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

Quick portrait of Heather at a rest stop somewhere in New Mexico.

The first two weeks of August were a couple of the most hectic work weeks of the year for me. I had several commercial jobs that required a lot of intense office time, editing, and outputting images as well as several other editorial jobs inter-weaved. I’m always grateful of having work, but as the second week in August came to a close I was feeling like I needed a little break from the office and from life in general.

Heather had been stressed with work and school herself, so over a casual Tex-Mex dinner we looked at each other and decided to just drive. We needed to get out of town, be spontaneous, and just go. We both agreed to drive somewhere each of us had never been to before, so my first thought was The Grand Canyon. I have driven pretty much everywhere in the US, but have never managed to visit Northern Arizona or The Grand Canyon. Neither had she, so we left…straight from there…no plan, just the open road.

Even though both of our smart phones had GPS’, I knew that eventually we would be somewhere with sketchy cell reception, so our first purchase was a copy of the 2012 Rand McNally atlas.

This is the circuitous route, encompassing about 2800 miles, we ended up taking, highlighted in our atlas. Ignore the route up to Oklahoma, that was a mistake!

We had a car, I had a bag of cameras, and we each had a bag of clothes. It was Sunday evening, about 5pm, the sun was looking to set. We were full of Tex-Mex and trying to push the food coma away. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before, and my morning was spent on a hectic shoot with Deion Sanders and Mike Tirico of NFL/ESPN fame. We were both more prepared for a lengthy nap, than a 10 hour drive.

Our first stop was Amarillo, Texas up in the Texas panhandle. We drove well into the night, through Fort Worth and spent a few hours catching up on sleep in Amarillo. The next stop was Flagstaff, Arizona which we pulled into the next evening. Flagstaff was one of our favorite little cities and definitely a place I would move in a heartbeat. We had a great meal at a small brewery where I got to watch The Texans win their second pre-season game. After exploring a bit, we got some sleep.

We woke up as the sun was breaking, and made the 1.5 hour drive up to Grand Canyon National Park. It was in the mid 50′s and we were not prepared for the cold, but the drive was beautiful, the light was amazing. We didn’t seem to care that we were in clothing more suited for our daily 100-degree-plus weather. I forgot what its like to see the sunrise. I need to do this more often.

Everything I had read on The Grand Canyon lead me to believe it was a huge tourist trap with wall-to-wall people from all over the world and we would be visiting in the peak time of the year, Summer. I was prepared for the worst, but surprised to find that it was all but deserted. We had the entire park to ourselves.

We drove from outlook to outlook, taking in the incredible views along the way. We climbed out on remote rocks, scared ourselves and had a great time.

I brought my entourage of cameras with me including my Polaroid Spectra, a digital body with a few lenses and a few other toy cameras that Heather had fun with. After getting home and editing the images from the trip. I was re-inspired by the square format. I also realized that I really need a Hasselblad.

After we exited the park, we headed south towards Sedona. We explored the red rock area, dipped into a freezing creek of crystal clear water and then headed further south to Phoenix. We decided to take the southern route via Interstate 10 home, instead of backtracking the way we came. We wanted to see different landscapes and that we did, as the forest and red rock of Northern Arizona quickly gave way to cacti and other drier landmarks through Phoenix and Tuscon. It seemed like we saw pretty much every geophysical area on the trip; mountains, canyons, plains, boulders, deserts, forest. You name it, we saw it. Even when we were exhausted from 9 hour shifts behind the wheel, having interesting scenery to wonder at, made everything ok.

Even, in the dark of night we had fun.

A road-side long exposure somewhere in New Mexico.

After the sun had set on our adventurous day that began with a sunrise over The Grand Canyon, we decided to push forward through El Paso, into the desolate West Texas town of Van Horn where we spent a few hours getting some sleep.

