2011: I met a lot of interesting people and made a lot of amazing friends along the way.

I’ve been waiting to post this entry for several weeks now. I wanted to have it up during the final weeks of 2011, however a hectic holiday weekend and an extended trip to Japan meant that it was on hold until now. I may be a few weeks late, but since we are still in the phase trying to gracefully scribble a 2 over the 1, it may mean that I’m right on time.

Where can I start? 2011 seemingly breezed by. Going through all of my images from the past year, work, personal and otherwise, I noticed a definite trend. 2011 was the year of the music. Whether that is an isolated anomaly or the beginnings of a journey, who knows? I’m hoping for the latter and I think I may be right.

When I wasn’t hard at work with my own musical endeavors, I seemed to find myself photographing indie bands (i.e.: local hero’s Wild Moccasins and Buxton), hip-hop groups and rap artists (i.e.: Trae Tha Truth, Lupe Fiasco, Mystikal, Z-Ro, The Niceguys, et al). I also found myself branching out more with my editing style. I am experimenting more and it feels good. Since my passion was in design before I even picked up a camera, the occasional creative departure was a welcomed reprieve from the usual and the work I did in 2011 lent itself to that.

2011: I pushed the boundaries of my creativity a bit further and did things my own way.

I met so many amazing and interesting people in 2011. I’m excited to continue my friendships and working relationships with many of them into 2012 and beyond.

This post should really be titled “Favorite Images of 2011″ since my 100 compiled images from the past year are not necessarily my “best” photographs, but rather 100 of my favorites. As always there are several polaroids and a nice chunk of medium format film images, from an on-going personal project on hip-hop.

2011: I discovered that the 6x6 format was made for my style. Look for more of this in 2012. Rest in Peace, Clip.

I have provided two ways to browse my favorite images from last year. Traditionally the first method is an automatic slideshow set to a musical track. This year I chose Trae’s “I’m On” single featuring Lupe Fiasco, Wiz Khalifa, Wale, MDMA, and Big Boi. The song samples “Return of the Mack” by Marc Morrison, which was a favorite jam of mine from the 90′s. The track (which may or may not contain a few objectionable lyrics) is also special to me because I worked on the official video with friend and all-star music video director, “Philly Fly Boy”. I got the opportunity to work with Philly several times this year and had a blast. The video for “I’m On”, featuring my own footage, debuted a few weeks ago while I was in Japan and is currently in regular rotation on MTV. It was the MTV Jam of the Week and was played twice an hour for a week straight, which helped me kick off 2012 with a huge grin across my face.

The second method is the usual Photoshelter slideshow. So whether you want to just hit play and jam out to my favorites or silently click-through at your own leisure, the choice is there. Remember, it’s always a better experience when you click the “full-size” control to the bottom right of each module. As always the images appear in chronological order. If you have an extra minute or two check out my “Best Of” posts from 2009 and 2010.

If you wan’t to check out the video for “I’m On” click here: Trae Tha Truth – “I’m On” FT Wiz Khalifa, Lupe Fiasco, Big Boi, Wale & MDMA

Here’s to an amazing 2012!

Stay tuned for a post with TONS of images from my Japan trip, coming soon.

BEST OF 2011 – Images by Todd Spoth

Movement of Kingz Entertainment recording artist, C-Sharp.

About a month ago I had the pleasure of working with a fun group of artists from the Movement of Kingz Entertainment group. Movement of Kingz is a fairly new outfit of R&B and hip-hop artists based out of Houston. Their main goal was to create a set of interesting portraits of 4 of their members for promotional use on their upcoming website as well as other promotional pieces.

Since I have been shooting a lot of portraits of hip-hop and rap artists lately, I decided to turn to my favorite source of inspiration for this type of work, RESPECT magazine. I was fortunate to pick up the premiere issue of RESPECT, the quarterly “photo journal of hip-hop culture”, about 2 years ago and have been glued to its pages ever since. The premiere issue itself, which features the works of photographers like Ben Watts, Barron Claiborne, and Clay Patrick McBride, is something that is constantly pulled out prior to shoots like these. You don’t even have to listen, like, or shoot music or musicians to appreciate the work within its pages. Check it out here: http://respect-mag.com

Snapshot of my desk featuring 2 issues of RESPECT magazine taken with the new iPhone 4s.

The shoot was booked at Houston Skyline Studio in the warehouse district of Houston. It’s a decently sized and moderately priced rental studio with a small cyc corner and a few other setups available for use. There was plenty of cold A/C, a sound system for playing music (a definite plus for working with portrait subjects) and a nice ramp that allowed us to pull the car right into the studio to unload.

The client wanted basic portraits on white of each member in a few different looks. After that, he gave me the artistic license to be creative and go from there. We started with the basic setup on white, and although the cyc corner was a bit small, we made it work and knocked out several looks for each artist.

After those were out of the way, we switched up the lighting and went for a more harsh look with one simple gridded light that created some deep shadows. With two looks accomplished, we were done with the white cyc corner and moved on to the black background. We were able to knock out several different looks on the simple black background including one where we utilized simply the modeling lights of the flash systems to be able to maintain a shallow depth of field. One of my favorite of the artists, C-Sharp, decided to smoke several times during the shoot which added another layer of interest and complexity to the images.

For the final setups we took advantage of two different textures that the studio space provided, the first being a corrugated steal wall and the second being the bare wood of the structure of the studio itself.

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to studio photography is space and the lack thereof in most cases. Having a space large enough to accompany several different backgrounds and/or sets that are all accessible without breaking down one to get to the other saves tons of time for the photographer and the client. In this case the entire team was fortunate to be working in a space that provided a multitude of different sets without having to do much work, which resulted in me being able to provide the client with the images they were expecting and then some within a limited amount of studio time.

I am very fortunate to be working with clients that hire me because they trust my creative vision and ultimately give me a lot of creative license to do what I feel represents the artists best. With that in mind, after I provided the simple looks on white that the client originally had in mind, I allowed myself to be a little more creative in the editing process of the remaining images and I am pleased with the results.

On the day of the shoot, my good (and very talented) friend, Anthony Oyedeji, of Vicious Films, was on hand producing a behind the scenes spot for the Movement of Kingz camp. The result of his efforts is below. Check it out to see me and the rest of the Movement of Kingz crew in action! Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page to check out a few edited selects from the shoot.

And now the edited selects from the shoot.

MOVEMENT OF KINGZ (SEPT 2011) – Images by Todd Spoth

Sarah posing in front a wall of paper flowers.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. Things have been hectic, but there is much to blog about starting here.

A few months ago we spent the better part of a weekend in a nearby studio working with a score of different models in several different conceptual scenarios. The portraits were created for an upcoming project. During our set up day we visited Party Boy, a local Houston costume shop, for some inspiration and wardrobe, as well as created mock-ups of several looks we were going to aim for.

I will most likely create a different blog for some of the other models we worked with over the long weekend, however this one is dedicated to our good friend and model, Sarah Jade, who you may remember from a previous blog entry.

Sarah is a gorgeous girl and a great subject. It doesn’t hurt that she is a close personal friend and doesn’t mind spending the extra time to get the right image. We worked Sarah through several concepts including a few cute looks on basic white using a 5 light setup. We encouraged Sarah to have fun with the cute headband and glasses. At first she didn’t like the accessories and thought she didn’t look good with them, but we beg to differ. What do you think?

After several looks on white we tried a few of Sarah in our marching band jacket and then moved on.

The next look we went for was a imitated natural light look. Since we were shooting at night, we did not have the luxury of natural sunlight. There was however an area of the location with French doors leading to an outdoor patio. We placed a single light with a CTO gel, outside on the patio pointing into the studio and used the plantation blinds on the closed French doors to regulate the intensity of the light and the shadows created by the slats. With a little finesse, we had instant golden light to play with and the best part was, it wasn’t fleeting like the sun.

We then tried a few simple frames with a single ring light while the final set was being prepared.

The final set featured a textured background made out of loads of flowers created from yellow construction paper. We worked tirelessly to cut, fold, cut, fold, tape, place, and fine-tune before we decided that the background was ready for action. Sarah worked with the background elements wonderfully and we created a set of images that really allowed both Sarah and the textured background to shine. I really like what we came away with for the project. The portraits are simple, but the yellow flowers give them another level of texture and playfulness that we were aiming for. For this series, our ring-light acted as a fill light in conjunction with another main light source.

Below are a few of our favorite images from the time we spent with Sarah. I tried to edit them each a bit differently for a diverse set of looks and moods.

More about the project and the other models/images involved to come, but for now, tell me what you think about these!

SARAH JADE ROBBINS (JUL 10) – Images by Todd Spoth

As we wrap up the first week of the new year I can’t help but reflect on the past year. There were struggles as there are with anything, but I’d be remised if I didn’t sit back and be thankful for the good things. I met a lot of great people, made a few new clients, learned a ton of great things and made a few decent images along the way.

2009 was the year I was blown away by being accepted as a participant into the Eddie Adams Workshop.
2009 was the year my first major documentary project premiere to a sold out audience of over 250 people.
2009 was the year that documentary project won not 1, but 4 awards including a Gold Remi.
2009 was the year that I owned the copyright for 100% of the images I captured.
2009 was the year that I got to visit 5/7 continents in the span of 4 months.
2009 was a good year.

Here’s to 2010 being even better. The short piece above showcases about 65 of my personal favorites from 2009. They may not have run, they may not have been the best pictures, but they are my special to me in one way or another, so sit back and enjoy.