Gail

Okay, so, rather than nerd alert you every time I start a sentence, let me just post a sweeping nerd alert for this entire post.  Gail and I got together to talk shop and take pictures of each other, and let me tell you ... this was a totally new experience for me.  First of all, I haven't been in front of the camera that much in several years, and secondly, if there are any photographers reading this, I TOTALLY recommend shooting portraits sometime with another photographer.  It offers a lot of insight into how your subjects feel, posing, and whatnot.  I feel like I actually came away from this a better photographer, lame as that may sound. :)

Oh, and if you want to see Gail's pictures of me, go check out her blog, linked above.  The last one is my favorite, but there are several good ones.

Okay, so anyway, I had an awesome time in the post production of these.  I really felt liberated to do whatever I wanted to them and to try some new things, so there's kind of a variety here and I'll tell you a little about them as we go.  Ready ... okay!

Compositionally, this was one of my faves.  But then I kind of rethought the ... ummm ... verbiage... on the door and thought, I hope there aren't a lot of sick perverts reading my blog, although it is the internet so I've gotta think there's at least one or two.

This is Gail trying to hold it together in spite of how hilarious I am.  If you ask me, she did about as good a job as Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sans, but she's still really cute.  On this pic, I ran a retro action.  I don't think Billy was a huge fan of the coloring, but I liked it so WHATEVER! :)

Alright, so it's not a picture of her face which kind of WAS the whole point, but there was nonetheless something about this one that reached out and grabbed me.  Also, seeing as how this is the first black and white I'm posting, I would just like to tell you that I really feel like I rocked the black and white in this session.  That's right, I just tooted my own horn WHILE patting myself on the back.  Can you stand it?

So I know this picture is pretty dark but I felt like such a badass facial expression deserved something dramatic and I love it.  I call it my Sin City picture.

Similar but lighter, which totally changes the mood of the picture.  I love the black and white tones here.  It seems like ... I feel like it looks like a scene from a rock video, but one with a lot of emotion.  Can anyone think of an appropriate rock song for this picture to be in the video?

This is not my normal picture ... the composition is pretty different than stuff that I usually do and I have to kind of wonder if it was an accident.  There' s a lot of negative space in there, but I feel like it totally works and I love it.  It's pretty much opened my eyes to exploring negative space a little further.  Good homework for me!

This picture and another one that's coming up were kind of ... well, an exercise in getting over mental hurdles.  I feel like one of the things that is totally drilled into your head in photography school is how terrible fluorescent lighting is (not that anyone who's ever tried on a swimsuit doesn't know this).  As a result, yellow and green tinted pictures have become kind of a no-no in my mind, especially since I spend so much time color correcting for fluorescent lighting.  But like ... what's really so bad about yellow?  I kind of like yellow.  It's the color of the sun, and dandelions,  and certain t-shirts that I have really enjoyed over the years.  So I added some gold (the classy word for yellow) tones to a couple of the pictures and I love them, so I might have to try this more often.  This particular effect was achieved with a gold overlay.

This is the second gold-toned picture.  Here, I just adjusted the color temperature.  This one is my American Eagle ad. :)  Actually, Gail was trying to show me how she wanted me to pose, but she was MUCH more successful at it than I was (a model, I am not), so unfortunately for her, I reaped all the benefits of her good ideas!  

Do you guys ever notice how I totally lead up to a grand finale?  Yeah, I do that a lot and I'm totally doing it here.  Anyway, I have really made a point of not swearing in this blog since I use it for work, but I really effing love this picture.  And the WALL!  Oh, the wall.  I am hoping that it's a secret I can keep to myself a little longer because I love it so much.  But I thought between beautiful Gail and the amazing rainbow in the background that this picture was absolutely magical.

Best for last!  This was my favorite picture and I think really captured The Essence of Gail.  Can I tell you guys a secret about myself?  I know it seems morbid, but a lot of times I think about pictures that would be shown at someone's funeral.  But really, it's not TOTALLY morbid, it's just that I really want to make something that people will have and enjoy for the rest of their lives, and that really say something about who they are.  So if I think a picture is "funeral worthy", then you know it's good!  Maybe my ego is getting out of control here, but I totally think this is one of those.  

Something that I usually say is that I feel like I get about one REALLY GOOD picture for about every 30 that I take.  I only took 36 pictures total of Gail and I was really happy with three or four of them, so this was a pretty satisfying shoot for me!  Thanks for playing with me, Gail!  And as always, comments and critiques are appreciated! :)