In the morning we detoured down highway 90 towards Valentine and Marfa, Texas. We visited the famed Prada Marfa installation, and explored Marfa and a few other small Texas towns along the route back up to the interstate. I tried to channel my inner Allison V Smith along the way. I mounted one of my GoPro HD cameras from the rear view mirror and had the camera capture 1 still frame every second until I had about 10,000 images. I compiled them into a time-lapse video seen below. I added the appropriately-named instrumental track, “To West Texas”, by Austin-natives, Explosions in the Sky from the Friday Night Lights soundtrack to add some drama to the piece. I kept it simple, with no editing to the piece itself. It’s entirely straight from the camera. Throughout the journey I mounted the GoPro to various parts of the car and captured lots of different video clips that I’m sure I will eventually add here, but for now, check out the time-lapse of us driving through West Texas.

GoPro HD in-car Time Lapse traveling through West Texas from Todd Spoth on Vimeo.

After getting back onto I-10, we made good time getting back home. We had driven almost 2800 miles in only 4 days. No accidents, no tickets, nothing stolen and nothing lost. We had seen more in 4 days that many have seen in years and had an absolutely unforgettable time. I am someone who loves to be in control, loves to plan, loves to make sure I have everything in place well before a trip to ensure nothing goes wrong, but sometimes not planning and just going with the flow and sheer spontaneity of the moment is really whats right and I learned that in those 4 days.

Sometimes we all just need to get away.

THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST (AUGUST 2011) – Images by Todd Spoth

One of my favorite "outtakes" of 2010.

Well another year is behind us. It’s hard to believe. Time flies, I guess. If you were to ask me a year ago to predict where I would be right now, I would be way off the mark.

This year brought a ton of changes, surprises, and detours, but it was a great year nonetheless.

During my archive search for the year’s best images, I began to wonder (like any artist I’m sure) if I progressed from last year. Did I make better images than last year? Have I evolved in my style? My first instinct was “no”, given the fact that I traveled so much during 2009 versus this past year, but after pondering for a week or so, I realized that the images that I made in 2010 were by and large a better representation of where I am taking my work. The portraits are stronger and more focused, and I like that.

Included in the mix are images from my Canon point and shoot G9, my Lubitel twin-lens, and my trusty Polaroid Colorpack III land camera as well as a few editorial event images, editorial portraits, images from advertising campaigns, experimental images, a few personal images, and even (*gasp*) a wedding photo. It’s a motley crew of images, presented in chronological order that I dug from 2010.

I have provided two ways to browse my favorite images from this year. In keeping with tradition, the first method is a simple slideshow set to the lovely music of Australia’s Bag Raiders. It’s definitely a lot more upbeat and fun when compared to last year’s slow, instrumental track. The second method is the usual Photoshelter slideshow. So whether you want to just hit play and dance while checking out my favorites or silently click-through at your own leisure, the choice is there.

Heres to an even better 2011!

Check out last year’s “Best Of” post, check it out, and let me know which set of images you prefer. Todd Spoth Photography’s “Best of 2009″ blog post.

BEST OF 2010 – Images by Todd Spoth

The cover of the December 2010 issue of PDN which features an image by Todd Spoth.

Back in October, I was browsing through my issue of PDN (Photo District News) magazine and came across an ad that was promoting one of their contests. I have never really paid much attention to contests, the few that I have entered in the past have been in the photojournalism realm and most of the contests that are advertised in PDN are more on the commercial side. This one was interesting though. The Ultimate Music Moment photo contest sponsored by Billboard Magazine sounded right up my alley.

I have been involved in the music scene in some way ever since high school, whether that meant playing in bands, touring with bands, reviewing or photographing live music or just being a passionate lover of all things musical.

The Billboard/PDN Ultimate Music Moment photo contest consisted of professional and amateur divisions, and had three categories; artist portraits, performances, and crowd. Not only did the contest appeal to my interests, but it sounded familiar. I pondered for a few moments before it hit me. Just a few weeks prior I was working with former Life Magazine photographer, Joe McNally here in Houston. During a break, his first assistant, Drew Gurian, and I got to talking about music, as we are both musicians and love photographing live music, and he had told me that he was a winner of this same contest the year prior.

