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

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

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

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

I’ve been pretty busy lately and have much to catch up on the blog world. I still need to update my blog with my stuff from Africa, Brazil and my story completed at the Eddie Adams Workshop last month, but this post is devoted to a rather interesting trip I took last week to Qatar in the Middle East.

One of my local clients, a hip hop dance academy was chosen to assemble a team and represent the US at a rather large event in Doha, Qatar. I have been on several trips with various different teams and dancers over the years, but this one was different. Usually the trips are only with a few different dancers and usually the dancers that go are from the pro team. The pro team consists of a group of professional hip-hop dancers and break dancers that range in age from their late teens to their mid-20′s. The group I accompanied to Qatar was mostly younger kids some of whom had never previously been out of the country, so their curiosity hopefully translates in some of the images.

Our whole trip, albeit a week, seemed to last only a few days. The itinerary was mapped out weeks in advance and a lot of time was spent in waiting to rehearse in a hotel ballroom, riding in a bus to and from venues, at the hotel buffet and on 17-hour plane rides. Towards the end of the journey my photo wanderlust took hold and I started to feel like I was being robbed of really experiencing Qatar, however during one of the event’s the Amir (head honcho) of Qatar met us and graciously paid for our entire group to tour the desert. After the crew’s final performance we traveled a ways into the desert to the Saudi/Qatar border and went crazy on the sand dunes. The light was magnificent, the sand, the sky, the warm water of the Persian Sea. It was lovely. I wish I had more time to spend out there, but for the time we were there, it was paradise.

On the tired ride home I asked one of our new Qatari friends when the last time it rained was, he replied with, “It has not rained in seven years.”

Wow! After another 17 hours in the air, I arrived home to a rainy Houston. Go figure.

I was a little skeptical about spending a week in the Middle East with a bunch of kiddies, but I had a great time and it will be something I won’t soon forget. This trip marked my 4th continent visited in as many months…now if only someone would hire me to shoot in Australia or Antarctica!

PS. Everyone in Qatar was amazing and amazingly hospitable. I like to travel rather inconspicuously and alone when I shoot abroad, however it was quite the opposite during this trip. We were in a large group of about 18 or 19, mostly kids and parents and all of them were wearing “TEAM USA” apparel. Not once did I feel awkward or out of place in Qatar. The one exception to this is at the international airport in Doha. We went through several security checkpoints as usual, however there was one right before we boarded the plane. Long story, short, it was a complete disaster that lasted about 25 minutes in total and ended up with all my gear all over the place and all my gaffer’s tape and AA batteries thrown away!

Yes, this is one of these posts. The ones where I preface my blog entry by apologizing for my absence and saying that it won’t happen again, but it’s bound to. At least I have a good excuse. For the past month now Ive been in Brasil with a 10-day visit to Africa. There are thousands of images that I have to mull through yet and I still have a week here in lovely Rio de Janeiro so hopefully I’ll get some more good images in. Once I get back stateside look forward to loads of updates and even more images from my month away.

Before I left on July 7th, I covered Warped Tour 2009 in Houston on the 3rd. It was probably the single worst Warped Tour experience out of all of the dozens Ive been to, but the few stand out performances made up for the day as a whole.

I have a few updates and news(ish) items to talk about. First off my recent article, “Riding A Wave” was published this earlier this week in the SportsShooter.com newsletter. The article which talks about my recent experience producing the documentary, The Messenger: 360 Days of Bolivar, was featured on the front page for a day as well.

I have also used some much needed downtime this week to update my main portfolio website TODDSPOTH.COM. I changed up the look and went with a new sleek white look, added a “recent work” section, added some video and multimedia projects under the new “multimedia” tab as well as added some new images here and there.

One of the multimedia pieces is a project that I worked on with two of my favorite local photographers and good friends, Robert Seale and Dave Einsel for Do1Thing.org. We volunteered our time back in February to tackle this multimedia project to help bring awareness to the homeless youth community. I was in charge of interviewing the youth and assembling the audio to accompany the images, however the person that was supposed to assemble the piece was busy so I decided to take on the task and throw something together. It wasn’t my greatest multimedia feat, but it works I think. It was for a great cause and we were happy to volunteer our time. The piece is also up on Do1Thing.org as well.

In other charity news, I am donating several prints to a charity art fundraiser this Saturday. Wolf Camera has graciously agreed to donate their printing services to the cause so thanks to them for that. My good friend Thomas and I are going to be doing an 8-song acoustic set at the event as well in an effort to raise even more money for the cause. Hopefully we raise money and don’t drive people away. Libby, although in LA for business has agreed to donate a few of her early (limited edition and amazing!) silk screen works.

If you are in the Houston-area and are interested in coming to this event please let me know!

Ahhh Valentine’s Day. I usually don’t look forward to this day even though I should since I am in a wonderful relationship and not sad and alone, however it just means I have to find something to get my lovely lady, usually at the last minute. In the end, they usually turn out OK, but this year’s was grand.

