opinion. During this photo session I really had the opportunity to learn more about my subject, Grace. I was able to talk to her about the things she liked, things she didnt like, what she wanted to be when she grew up, etc. I didn’t really ask her to do anything the entire session, it was really all her. So, the picture you see before you is the only one like it. This was the only shot where she was sitting still the entire time. So for me the interesting thing is what she must have been thinking about at that exact moment that I took the picture. Anyway, here is the pic, and you can interpret however you like…Please leave a comment.

As simple as it may look, this maybe the hardest shot I’ve ever done thus far…All that glass is not fun to work at all..

This week I was given an assignment in school to shoot a magazine cover. One of the choices was to shoot a respectable politician that was retiring for the cover of Time magazine…I ended up choosing this one after doing a bit of research and finding out that a photographer by the name of Platon did a lot of Time magazine covers. I then decided to try to make it look like a cover that he would have shot. I absolutely love simple lighting setups as this was shot with only one light. I decided to take the assignment a step further and actually create a mock up of the magazine cover from the photos I took.

The colder tone photo without the flag maybe a closer replication of what Platon would have done, but I thought the flag in the background was great for this shot. The one with the flag is the original edit for the shot.

Some of these stills were not meant to be Black and white but were converted for the sake of the video, so I’ll post of the original edits some other time, or I’ll just save them for the site.

Nick Casal from Marcus Smith on Vimeo.

This is my first post of 2009, and I’m happy to be making it by posting this video I finally completed the edit on. A couple weeks ago I shot boxer, Nick Casal doing his thing at the gym he trains at in Chicago. This video was made up of clips I captured in between stills with the Canon 5D MK II. I’m still learning my way around Final Cut Pro, and trying to get better at editing my videos. I also included some stills in the video, and I’ll post those as well since they flash so quickly in the video