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

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

Local Houston noise/rap artist, B L A C K I E, dives into an unsuspecting crowd on day 2 of the festival.

It seems like it’s been forever since last year’s Free Press Houston Summerfest and corresponding post. (Click here to visit last year’s blog post and relive Summerfest 2010) This year sort of snuck up on me. Regardless of my personal thoughts on the actual acts themselves, I’m proud to say that each year since its inception 3 years ago, the fest has gotten bigger and better in the grand scheme. I really appreciate the fact that the festival organizers really put an emphasis on local music. I not only hope that the festival continues to improve and make us Houstonians proud, but keeps the same “local music first” ideals that are apparent now. And with any luck, next year, I will be playing AND shooting. (Omar: Sign Square and Compass up for 2012!)

This year I was on assignment for The Houston Chronicle and their entertainment-driven special publication, 29-95. In past years, I was shooting for different clients that were not on a deadline, which meant that I could concentrate my efforts on shooting the entire show each day and then bother with editing and captioning the next week. For the print edition of the newspaper I had to capture images, download them to a remote laptop that we had set up in 29-95′s vendor booth, edit and transmit the selects to the paper. Ironically, even with the Chronicle building a few blocks away, the poor Internet connection made the transmission process a real headache. I transmitted images to the newspaper’s photo desk for the print edition several times throughout the day since I would not be getting home until after the print deadline.

For 29-95, I sent a healthy amount of selects over each night for use in a web gallery that was live throughout the day. In essence, it was like shooting for two separate clients concurrently. Luckily I had the help of two amazing assistants and a team of editors that made things go smoothly.

Day 1 started at about 10am. After getting outfitted with about 5 or so different wristbands, we set up our laptop station and walked the festival grounds to get an idea of the layout. The festival in general was a lot more spread out than in past years which was a pain since it took a lot longer to walk to between each stage, and since the majority of fans camped out at the main stage, so the exterior stages seemed much more isolated than in past years. You may be asking yourself why I am complaining about a short walk, but it was about 105 degrees F each day, so just being out in the sun, let alone moving is an exhausting task.

After getting the lay of the land, I started looking for details and hot weather features, before heading to the main stage to photograph the live acts. Bun B and Big Boi were the highlights of day 1 putting on amazing performances in the dead heat. I didn’t have any trouble getting access to the stage which was nice. The hip-hop acts were great, but Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings were my favorites for the day for sure. During the golden hour I ventured back into the crowd and made some frames of a bungee attraction in awesome light.

Since we still had a lot of editing to do, we decided to skip Saturday’s headliner, Ween, and head back to the office early to get a jump on things.

Sunday was 110% better for me. After regrouping, I headed into Sunday with cooler clothes, less gear, and a working knowledge of what exactly I wanted to shoot and how the whole festival was laid out.

We started around the same time, at some of the smaller stages enjoying/photographing friends’ The Niceguys and By The End of Tonight before hitting the grounds in search of features. I stumbled on several nice details and a few excellent moments before heading to the main stage where I found local noise/rap/etc artist B L A C K I E  assembling his own stage props alone. After a few frames and an offer to help, we headed into the crowd to find out they were setting up a paint slide. Last year, the paint slide was replaced by a mud slide after a heavy storm rolled through the festival.

This year it was a paint slide, last year it was a mud slide. What will 2012 bring?

Since it was (mostly) dry this year, a black, vinyl tarp was setup, splattered with paint and hosed down before a line of kids started sliding down. It was definitely fun to witness and photograph even though there are still paint splatters on several of my lenses and clothes. After several frames at the bottom of the slide I decided to trek up the hill to see what it looked like from the top. The first thing I saw was a group of friends in line for the slide, covered in paint, having a great time smearing paint on each other. During the few minutes I spent with the group I photographed a nice sequence. Click on the composite below to see the entire 12 shot sequence together.

The 12-shot sequence of the paint-covered kids. Which one would you have selected?

After a quick edit/transmission session, we headed over to the main stage for the evening acts. After a few moments, IT happened. What we all thought we had dodged…the rain. Summer downpours have cursed the festival the past two years in a row and just when we thought we were out of the woods, dark clouds circled and opened for several minutes of rain, and like past years, I ventured out to make rain features while most photographers scurried for cover. Unlike past years, the showers were brief and the terribly uncomfortable mugginess that is usually present after a summer shower in Houston was no where to be found. For a time it was actually pleasant.

