Jeremy Cowart CreativeLive TTV
On December 2-3 Creativelive hosted one of my favorite photographers Jeremy Cowart to do a live workshop called Experimental Portraiture. If you haven't ever heard of Creativelive it's an online live streaming network that host some of the biggest names in photography like Zack Arias, Jasmine Star, Vincent Laforet along with many others and the kicker is it is all free! You simply check out the dates the workshops are and just make sure your infront of your computer/iPad/iPhone to watch it.
Jeremy Cowart's workshop started out with something i've seen before called Thru-the-viewfinder (TTV). It's a pretty simple concept just get an older camera that has a big enough viewfinder to focus on with the camera, point your DSLR into the viewfinder and fire away. It gives the photo's a vintage look straight out of camera and you can even sprinkle things like glitter onto the viewfinder for even more effect. While Jeremy was teaching the workshop I set up and snapped a few photo's of Fendi (my dog) just laying on the bed. The photo's camera straight off camera without even touching Photoshop.
For these photos I set up my old Argus camera on my desk and put my camera on my tripod and pointed it straight down into the viewfinder. Then set the camera to a long shutter speed and popped the flash at Fendi to light her a little better, than used my iPhone to make the light trails.
Help Portrait | Knoxville, TN
This year marks my first year ever participating in Help-Portrait. Many of you might not have any idea what Help-Portrait is. In short, Help-Portrait is a movement among photographers doing portraits of people that are less fortunate. This could be single mothers, orphans, the sick, your neighbor, the homeless. This may not mean much to you but to a family that lives in a homeless shelter that has never had the family professional photographed together, it means the world. Photographers aren't the only ones who can volunteer their time and talent but hairstylist, make-up artist, and even counselors can give what they have been given and share it with someone less fortune. The events are held by local photographers getting together on the HELP-PORTRAIT COMMUNITY and finding places to host these events. Since starting last year, the event is held in almost 60 countries!
This was my first Help-Portrait event but this will definitely not be my last. I haven't done much charity work before but will be trying to do much more now. The feeling you get when you photograph a family for their first time ever and see their face after you show them the photo, all together and smiling, really means more than I can say.
We started photographing Saturday morning at 9AM with families then moved to individuals throughout the day until around 5pm. I have to say it was one of the fastest Saturdays I've had in awhile. I wanted to post a few photos from that day and chose to post some of the individuals that were taken that day. You may notice that I just posted their eyes. I feel that in some you can tell the joy while in others you still see the hurt. You don't need the entire photograph to tell there were many emotions going around that day.
Lastly it was great meeting and networking with the other local photographers there and hopefully it won't be the last time we all hang out!!
_________
