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

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.

This second of the four part blog series focuses on images taken with my Canon 5D mark II digital SLR camera. This is one of my main cameras I shoot assignments with on a daily basis. Its accurate, does it’s job and is my workhorse. Anytime I travel, regardless if the trip is business or personal the 5D II is always with me. And almost all of the time I am packing a pretty sizable digital kit as you never know when the opportunity will present itself for a serious shoot even if the trip doesn’t seem so.

However, on several of my last few personal trips, I have found myself using my 5D less and less and instead opting to use the camera that is always by my side, my cellphone, but since that post is coming, we will talk about the 5D here. It’s actually pretty interesting to be able to lay all of my images from my trip out and be able to identify which device was used in each situation. For example since the 5D kit is heavy and oftentimes cumbersome to manage, most of images taken with it were from my aunt’s house where we stayed or nearby. Most of the images taken on different day trips here or there were with other, smaller, devices. This doesn’t mean I love my 5D any less, it just means that since I am on vacation and my other, smaller, devices produce their own interesting images, I opted to save my shoulders and leave the heavier kit in its case. I thoroughly enjoy producing interesting images, but given this was a personal trip, I was not in a pressure situation to produce a certain image for a client, thus I could take advantage of using my toy/smaller cameras and experimenting to my heart’s content.

I did however use the 5D to capture a lot of video clips and time lapse sequences of our family gathering as well, so even though it may seem as if I didn’t utilize it as much as I could have, I really did put it through the usual paces.

21 of my favorite images are in a slideshow below. We have 2 more posts in the 4-part series coming in the next few days so be sure to check those out as I think they are going to be the most interesting of the bunch.

JULY 2010: DIGITAL OHIO – Images by Todd Spoth

As a regular freelancer for The Houston Chronicle, a major metro daily, nearly half a million people see my pictures from day to day, but the next day many of the photos are either used as kindling, pooped on by pets or recycled. Of course they are archived by me, but are rarely shown. It is now May, and 2009 has flown by thus far. I have covered everything from courtroom drama to baby rodeos. Below are 22 of my favorite images that I have taken on assignment from The Chron in 2009. These were taken from my SENT folder which means they were selected only from the images that I have sent to the paper. There are a handful of images I can think of that are not in this “favorites” post because they were not sent to the paper for whatever reason. I oftentimes shoot photos during an assignment that don’t bare any relevance to the story, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good. For the sake of time and effort I simply chose from my SENT folder. Some of the images made it into print or online, others did not.

*Note: I have consolidated my favorite images from all of 2009 into one nice and neat Photoshelter gallery. View the slideshow of 57 images below!

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

It’s my second day beating the streets in Colorado for The Gazette and I am already having a blast. Here is a little something I shot today. Enjoy!

Nathan Murawzki, 4, enjoys the water of Uncle Wilber fountain in Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado, Tuesday, August 21, 2007.