Right after Chromeo finished up an awesome set, B L A C K I E was set to perform. I was already familiar with his crazy stage presence (especially after playing with him the Thursday prior to the festival) so I knew to be up front and ready to shoot the insanity. The first several rows of mostly Weezer fans didn’t know what hit them when he started into his first jam. The set, although short, was a full frontal assault and was not only fun to shoot, but a challenge as well. The lead off image above is one of my favorites from a sequence of him diving into the crowd and at the same time completely freaking out about a half dozen unsuspecting girls. It was lovely. (Check out some video of the performance including video of myself photographing the set, shot by Houston artist Blak Joens, below!)

Afterwards Cut Copy dove into an awesome set while I ventured out into an impromptu dance circle that I witnessed was started by 1 crazy fan that began dancing on his own. It quickly grew into a huge group of fans dancing like there was no tomorrow. At one point a shirtless guy on crutches hopped into the dance circle much to the excitement of the crowd.

Just as the sun was setting, the festival headliner, Weezer, took the stage and devled into a lengthy set full of old fan favorites from mostly the Pinkerton and Blue Album eras. As a fan of the band, it was awesome to get a chance to photograph them whilst hearing all my favorite jams from back in the day. After photographing the first half of the set from both in front of the stage and a little bit further back, we headed back to the office to edit the days selects.

Three of my images from day 2 of the festival appeared in the print edition, including one A1, above-the-fold.

The entire weekend was long and exhausting and even though I don’t know how I can possibly top last year’s images, I had a blast and came away with some frames I am definitely proud of. The print edition of the paper used 3 of my images on the Monday following the festival. Check out the layout above. As always, a full slideshow of my favorites is below. Check out the images and let me know what you think.

If you know anyone in any of the images, please link them!

SUMMERFEST (JUNE 2011) – Images by Todd Spoth

Rapper, Lil B, performs live at the Fader Fort during SXSW 2011.

As I mentioned in my post last week, the past month or so has been crazy. A lot of actual shooting has given way to a lot of time editing and while I still have a ways to go to catch up (do we ever really catch up?) I wanted to pause for a second to reflect on one of my favorite events of the year, the annual South by Southwest festival.

SXSW, held in Austin, Texas, is a now-massive multi-week festival held in early to mid March every year that covers everything from interactive design to film and music. There are tons of amazing things that happen throughout the entire festival, but the majority of the time I focus my efforts on the music portion. I really want to check out the interactive and film portions, but oftentimes scheduling prevents it. Even if just for the music, I have attended the festival for years and will continue to as long as I am able. Every year I have an absolute blast, whether I am attending as a fan or photographing musicians or live shows for a client. For those new to my blog, I have written a SXSW follow up post for the back three years, check those out if you’d like. Each year I walk away with the feeling that I really didn’t photograph much, or at least as much as I had hoped, and every year I surprise myself with a few good frames from the trip.

SXSW 2008
SXSW 2009
SXSW 2010

Every year brings a new twist to the usual flavor, but I have to say, this year stood out more than the previous. Several friends and colleagues in the newspaper photojournalism world made their first trips to the festival, including Gerry McCarthy of the Dallas Morning News and Christian Murdock of the Colorado Springs Gazette. Since schedules were hectic and since the festival (unlike any other festival) spreads itself across all of the City of Austin, I sadly did not get to meet up with either of these guys, but click on their names above to check out their respective works from the festival.

I should also note that good friends and colleagues Ariel Zambelich and Zoneil Maharaj, both from the Bay Area, who I conquered the festival with during the past two years, were MIA this year. Hopefully they will both make it back out next year. They were missed.

The biggest difference this year was the fact that I would be participating (for the first time) as a musician. Usually my routine, weeks prior to the festival, includes securing credentials, researching official and unofficial showcases, scheduling and doing a good bit of research, however the week’s leading up to this year’s festival were packed with rehearsals and playing shows with my band, Square and Compass. We played several shows prior to leaving for SXSW, so by the time I arrived in Austin, I had barely even looked at the lineup for this year.

Three images taken with the iPhone4 and processed with the Instagram app during SXSW 2011. Notice the theme?

My thought driving into Austin was that since I was not officially credentialed (this doesn’t mean much as you can still have a GREAT time without a media credential or a general admittance badge) nor was I on assignment, that I would simply go with the flow, have no expectations and have a good time…off the clock. I think as photographers, especially freelance photographers such as myself, we  (or at least I) find it hard to put down the camera and just enjoy the moment. I believe this is both a gift and a curse. On one had I would love to not have to lug heavy gear around all the time and be free to just watch and enjoy, however on the other hand, this is what I do, and work or no work, making images is my passion, so as long as I have two arms and two eyes I will have a camera up to my face, making these images, which is why, even in years where I am not on assignment to photograph the festival, there are still images made. Even if my intention was to not shoot, there are still pictures. When I get home, weeks later, and go through the images, reliving the moments that unfolded in front of me, I am happy that I took my camera out and this year was no exception.