I knew it sounded familiar!

Weeks passed and the deadline for entry loomed. During mid-October I found myself on a trip to Europe. It was during that trip that friend and colleague Eric Kayne reminded me that the deadline for entry was that same night. Eric was eager to enter his own images of indie band, Arcade Fire, and here I was, in Europe, about to miss the deadline.

I was away from my image archive and on the road with my Mac Book Pro. Thankfully I was able to find high-resolution versions of the images I wanted to enter in my Photoshelter online archive. Phew. I went to the contest’s website, entered my 2 images (seen below), begrudgingly paid my entry fee and hit submit.

"Warped Tour Hands" by Todd Spoth, winner in the "crowd" category of the 2010 Billboard Ultimate Music Moment photo contest.

Image of The Flaming Lips at Summerfest 2010 in Houston, Texas taken by Todd Spoth.

After a few more weeks had passed, I had all but forgotten about the entered images, until I received an email from an editor at PDN magazine informing me that my image was a finalist and that I needed to submit a higher resolution version of the image that made the cut. I excitedly submitted the image and eagerly waited for the December/January issue of PDN, where the winner’s gallery for the contest would be published.

About a week or two ago, I finally received my copy of that issue, opened it up, and was excited to see one of my submitted images, an image I captured at a local Warped Tour music festival, published in the winner’s gallery. My black and white image of the hands of a crowd of Warped Tour spectators has always been a favorite of mine and now it had won in the crowd category of this contest.

Each winning photo was accompanied by a short blurb that the photographer wrote about his or her particular image, detailing how the image was captured and although I too submitted details for my image, it seems they pulled the generic caption information from the file’s IPTC data and printed that. Regardless, my image is there, and my name is with it, and that’s all that matters.

Maybe now I’ll actually get around to updating my website with more live music images.

Below are the scans of the title page of the contest’s winner’s gallery section in the December/January issue of PDN, as well as the page where my image is featured. They are scans so apologizes for the ghosting as PDN’s pages are pretty thin.

Please let me know what you think!

The title page for the Ultimate Music Moment photo contest winner's gallery.

The Ultimate Music Moment photo contest winner's gallery page featuring a photo by Todd Spoth.

The cover of the Photoshop User magazine Jan/Feb 2011 issue featuring an image by Todd Spoth.

About a month and a half ago I got an email from Mike Mackenzie, Associate Publisher of Photoshop User and Layers magazines, letting me know that they wanted me to be featured in Photoshop User magazine. I was thrilled to be featured in a magazine that I receive and read every month, especially after getting a personal tour of the NAPP/Kelby group headquarters just a few months ago. (see that post here)

I have been a NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) member for years now and have enjoyed the benefits greatly. The guys over @ NAPP work hard at creating the most thorough training content for creative professionals using Adobe software. If you need to know how to do something in Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Bridge, et al, they know how to get it done. Like many of the professional organizations I belong to, I probably only use a fraction of the member benefits, but my favorite is the free 3-day shipping on every order from B&H photo. If you’re anything like me, you are frequently placing orders for this or that with B&H (one of the largest and best photo/video/audio retailers in the country). Being a NAPP member not only gives you complimentary shipping on every order, but upgrades it to 3-day rather than UPS ground. This benefit alone has made my membership worthwhile. Check out the NAPP website at http://photoshopuser.com.

I have been an Adobe Lightroom user since its beta release in 2006. Back then I was trying out Apple’s counterpart, Aperture, as well as Lightroom and ultimately decided on Lightroom. It was just a lot easier to use. The most recent release, Lightroom 3, has made my life a whole lot easier. The things you can do with the software is amazing.

