Joseph Askins over at Yo Chicago just posted a nice write up of the Emerald Lofts, which I shot a few months ago with John Roberts Wiltgen. It was only the second project I had done with the studio, but their work was a pleasure to shoot and John, himself was a hoot to work with. As we were standing in the bar, contemplating how we were going to handle the shot, I turned to John and said “this needs people, lots of hip, young people.” Fortunately John’s staff and their friend’s fit the bill perfectly and helped us stage a party that kept going long after we had packed away the last inky. It’s amazing how many stylish twenty somethings you can get to show up just by offering free drinks….
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My clients have been wonderful in supporting my new venture and I feel quite fortunate to have so many strong relationships. It’s great to be able to work with many diverse and really creative people. Also, I should congratulate the recent award winners! Harley Ellis Devereaux took a Chicago AIA Interior Architecture Award for Abelson Taylor; as did Brininstool Lynch for the Claremont House. The Claremont House was also featured as the cover of Chicago Architect. Skidmore Owings & Merrill won a few ASID Awards this year, including one for the interiors of UBS Chicago and for the chair Jaime Velez designed in Formica cladding (which was really a joy to shoot).
Below are some samples from recent shoots. I’ve been working with Arca Swiss cameras for so long that my new one already feels like an old friend, and it is a perfect marriage to the Phase 1 digital back. I stopped using film about 20 months ago and it took 39 megapixels of data to convince me to give up the ghost. The new medium really is outstanding. Though there have been some technical…..ahem, challenges along the way, the final images are clearly of greater quality. The tonal range, color rendition and sharpness, coupled with the work I’m doing in Photoshop make me feel like I’m producing the best images of my career. This is the level of quality that I have been chasing for the last 15 years.
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Below are a few images from an ongoing series of mine exploring the neighborhood around my house. There has been a lot of photography in recent years exploring suburbia and specifically the sociodynamics of family life. It’s mostly about putting the mundane in a fishbowl and saying “look how interesting the boring people are!” I’m not quite sure what my series wants to be yet. Its speaking to me very quietly, just little tidbits here and there. But I’m listening….
If you haven’t been yet, head on over to Arch Daily to see what’s cool and new in the world of Architecture. From a cantilevered mid-rise in Denmark to the Norwegians modern take of woodland cottages, some of the most interesting recent structures can be found on this site.
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I was just shooting this building for SOM last week and as the day ran into night, I decided to take advantage of the atmosphere and incorporate a little more of what I’ve been exploring in my personal work. I’ve been intrigued by night photography for years but have only recently begun to apply it to my commercial work. This one was actually late dusk. There was just a little blue in the sky. The tonal range is achieved through layering and masking 4 separate exposures. I’ve layered as many as 8 exposures on really tricky images, which only convinces me further that I need faster processors and more memory!
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Sometimes the world looks a little better when you take the edge off. I was admiring the view out my back door one rainy afternoon as dusk was approaching. Everything was so soft and saturated. Color seemed to rise from the ground like waves of heat above asphalt. When I composed the image and focused the shot, I knew I just wasn’t capturing the feeling, the softness, the perfectness of that moment. I thought it best to shoot this a little out of focus.
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Flickr: Chris’ Photostream.
After our visit to the pumpkin patch, Vincent spent hours with his mother decorating our finds for Halloween. Shortly after, from the other side of our picture window, instead of being frustrated with this squirrel for eating his creation, he watched in glee from inches away.
Sometimes it takes the really young to remind you just how good the world can be.
I think he’s trying to undermine my cynical nature.
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Back in ‘03 I decided I was going to make a little book as a giveaway for a print exchange we were having at work. I spent a couple days walking around this community outside Phoenix snapping shots with my wife’s 1 megapixel Elf. This was the moment that I discovered the beauty of shooting digitally. Not so much for image quality, but purely for the workflow. I would go out and shoot 70 images and come back and edit them on my Powerbook. The series began to evolve and informed me what it wanted to be. There was an immediate dialogue between the work and myself. None of my projects had ever developed so fast and the workflow was totally invigorating. I finished collecting images the night before my departure, laid out the book in Quark on the flight home and printed and bound, for 30 hours straight, an edition of 15 books. Ahh…… just like Art School.
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Really. I don’t. Ok. Well… it’s hard to refuse a really fun comission. Just don’t you call me a nature photographer. This is just the beginning of exploration of a piece that is going to grace a large wall. The final work will either be 6′x9′ or 12′x9′. I think I’m gonna need a bigger printer……much bigger….
Diptych 1
Diptych 2
Obligatory Forest Scene
Sky….but not
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Evidently someone was taking liberties with my iPhone Camera while I was viewing the last capture……Stephen? Steeeeeephen!!!!!
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