Although this year’s SXSW excursion was somewhat truncated, I still managed to see and photograph a handful of acts.

When we arrived in Austin during the day, Friday, March 18th, we immediately made a B-line to the annual Flatstock poster art convention that is held in conjunction with SXSW. I am constantly inspired by poster art and make it a point, every year, to stop by the convention center to browse, be inspired and spend money on posters. The rest of the day and night Friday were spent just walking around the area and hanging out. Usually I am running around like a madman, shooting, running to the next venue, shooting, breathing, running, etc, but this go-round I had no expectations. That is, until I saw that the Australian electro-pop group, Miami Horror was playing a showcase that night. Miami Horror, French Horn Rebellion and a deluge of awesome electro acts were playing a showcase at ND Studios. I have been a fan of Miami Horror for a few years now and sadly missed them during SXSW 2009, so when I saw the show was a possibility, I went for it and was glad I did.

There were several things that I was interested in catching on Saturday during the day, however, since my own band’s showcase started in the late afternoon/early evening, I didn’t have time to see anything prior to our show. This only meant that we got to sleep in, leisurely lunch on the amazing food Austin has to offer and relax until we performed. Our showcase went off without a hitch. There was a good crowd and we had a great time playing. Austin is the live music capitol of the world, so it’s not surprising to say that our best shows (in my opinion) have been in Austin.

After our showcase I changed, and headed straight for the Fader Fort for the Saturday night showcase. Last year I did the same thing and was able to enjoy and photograph both Bone Thugs N Harmony and Sleigh Bells, so this year had a lot to live up to. Thanks to acquiring the proper wristbands the day before, I was able to avoid any lines, and headed straight into the tent right before rapper Lil B was set to take the stage. I made my way to the front of the stage and in a similar fashion to year’s prior, was smashed up against a ton of other “photographers” trying to photograph one person. I was armed only with my trusty 35mm 1.4L lens and a limited amount of memory cards, but I made it happen. I had never heard Lil B prior to his set. I must say it takes some getting used to, but at least he was interesting to photograph. I love photographing live music and it makes it that much easier when the venue, stage, and lighting are top-notch as they were here. There is only so much you can do when you are photographing one person with one lens and cannot move, but I think despite the setbacks I made a few interesting frames. Lil B was very animated throughout the set, but for most of the set was wearing a ball cap and sunglasses, so the frames of him without the accessories, especially the few playful ones of him smiling and being lighthearted, I thought were special. There is even a frame of him standing next to me, with a bra in mid-flight, next to his head. He doesn’t seem to notice.

After Lil B’s lengthy set, something happened that was only a mere rumor prior to the show. Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, of Bad Boy fame, hip-hop and entertainment mogul, came on stage much to the audience’s surprise and performed a few of his hits including “Mo Money, Mo Problems” and “All About Tha Benjamins”. As a fan of 90′s rap and RNB, it was definitely exciting to witness and photograph the moment. As photographers, especially for live music, we are there as working photographers, not fans, but it seemed like all of that was thrown out the window during Diddy’s set. It was the last few songs of SXSW at the Fader Fort and it seemed like the photographers, security and other personnel were all actively having a good time. So if you can’t beat em, join em. I then started singing along to the songs while photographing Diddy. Apparently he realized that I was the only one who actually knew the entire verses to the songs so before I could react he was reaching down to shake my hand during one of the songs.

Not soon after Diddy wow’d the crowd with his surprise performance did the entire Odd Future crew take over the stage. These guys again, are a new/different breed of hip-hop that Diddy called, “the next generation of hip-hop”. They are definitely different and interesting to photograph with a lot of characters. I wish I had the chance to photograph their full set the day prior, but I fancied what little I saw and photographed.

After the excitement of the Fader Fort we called it a night, slept in the next morning and headed back home Sunday afternoon.

The Fader Fort website has videos of all of the sets previously mentioned on their website. Check out THIS ONE of P-Diddy and snoop around for the rest.

So like every year, SXSW was a blast and I can’t wait for next year. I might note that this was the first year I didn’t photograph ANY indie, punk, rock or hardcore acts. Everything I photographed and pretty much everything I saw was either of the electro, rap, or hip-hop variety. This year was also a total success in that I performed as a musician and not only did that go swimmingly, but I got props from P-Diddy less than an hour or two later.