Mike interviewed me about my usage of Lightroom and some of my basic theories concerning my approach to photography. The resulting interview, bio, and image gallery can be seen in a multi-page feature in the January/February issue of Photoshop User magazine. The issue should arrive to NAPP members this week, and hitting the shelves around January 4th according to the NAPP team. I always see the magazine front and center at places like Barnes & Noble, Borders and other places magazines are sold, so pick one up if you can! To read the actual bio and interview text simply click on the image of the spread below or click here.

The cover to the special Lightroom section featuring images by Todd Spoth.

Photoshop User magazine has a special Lightroom section, which is where my feature can be found. A selection of my images are on the Lightroom section’s title page (seen above) and the actual feature is comprised of a two page spread which includes a short bio, the short interview, another batch of images, as well as an additional page featuring a few more images (seen below) The actual design of the spread is meant to look like the layout of Lightroom itself, complete with basic camera settings for each of the highlighted images.

The main, two-page spread featuring a bio, interview and photos by Todd Spoth.

An additional page featuring more photos by Todd Spoth.

In addition to being featured in the issue, I was surprised when just a few days ago, when I received my own physical copy in the mail, that they had chosen one of my images for the cover as well. The interesting part is that the cover image was actually not taken with one of my expensive SLR bodies, but my point-and-shoot Canon G9, which has since been sold. Oh the irony! Regardless of the tools that captured the moment, I think the image looks great.

I initially sent Mike and the guys over at NAPP about 30 or so images to choose from, so the final selection of images was ultimately left up to their team. Below is a short digest of the images they chose for the issue and links to their respective blog posts. There were several other, smaller, images the guys chose to fill out the thumbnail bar towards the bottom of each page, but the main images are all detailed below.

COVER

1. Portrait of Libby Johnston taken with the Canon G9. See “THE RED CURTAIN”.

LIGHTROOM TITLE PAGE

1. Portrait of Kingwood High School swimmer, Matt Barber. See “FUTURE OLYMPIAN?”.

2. Portrait of MLB pitching prospect, Jameson Taillon. See “JAMESON TAILLON”.

3. “Summer Solstice” image created to illustrate the hot Houston Summers. (no blog)

MAIN SPREAD

1. Portrait of my buddy Rob, who is a teacher. (no blog)

2. Matt Barber again. (see above)

3. “Favela Boys” from my 2008/2009 essay on Rio de Janeiro. See “BRAZIL”.

4. Portrait of “The Dog Whisperer”, Cesar Millan. See “THE DOG WHISPERER”.

ADDITIONAL PAGE

1. Portrait of Shawn Welling, filmmaker, dancer, choreographer and painter. See “MORE PORTRAITS”.

2. Portrait from the deserts of Qatar. See “DESTINATION: QATAR”.

3. Jameson Taillon again. (see above)

4. Portrait of friend and fellow photographer, Adrienne Byard. See “ADRIENNE & ELIZABETH”.

The images of the spread above were from PDF’s, I did manage to scan a few more of the pages of the issue, where my images are shown. Since the images below are direct scans as opposed to the PDF’s seen above, I used Photoshop to clean the scans up and make them look presentable for the blog! Go Photoshop! Ha.

Table of contents page featuring photos from Todd Spoth.

About page featuring photos from Todd Spoth.

Masthead page where I am listed as a contributing writer.

(This post has been in the works for some time now, so my apologies if it isn’t as thorough as it should be as the trip was some time ago. I’m finding out that my posts turn out better and more detailed, read: longer- if that’s actually is better, when I blog about the event immediately after or within a week or so, when the details are fresh. A lot has happened since this trip, but since it was so much fun, the details are still there. It is, however, a bit odd to blog about something that happened months ago, so my apologies in advance for what may be a series of single mis-placed thoughts and memories rather than clear and concise recounts of the happenings)

A little over 2 months ago, during the first few weeks of October, I got called to work in Amsterdam and Western Germany. I had not had a real chance to visit Europe since I lived there in the early 90′s so naturally I was very excited for the opportunity. I knew the trip would be a week or so of early mornings, long days, and lots of driving, but even though the trip was work-related, the team got to have some fun in-between shooting.