I had another early Chron assignment in the AM downtown, covering Eleanor Tinsley’s memorial service. The media access was restrictive and it forced me to dress up, but the church was gorgeous. On the way home I stopped and got Libs some awesome looking pink roses to satisfy the traditional.

Libs was in Chicago all week on business so I had ample time to think about what to get her, however the idea didn’t come to me until midday Thursday.

I had been wanting to play with some stop motion video for some time so I decided it was time. The idea I had was to create a stop motion movie based on a regular day for us at our current apartment. Sure we go out, travel and do a lot, but we also work from home a great deal so I wanted to illustrate that. Since we are moving to a new place soon I also wanted to emphasize our space, here, and create something that would hold captive those small memories of home that we have shared in this apartment.

Influenced by all of the awesome stop motion I used to watch on Sesame Street as a kid (Teeny Little Super Guy), I started to capture the frames. I wanted to use the song “Diagnosis” by the amazing dudes in The Weakerthans as the soundtrack so based on rough calculations I knew I needed between 500-600 still frames.

I took a photo of the two of us in Brooklyn over last Thanksgiving and cut it in half. I used her side to illustrate a few of her daily activities; waking up, showering, eating breakfast, watching family feud (lol) and working. I used my side to illustrate a few other things like getting dressed, playing with my awesome cat TT, and of course, working.

It was pretty tough, especially by yourself and being pressed for time. I winged most of the scenes and shot most of it in about 6 hours or so.

Today, after exchanging traditional gifts, Libs went to visit her mom as it was her birthday. It gave her a chance to do the finishing touches on her non-traditional gift to me and more importantly gave me a chance to throw my stills into final cut and see what I could come up with.

After some cutting, mixing, adding, subtracting and rendering I came out with a short little piece that I am happy with. The color is off, sometimes the focus was off, etc, but I love it even more for those little idiosyncrasies.

The folder that held the stills was hastily named STOP LOVE, so for the title, I went with that. I kinda dig it now that I think about it.

Libby finally got back home and with her came my gift. I was in awe! She never ceases to amaze with with her ridiculous craftiness. She bought a sleek lamp and replaced the lampshade with a custom sewn one made from slides of images of us together and other random images from our past. She used old slides, make custom slides from digital files and even planned ahead and shot slides with our old AE-1p while exploring the East Coast last fall. When it lights up it looks awesome! There are images below, but they don’t do it justice. It rules.

One of the images she used in the lamp was the same one I used in mine. See images below.

Afterwards I showed Libby my video. She cried. I think she liked it.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending some time with 82-year-old Mickey Stubblefield at his home in his hometown of Mayfield, Kentucky. Mickey is a former Navy veteran, Shriner Mason, Kentucky Colonel, and was also the first African-American baseball player ever to play in the Kitty Leagues. He receives an average of 10 letters of correspondence a week from fans and while he may possess fame, he is not rich. He has been everything to everyone, but his most important role is being a father (and a mother) to 2 young girls, ages 10 and 12. The real story of Mickey is his relationship with the 2 girls under his care. This is a story of love and compassion. Although I am actively pursuing the multimedia option, the story will likely end up a still photo story. I did however capture some good A-roll interview clips and since they may not make it into the piece itself, I have included an un-cut, raw clip of a portion of one of the interviews below. It is an emotion recollection from Mickey’s past.

**UPDATE**

I am proud to announce that the above clip of Mickey was used in a presentation at the Indianapolis Museum of Fine Art on Martin Luther King Day in 2009. The still images from the story of Mickey, entitled “The Good Loser” are viewable on my portfolio site at TODDSPOTH.COM.

…or maybe it’s just jet lag. I haven’t blogged in more than a few days, mainly due to the fact that I haven’t really been shooting much save the lot of cheesy family snapshots with my new Canon G9. I had been meaning to buy a smaller Canon compact camera for some time and the G9 was the perfect (partial) Christmas present to myself. While it may not be as compact as the smaller SD series, it has a lot of familiar control features that allow myself not to be alienated every time I pick it up. I have also been meaning to really start to teach myself video capture and production and it seems I’m using the G9 for mostly its video capture capabilities of late. It shoots with excellent video quality for such a tiny camera. I put a short piece together while on a 12 hour plane ride from Houston to Rio de Janeiro earlier today. I am here visiting my parents who live in Brazil. My goal is to be more proficient behind a camera capturing video frames as well as Final Cut, however this piece was put together entirely in iMovie. Rio is a plethora of photo opportunities so expect more frequent updates for the next two weeks.

Here is a very nice comment I received when I originally posted this on my older blog. Received from “moto” on January 20th, 2008:

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“That little film was absolutely and amazingly good. Very impressive. Can’t wait to see more of your work, (play?)”