Until next year, South By…

For now check out the images from this year, compare them to the images from the years prior and tell me which set you prefer. Also check out the videos at the bottom of this page if for some reason you are wondering what Miami Horror, Odd Future or Lil B sound like. NOTE: For those of you that work for “The Man”, the latter two videos might not be safe for work. If you don’t know what “Mo Money, Mo Problems” sounds like, then shame on you!

SXSW MUSIC FESTIVAL 2011 – Images by Todd Spoth

Miami Horror – “Sometimes”

Odd Future – “Yonkers”

Lil B – “Wonton Soup”

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.

Part of my wonderful class at the James Driver Park YET in Houston

About a year ago, Canon and the NFL began an initiative to help children become involved in photography, donating camera and photo gear to centers across the country. Since the early 1990′s the NFL has set up Youth Education Towns (YETs) in a lower-income neighborhood of each city that has hosted a Superbowl. This year Canon and the NFL have teamed up to help educate the children at these YETs on the donated cameras and photography. Sports Illustrated staff photographer Peter Read Miller was brought in over the Summer to help put together a DVD and workbook that outlined some basic techniques and select photographers in the different markets were chosen to participate in the hands-on education of the children. After some back and forth, including a lengthy background check, I was approved to teach the children at the 2 Houston area YETs and I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

I had been send a copy of the DVD (which was actually produced at the Houston area YETs) as well as a few copies of the workbook and even though I had contacted each center director and formulated a bit of my own curriculum, I was very nervous as to what was in store.

The first class took place this past Wednesday the 17th and went wonderfully. I was anxious going in, but the entire experience was great from the start. The YET was in a very active part of the neighborhood, sandwiched between a local high school, a park, and a Boys and Girls Club. The inside was decorated with NFL memorabilia and each activity room featured clean and updated equipment whether it was the media room, library or gym. The center director even gave me a tour of the YETs “media” room, which was like walking into a fully decked out recording studio. She mentioned part of the funding came from the Steve Young Foundation. Awesome.

After the grand tour, I was led to a room where I setup. My preparation for the classes included me digging through my archives, searching for sports images that I could use to help illustrate ideas or theories on photography. This also meant that I since I did not know if the center had a projector, DVD player or a computer for viewing the images, I had to prepare for a few different scenarios. When I learned that the class would be pretty small, I figured out that I could simply use my laptop to show the DVD and images to the students. There were 4 girls and 1 boy in the class, mostly teen aged kids that all had at least some experience with the cameras as well as a passion for photography. The fact that the students were engaged and willing to learn played a big part in the success of the class. The center’s director and media services coordinator also attended the class in hopes of soaking up information to pass along to those who were unable to attend.

An image I used to illustrate the idea of following the action after the play is over.

After some introductions, I showed the class the provided DVD and then went over some basic camera fundamentals. The small class size made it easy for the students to follow along with the actual cameras in front of them. I then showed a series of my own images, using them as examples for different tips and tricks. After a few hours of instruction I took the students into the gym and let them loose to photograph a boys basketball practice. I mingled while they shot, coaching each of them along the way. For the final portion of the class, we gathered around an editing station and edited a few of the best images from the practice.

I had such a great time with the students that I volunteered to help the director and a few students at an upcoming Houston Texans game where they will be putting their skills to the test photographing the pre-game warm ups on the field!

With the first class behind me, I was ready for to tackle the second YET.

The second location was different in a lot of ways. There were a ton more children all of which seemed younger on average than the first location, which made for a very chaotic environment. After getting settled into my classroom, I was introduced to the children. Just like the actual center, my class was at least double the size of the first class and the age of the children was on average about 10-11. And just like the first YET, my entire class was girls and 1 boy. I knew I had to keep the techno-babble to a minimum and beef up my gestures and animation. It was a challenge at first, but I managed to get into the groove. Since the class was younger and the attention spans were shorter, we decided to split up the class time into two days.

The second day the students were especially excited and called me by my newly adopted name, “Mr. Todd”. I started with an overview of the tips and then let the children spend about half an hour in the center’s recreation room to put what they had learned to practice. When we came back we reviewed the material and stopped for some photos before they all took off for the weekend.

"Mr. Todd" and the students at the James Driver Park YET

The students at both YETs got especially peppy after I told them that I would be choosing one stand-out student from each class to attend the Superbowl in Dallas in February 2011.

One of my stand out students at the James Driver Park YET

I have done some teaching in the past, but this experience was a lot less of a “working” experience and more of a “rewarding” experience than I initially anticipated. It was amazing working with the centers and the children and I was thoroughly inspired by all the youngsters so eager to learn. I will definitely be paying them a visit to check up on them in the near future!

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.