Lately, when I travel for business the majority of my images are taken with my iPhone 4, but this time I actually shot a bit of the personal/travel images with my Canon 5D mark II and a Canon 35mm 1.4L lens. I used a handful of other lenses as well, but for the personal and touristy stuff, the 35mm 1.4L is my go-to lens. When I’m on vacation I like to go the extra mile and take a few “fun” cameras such as a Polaroid or a Holga such as my trip to Ohio and Chicago this past Summer, but when its a business trip I tend to leave the toy cameras at home, unless the job calls for it.

I had never been to Holland or Germany before so I was thrilled to hear that those were the locations where we would be shooting. I don’t know much Dutch or German, but luckily most of the EU is English friendly. We worked a few days in Rotterdam, which is the industrial metropolis of The Netherlands. The mix between modern architecture and the buildings that still stand from centuries past is striking, especially coming from Houston where the majority of buildings were built within the last century. Seeing a cathedral built in the 1300-1400′s next to a high-rise with a very modern architecture is just crazy. The weather was cold and dreary with intermittent rain. The bike culture in Holland and really Europe in general is like nothing I have ever seen. Houston isn’t the most bike friendly city; I’m used to seeing the occasional group of cyclists, the scruffy bike messenger or the hipster on a fixed-gear, but what I saw in Amsterdam was on a completely different level. First of all, 99.9% of the bikes looked like worn-down, rusty, Soviet-issue models; no frills, no accessories, nothing…just a plain-Jane bicycle. The bicycle in Holland is a cheap and efficient means of transportation, not a statement of individuality or a trend as it seems it is here. Unfortunately (or fortunately) since we had a significant amount of gear, we did not have the opportunity of riding a bicycle, but we did get to enjoy a rather nice Volvo diesel wagon, which by European standards, was considered large.

After flying into Schipol airport in Amsterdam, the first few days of the trip were spent working in Rotterdam. After our work was completed in Rotterdam, we made some time to see some of Holland’s most famous attractions, the windmills. I would have loved to have been there while the tulips were in bloom, but even the dreary weather couldn’t dilute the magnificence of these marvels. The expansive canal system and the network of windmills was amazing to see, especially up-close and personal.

After a bit of sightseeing, we headed into Germany and onto the famous German Autobahn, which certainly lived up to the hype. Everyone on the Autobahn was driving generally 100+ mph, but there were no crazy race cars speeding around each other, simply a sort of controlled chaos. Yes, the speeds were excessive, but all of the drivers seemed to be maintaining these high speeds with ease. I forget what we got the Volvo up to, but we did hit the governed limit on several occasions.

Our few days in Germany were spent around Osnabrück, a little town in northwestern Germany, which we later learned was originally built at the request of Charlemagne around the year 780. As soon as we pulled in for the first time, we were in awe of the medieval architecture and overall mood of the bustling little village. The town center was cobblestone and surrounded by the remains of a fortified wall built in the 1200′s. The town was preparing for a celebration of some sort complete with fireworks that Saturday night. Luckily the view from my hotel balcony provided a nice view of the cathedral and the fireworks show.

The Fall foliage and general atmosphere of the German countryside was amazing. On our way out we detoured through Münster, which was equally beautiful. We spent some time in the town center and had a great time.

After a few more days back in Rotterdam, we headed into Amsterdam. We decided to spend our last day before heading out, exploring Amsterdam. We visited the Rijksmuseum, which is famous for it’s extensive collection of Rembrandts. The actual museum itself was beautiful, even though it was under construction at the time. We spent the rest of the evening exploring various parts of Amsterdam and marveling and the architecture and everything else the city has to offer.

After getting home and going through my images, I remembered that one of my old issues of National Geographic magazine, the January 1915 issue, featured a photo essay on Amsterdam and Holland by photographer, Emil P. Albrecht. After digging up that issue I was amazed when I saw that several of the images in the spread resembled images that I had taken at various places in Holland. The images in the magazine were taken sometime before 1915 and mine were taken at a few of the exact same locations about a century later, in 2010. It’s wild to see what changed and what has remained after almost 100 years.

Below you will find the scanned cover of the January 1915 issue of National Geographic magazine, a few side-by-side comparisons between the images, as well as a slide show of my favorite images from the trip. (Click on the image to view larger)

The scanned cover of my National Geographic January 1915 issue featuring a photo essay on Amsterdam.

On the left, a photo of warehouses in Amsterdam by Emil P. Albrecht, taken around 1915; on the right, a similar image taken by Todd Spoth in October 2010.

On top, a photo of Amsterdam's inner harbor by Emil P. Albrecht, taken around 1915; below, a similar image taken by Todd Spoth in October 2010.

On top, a photo of Holland's famous windmills by Emil P. Albrecht, taken around 1915; below, a similar image taken by Todd Spoth in October 2010.

The cover of 2001's "If They Move...Kill Them" the debut LP for the now defunct, post-punk band, Fairweather, that bears similarities to my photos of Holland's windmills.

OCTOBER 2010: HOLLAND & GERMANY – Images by Todd Spoth

Four images by Todd Spoth as they appeared in the 2010 show, "Convergences"

Back in June I was invited to participate in a group gallery show put on by my good friend, Alfonso Cantarero. The show, entitled, “Convergences” featured a lot of amazing work by several local artists from different backgrounds and disciplines. Once I saw that most of the participants were amazing illustrators, painters and street artists, I was humbled to be chosen as one of the few photographers to show. The show held a great opening night at War’Hous Studios Gallery on June 26th and featured some awesome music and good food.

In preparing for the show I struggled a bit with what I wanted to show. My anxiety only increased when I saw that most of the other artists were street artists. After a bit of thinking I came up with an idea. I had been sitting on some nice medium format scans from a few months ago (see this older blog post about the medium format images here) and thought that this was a great opportunity to showcase those. Since those images were square I decided to create a 2×2 grid of square prints. Ideally, I would have loved to have added additional images to make the grid larger, to possibly a 3×3 or even 4×4, but given the time and space constraints I went with 4 simple images.

I consciously chose images that were fairly recent (all but 1 was captured in the last couple of months) as well as images from my archive that were fairly unseen (besides being posted on the blog that is). If it isn’t obvious already, I love vibrant colors, so I wanted the prints to be displayed in color versus black and white.

As for the theme of the images, it came to me while struggling between wanting to showcase my portrait work and showcasing more of my abstract work that is not usually seen by many. I ultimately decided on a compromise and found 4 images that were centered around 1 person, but were still semi-abstract. Since the eyes are one of the most important component in a portrait I decided to choose 4 images where the eyes of the subject were obscured or hidden, giving the subjects a level of animosity and imposing a sense of mystery on the viewer.

Given the feedback of a few visitors to the gallery, I believe my theme was a success. Two of the images are digital captures, the other two are film scans. Each are 20″x20″ print was chemically produced onto Kodak E-surface paper and professionally mounted onto 1/4 inch foam core.

Now that the show is over I will be selling each of these prints for just $75. The proceeds from the sale(s) will help fund an exciting upcoming project. The prints can be shipped anywhere and I can accept any form of payment so please contact me if you are at all interested!

More detailed info on each image is below.

This image is from a playful underwater shoot we did back in May at a very upscale condominium complex here in downtown Houston, Texas. The high-rise had a roof-top lounge pool that offered nice vistas to shoot against. We had access to a very nice (and expensive) underwater housing for our digital camera rig during the shoot and took advantage of that resource. The rig itself was VERY challenging to say the least, but it was a blast getting to try something new. I have underwater housing for my smaller digital rigs, but this was a whole new animal. This particular image was something I had captured in between sessions. Most of the portraits were shot with the models half in and out of the water and this image, shot as the model playfully jumped into the pool after her session was wrapped, was one of my favorite outtakes from the day.

This image, which is one of the two medium format film scans, is actually of my brother, Zach. We had just acquired the Lubitel twin lens camera and had taken it to a family gathering. I took my brother outside and had him pose in front of some foliage in the backyard. Being of that age, he feigned interest and I captured this image of him wiping his face between takes. I’ve loved this image and moment from the first time I scanned it in.

This image is the other medium format film scan of the 4. It was actually taken on the same roll as the above photo, only minutes after that image was captured. It was my first double exposure with the Lubitel twin lens camera. I really liked the brush that was growing in my father’s backyard so I captured an image of that and double exposed a portrait on top. I believe she was touching her face for some reason. This was another in-between moment that I loved. You can barely make out her right eye. We haven’t put many rolls through the Lubitel, but to this day, this frame is still my favorite.

This final image was the only image captured more than a few months ago. It was taken on July 19th, 2009 in the Limpopo province of South Africa. I believe we were in a van headed towards a game ranch in Alldays when I captured this. There was beautiful scenery all around us and I was stuck in the dead middle of a van stuffed with people and gear. I was annoyed at the fact that I did not have a window seat to capture drive by images so after a little thought, I made it work in my favor.

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

For Libby’s birthday I got her a vintage Lubitel twin lens camera. She has always loved twin lens units so since the ones in our current collection had completed the transition from functioning camera to sitting on the shelf with the rest of the old-timers, I decided to get a new one. I went with the Lubitel, because it is lightweight (a definite plus for her) simple and is a nice marriage between accuracy and that nice vintage look.

She ran a roll through it while on a business trip a few weeks ago and the results were nice. This week, however, was my turn to test the new toy out. My “toy” for the past few months has been my vintage Polaroid Colorpack III camera so while I was used to the slow process, I was not used to the lack of instant gratification that I get with not only the Polaroid, but with my digital bodies as well.

It took some time to re-calibrate my sense of sight with a waist-level viewfinder once again, but the resulting images were decent. My design background influences my photography and the way I see the world, so my natural OCD with lines and things were put to the test with a very disorienting and someone dim viewfinder. There were scenes that I had wished I would have shot over the week or so that the roll was in the camera, but it gets rather cumbersome when I am juggling a digital camera, a Polaroid camera, an iphone with its own fairly decent camera, and now this Lubitel. The new toys are both fairly large and cumbersome in their own right as well as being plastic and not as robust as my digital bodies so there are definitely challenges.

After my assignment covering a triathlon (blog forthcoming) I swung by the lab and processed my initial test roll which took exactly 1 week to use. I used a 12 exposure roll of Kodak VC (vivid color) 400 ASA for the maiden voyage and was pleased overall. We scanned the frames in using our Canon CanoScan 8800F flatbed scanner with the included negative carrier. I ended up with about 5 images that I liked which I guess isn’t bad for a roll of 12 and for my first time using the camera. I do wish that I was able to somehow scan the images in with the borders intact so that I can see the film info and frame numbers, but I was unable to figure out a way. Libby even constructed a custom carrier, but the scanner’s native software kept throwing us error messages. If anyone has any idea on how I can accomplish this, please let me know.

The 5 selects from the 12 shot roll aren’t the greatest images ever, but I really enjoyed the simple square format and that good-ole film look. They all came out pretty sharp for a plastic camera. There are a couple snapshots from the triathlon this past Sunday, a couple from the previous Sunday visiting family and a random shot from a commercial assignment earlier this past week. The above image is one of the two double exposures that I attempted during the roll. I exposed an image of an interesting area of foliage with an overlay of an image of Libby rubbing her face.

Hopefully Libby will let me “borrow” the camera for some more random fun or possibly a project in the future.

LUBITEL 120 SCANS (APRIL 2010) – Images by Todd Spoth