Favorite Photos From The Past

These are several of my personal favorites that I have taken over the span of the past 2 years


This picture was taken at an especially tough time during my life, and for me the symbolism of climbing to the top of a mountain on which I had never been before and seeing the entire valley blossoming in spring seemed to be very uplifting. This is still my favorite photo that I have ever taken.


This was a complete spur of the moment shot. I had been sitting in my house itching to take pictures of something when a violent thunderstorm began to develop in view from my neighborhood. I ran out into the middle of the street with camera in hand and began shooting pictures of the sky in which I captured several great images of which this was my favorite. I used some post processing and texture work to enhance it further until I felt that it was finished.


This shot was taken in New York City on a night during which my girlfriend Kelly and I were there to see the comedian Danielle Tosh. We had spent the majority of the day walking around and it had now begun to get dark out. We sat outside the venue waiting for doors to open and I began to take some long exposure shots. Through the combination of my shivering from the cold, my hands already being abnormally shaky and the lack of a tripod I was expecting every image to come out as a blur of brightly colored lights without any rhythm or reason. However to my astonishment this shot surfaced and it has since been my favorite long exposure shot I've taken to date.


This picture reminds me of home and good times in general, I have lived within 20 minutes of the beach all of my life so I frequently find myself there shooting pictures. On this day I had met up with several friends at a restaurant where we shared some beers and great food. We then wandered over to the beach only a few blocks away where we took up position on a lifeguard stand. Slightly inebriated I was very camera happy and taking pictures of everything in sight, but this photo truly stood out to me in capturing the essence of the beach which I love so much.

First Post

Guess I'll just dive right in.

The following photos are five of my favorite pieces from my photography project on hands entitled "Obsession"

"See Some Evil"


I had previously had the idea to include a picture of someone covering their eyes as part of my hand series however I feared it might come out as a mildly boring photo. The idea then evolved into someone with a brightly colored eye peaking through the spaces in between two fingers. The final idea came when the thought of the three monkeys came into my head that I used to have figures of as a child. "See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil." As cool as it would've been to replicate the three I decided I would rather make something original. That is when I decided to make the series "See Some Evil. Hear Some Evil. Speak Some Evil." To represent all three I had my model throw slight variations on the original poses, such as the eye peaking through the hand in the photo above.

"Morgan"


Like many of my photos this one was not premeditated but rather the result of observing my surroundings and working with what was at "hand." <--(first pun)One of my best friends, Morgan agreed to help me out with my project and model for some of my pictures. I wanted to focus on Morgan's hands while retaining an interesting setting for them that represented Morgan as a person. After taking some pictures of the bite that had been taken out of his finger by a friend of ours on a long night I began to explore the rest of his room. I spotted a notepad which Morgan had been writing down ideas for a story he has been writing, I thought this perfect as Morgan is very passionate about writing. We experimented with several different focuses and various DOFs but in the end this photo turned out as one of my favorites. "Peter"

Peter is a great friend of mind who is quick to come to my aid although it may not always be the most pleasant of tasks. Peter had been over on this day during which I was shooting photos for my project and due to a lack of models I asked him if he wouldn't mind helping me out. For this photo I asked Peter to splash his face with water while keeping his hands close being that they were to be the subject of the photo. Peter repeatedly splashed his face for what must have been 5 minutes as I ran back and forth experimenting with different lenses, angles, and uses of my external flash. Although this photo isn't my best work the amount of effort that went into it makes me appreciate greatly.

"Lemon Zinger"

Not much to this photo besides some luck and a macro lens. This is completely candid and was another result of my unplanned exploratory advances into art that I so love to do. Rob had been sitting at his desk working on some form of school work on his macbook when I wandered into his room, camera in hand and asked if I could take some pictures. He agreed and I was quick to be pointing my macro lens inches from his hand every move it made. Within a minute or two I came away with this jewel and happily left Rob to finish his work.

"Rob"

More than anything I love the focus and composition of this one. This truly captured the goal of my project which was to convey emotion through the hands. I feel that more so than any other picture the feelings are strongly visible to the viewer and portrayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner.