Alex Vickery / Class of 2011

It’s been way too long! I know, I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me! My work/life over these first few months of 2011 have been nothing if not hectic, but believe me, I have a dry-erase board hanging in my (new) office with more than a few ideas for upcoming blog posts, so expect that this is the first in a hopefully lengthy barrage of images and information to come.

The girl above is my little sister. She just turned 18 last month and is graduating from high school in a couple of months. They grow up so fast! *tear*

My parents and sister had been living in Rio de Janeiro for the past several years and I think everyone expected them to stay at least until my sister graduated high school, however much to their surprise, they moved back home to Houston last year.

Within a few months my sister was thrust (back) into the culture of “senior year” in the good ‘ole US of A and that means prom, that means applying to colleges and that also means senior portraits.

I have never really done any senior portraits before, I am not a senior portrait photographer and frankly if you allowed me, I would tell you that 99% of the work generated by self-proclaimed senior portrait photographers is usually regurgitated, manufactured and boring, at least from where I’m standing.

CASE IN POINT: My own (computery/terrible) senior portrait from 10 year's ago featuring a favorite band tee and some sneakers.

Yes the above image is real. Yes it’s cheesy. Yes my mom paid good money for those. It was taken in the garage of one of the “prominent” senior portrait photographers that shot most of the senior class’ photos. They all turned out like this. No creativity at all. It’s like they collected checks from every one in the graduating class and pumped these thoughtless, sweatshop images out like an assembly line. This IS however one of my favorite images of myself simply for the fact that the photographer told me to bring something “formal” and I came in what you see above, so who am I to judge what’s good and what’s not? If you ask me they should have gone the extra mile and make me pose in front of a few over sized crayons.

Regardless of all of this, when my sister approached me to shoot her senior photos, I said, “of course!” almost instantly. Anything for my little sis. So after months of procrastination we finally made it happen.

In late February we decided to get together and make some images in the studio. We really didn’t have any big concept or idea to portray so we just dove right in. I just wanted to give her something different, something edgy, and more importantly something that she would be happy with.

When I saw her leather jacket that she was wearing, I instantly wanted to shoot with it, so I plopped her against the wall and used some simple direct light for an edgy look. Afterwards, I went for the other end of the spectrum and used modeling lights with my 35mm 1.4 lens and a few abandoned strings of lights from Ikea to create a softer look. After a few setups we called it a day.

We were both happy with the several looks we created on a whim, in the studio, but we both wanted to get outside and do more.

The outdoor session coincidentally took place on my sister’s 18th birthday. We had a great time, driving around looking for interesting things to shoot, but it was a challenge. Since I live a ways away, I was rather unfamiliar with the area and had no time to location scout prior to the shoot date so trying to nail locations while maximizing the limited time frame the sun provided was especially difficult, but we worked with what we had.

We found a nice field with some tall(er) grass and waited until the sun was just right. We created several different looks and then called it quits.

After I got home and edited the images I realized that the images would be one of my presents to my sister. Since I tried to make the actual images stand out, I wanted the presentation of the images to stand out as well, so instead of just sending her a DVD in a plastic sleeve, I created 2 DVD’s, one for the studio images and one for the outdoor session. I created a cover to slip into each DVD case as well. The idea was to use an image from each shoot across both the front and back like a magazine double-truck, with some simple and obvious text across the front.

The design for the custom DVD covers. Both images shot during their respective sessions.

After all was said and done, my sister was happy with the images and has since told me several tales of her classmates complimenting them and asking about them, so mission accomplished. I fully realize that my images aren’t the most creative or off the wall portraits ever, but I think they are a bit more thoughtful and different than the images of the majority of her classmates not to mention my own, taken about a decade ago.

I have included several selects in the usual gallery below and added a few fun iPhone images as well.

Let me know what you think. What are your thoughts on senior portrait photography? Hit me up @toddspoth via Twitter and on my Facebook page and let me know!

Impromptu HDR iPhone images can oftentimes create happy accidents.

My incognito kit: Canon 5D mark II and the Lubitel TLR.

ALEX VICKERY (MAR 2011) – Images by Todd Spoth

Finally, after a long weekend, the last post in the 4-part series is here, but for posterity, let’s recap the previous 3 posts.

(Click on each of the following to check out the post)

1 of 4: Oktomat

2 of 4: 5D II

3 of 4: Lubitel

Since the new Apple iPhone 4 was released just a week or so prior to my leaving on this recent trip, and given the fact that I had pre ordered and received the new phone, this post is pretty much a given. I took a handful of images and video after receiving the new phone and prior to leaving, however I was excited that I would be able to travel with the phone to put it through its paces.

I upgraded my phone from the Apple iPhone 3G which was 2 years old. The advancements made in the built in camera(s) were worth the price of the upgrade alone, as it is the camera that is ALWAYS with me, even when there is nothing else. I took somewhere in the ballpark of 3000 images during the life of my 3G (click here to see my previous posts from the older iPhone 3G) and am already on pace to break that record with this new iPhone.

Whenever I see something that inspires me or just need a quick photo of something I reach in my back pocket and pull out my phone. I started snapping images as soon as we were in the airport in Houston and didn’t stop until we were home. I believe I took around 600-700 images during the week-long trip, not to mention a ton of HD video clips as well. During our short stay in Chicago I snapped a photo of this beautiful church on the corner of W. Barry and W. Seminary streets. Moments later I started toying with a few of the image editing apps I have installed on my phone. After combining a few of the effects from 2 different 3rd party apps I stumbled on an effect that I found rather appealing. Throughout the remainder of the trip I would go back and edit images taken on the trip in the same manner and came out with another little iPhone photo essay from the travel.

The original iPhone4 image, the image converted to black and white, and the final image.

The illustration above shows the progression from the initially captured image to how the image looked after the first step with the third image illustrating the completed image.

The first step was to identify which images would work best for the project. I found that high contrast images with fairly simple content worked best. Huge group photos with a ton of people would often seem muddied up, so sticking to fairly simple images worked best.

Secondly I used the Photoshop Mobile app to convert the images into black and white, boost contrast and perfect exposure. The Photoshop Mobile app is great for those basic tweaks that any real photographer would need. Sure there are a few bells and whistles to entice the casual user into purchasing, but it’s the only app I have (and that I have found) that will let me crop and straighten images with a constrained aspect ratio. After saving the edited black and white image I was ready for the final step.

I have several impulse buy image editing apps that I have been into lately such as Red Giant’s Plastic Bullet app that turns your photos into vintage wonders, but the app that worked for me here is Stephen Spring’s Pic Grunger. It’s a simple application that allows the user to select an image and apply any one of several built in textures. Some of the textures look better than others when outputted. I originally dug the “cracked” look, but since it didn’t hold up too well when I transferred them to the computer, I decided to go with the “creased” look. The app seems to output the images at 1000 pixels on the long end (about 1/3 of the original size) which is definitely a negative and I wish there were more choices of textures, but other than that, the app is awesome. The vintage, sepia tone, textured feel produced from the app gave the images a punch that I really dig.

A few of my favorites are in the slideshow below. Check back periodically as I will most likely be adding more images to this gallery from time to time.

Now that all 4 parts to this blog series is complete, please drop me a line to tell me which set of images you liked most!

JULY 2010: IPHONE OHIO – Images by Todd Spoth

Today’s blog is the 3rd in our 4-part travel series and focuses on images from our Lubitel 166, twin-lens, medium format camera.

We put a few rolls through the Lubitel during our trip, but it is fairly new to our collection. It was acquired back in March and it takes a bit of getting used to, but I have definitely made some frames I really dig. A few months ago I made a blog post highlighting a few of the first rolls through it. (<—– click over there to check out the first Lubitel blog!)

The Lubitel 166+ (the version we own) is a twin-lens medium format camera that is a reissue of the older Lubitel models, which were actually based on the old Voigtlander Brillant camera. Unlike its predecessors, our version is plastic and very lightweight, which is both a benefit and a hindrance depending on how you look at it. On one hand I love that I can hang it around my neck and almost forget it’s there, but at the same time, I get nervous when I have to stuff it in the bottom of a full camera bag for fear it might be crushed, or crack somehow. Luckily I haven’t had any issues. The controls are fairly simple, but anyone who has ever tried to carefully compose a shot with a TLR and a waist level viewfinder (without a tripod) will understand the frustration. As someone who came from a graphic design background and puts a lot of stock in careful composition and lines, I sometimes find myself frustrated when trying to fine tune a shot, but after the film is developed and I realize I nailed it, (if I actually did nail it) I feel like I just conquered the world.

Given the time and effort that goes into every frame, we only managed to run 3 rolls of 120 Kodak Portra 400vc through it during the trip. Shooting the 6×6 format (which I prefer to the rectangular) we only get 12 exposures per roll, meaning that we walked away with 36 total frames about half of which I liked and are in a slideshow at the bottom of the post. That is an almost 50% keeper rate, which in the world of photography, isn’t bad at all. The vivid color film makes the colors pop nicely as you can see in the above image of the cornfield against the blue sky. The images have a definite mood and texture to them which I like. If you’re wanting a quick snapshot of a scene and have only a few seconds, there are other cameras that will do a better job, but if you can spare a few minutes and can take your time in a fairly static scene, the Lubitel can give you a nice image. Of course, it’s no Hasselblad, but for the price and weight, it can’t be beat.

15 of our favorite Lubitel images from our trip are below, including a few more double exposures as well. Let me know what you think of them on the Todd Spoth Photography Facebook page or Twitter page and stay tuned for the last post in the series (which may be the most interesting) coming soon!

JULY 2010: LUBITEL OHIO – Images by Todd Spoth

The abandoned building which once was a bustling Hoover Appliance factory. North Canton, Ohio.

I just wanted to start this post off by thanking everyone that took the time to check out the previous blog post about the huge Blurb book we created for my grandmother. A record number of viewers checked out the blog and I am still getting positive comments from all over the globe.

I talked a little about the trip to visit family in the previous blog, however this blog will be the first in a series of four, dedicated to the images made during that trip. Even though it was a mostly personal trip, I still managed to capture plenty of images along the way. The fact that the trip was a no pressure, non-business, situation allowed me to take out some old toys and have a little fun.

Each of the four blogs will concentrate on images captured with a certain camera or device, digital, film, cellphone or otherwise. You’ll have to stay tuned to check out the upcoming blogs, but today’s blog focuses on the Lomo Oktomat, a tiny plastic camera that captures 8 different frames onto one single frame of film. The tiny plastic lens all aimed in slightly different directions make this toy camera one of the funnest cameras in my collection. And you can’t argue with the price either!

I must have picked up this little 35mm toy camera from Lomo for about $35 or so, at least 4 or 5 years ago (before Lomo and Urban Outfitters got in bed together) and have used it fairly sporadically ever since. I guess that is the nature of the toy camera or at least for the cameras in my collection. I have a ton of toy cameras and old Polaroid cameras that get taken out randomly. There are a few that I really love and travel with me often, but most are just for fun. There are a few Polaroid cameras in my collection I would love to take everywhere, but given the scarcity and thus, the price, of certain Polaroid films that is impossible, but that’s a story for another day.

For the Oktomat, there are few concerns. It is 35mm, which makes it easy to find and process the film, the size is tiny in comparison to some of my other toy behemoths, and the controls are pretty much non-existent, in a good way. There is no (real) viewfinder for you to fine tune compositions, no manual exposure dials and no options for a flash. You simply point (in the general direction of) and shoot. With a quick crank of the film advance lever you are ready to go. Since its 35mm you will change film less as it can have 36 exposures rather than 12 or 16. It takes the saying, “shooting from the hip” to a whole new level.

The frames are grainy and dirty (mostly due to my shoddy scanning abilities), some frames come out dark and unusable, some blurry and sometimes the plastic film advance dial doesn’t want to properly advance the film, but it’s all of the above that add to the overall appeal of the camera, especially when you can pull a nice, dreamy, diamond from the rough.

Libby's ink and watercolor representation of the Lomo Oktomat drawn on our trip.

We ended up carrying the Oktomat (illustrated above) wherever we went on our trip from roller coasters at Cedar Point to the middle of the Amish country. In total I believe we shot about 5 or 6 rolls through the camera which I had processed upon our return. They were then scanned in and rediscovered. Since the camera is so unpredictable by nature, it’s pretty interesting to see what came out when you are scanning the images in.

I did some basic edits to my 36 favorite frames and put them into a slideshow which is below.

Tomorrow will feature photos from a different camera so stay tuned!

JULY 2010: OCTOMAT OHIO – Images by Todd Spoth

I had a great time visit my Dad and friends for Father’s Day on Sunday. I finally got a chance to use the underwater housing for my CanonG9. It definitely takes a bit to get used to the variables of underwater photography, but after I got used to what the housing and environment could and could not provide, I began to focus and make some interesting images. These two are of my little brother Zach playing in the pool. The first was a playful color image of him making a funny face. I dig the rainbow aberrations and distortion the water and sunlight created. The second is my favorite, by far, of the take. I don’t think Zach even knew I was snapping it. The black and white adds a level of drama and mystery that I am a fan of. Its abstract and eerie and everything I could have hoped for out of a $450 camera. Look for more underwater adventures as our temps climb close to 100 degrees + soon.