Shooting From the Dirt

I tend to spend a fair amount of time crawling around in the dirt with my camera. The following photos show the process and the final product of all of that name in the mud in Costa Rica. Thank you to Melissa Klauda for taking more unflattering pictures of me than was necessary.

Guanacaste Dairy Farm

Parque Nacional Rincon de la Vieja

Tejona Wind Farm

Playa Naranjo, measuring sea turtle nests

Nick Michael Portrait

This weekend, I went into the studio with Nick Michael, a photojournalism grad student at MU and shot some portraits for one of our classes. Here are a couple of the photos as well as lighting diagrams for the curious.

Over the last several years, Nick Michael has done video work in Italy, Honduras and Israel. In the near future, Michael would like to travel more throughout the United States. Michael and his fiance, Kelsey Sherrod, have a wishlist of cities and locations around the country that they are making plans to visit.

A large part of Nick Michael's life is built around travelling. This can mean anything from driving several hundred miles to visit his fiance in Arkansas to flying thousands of miles to shoot freelance video work overseas.

Lighting Diagrams:

Winter Sunshine

We're still a long ways from the first green leaves. After all of the recent blizzards in Missouri, it sure felt like spring this weekend with the blue skies, sunshine and melting snow. These sycamores seemed to standout as a sign of spring in downtown Columbia despite the foot of snow still at their base.

Inspirational Portraits

I will be shooting studio portraits soon for one of my photojournalism courses. This Johnny Cash portrait by Charles Peterson has long been one of my favorite portraits.

The hard lighting and high contrast do a good job of matching the mood set by Cash's facial expression. I admire this photo for the balance that it strikes. This show in the balance between showing the details of Cash's face without being overpowered by every wrinkle and texture. Similarly, the composition and dark background help Cash stand out, but not so much that there is dead space in the photo. The panelling in the background also strikes the balance between adding detail without distracting from the foreground.

Johnny Cash. Seattle.
by Charles Peterson