My favorite photo

Produced by Ben Hoste.



My video of Ben.

Painting with Light

The Burr Oak Tree, locally known as "The Big Tree," located in McBaine, MO, cries for help to save trees. According to Global Trees Campaign, over 8,000 tree species, 10 percent of the world's total, are threatened with extinction.

Multiple Flash

 Cagaty Ozturk, left, and Andrew Helmreich practice Jiu-Jitsu at Zen's Gym in downtown Columbia. Jiu-Jitsu, a Brazilian style of ground fighting, has seen an increase in popularity since the widespread popularization of mixed martial arts fighting.

Basic human light-stand set-up. 

Others.

Audio Slideshow Research

I really liked this story about Patrick Harris, this guy who lives on a 1920's sailboat in New York. This is part of the New York Times One in 8 Million project. The audio is clean and the photos are awesome.

Color Correction

Ron Dameron, a chef at HuHot Mongolian Grill, slides freshly prepared food off of the restaurant's donut-shaped grill. The restaurant features a buffet where customers can choose from numerous uncooked ingredients, add a little sauce and then watch their meal cooked right before their eyes, dinner and a show. Dameron, who has worked at HuHot for 3 years and 9 months exactly, is an old pro, his behind-the-back spatula tosses and egg juggling show the veteran grillmaster's hard earned skills.

I think this is probably pretty self-explanatory. I crouched and used direct flash for this shot. 

Thanks to the manager at HuHot for being cool with me shooting up his restaurant.

Others...

Bryan Degase, 1.5 year vet at HuHot

Ben Gilbert, master spatula handler. This guy did at least four behind-the back spins, very impressive.

Fill/Balance

After the TransCanada Corporation proposed the Keystone XL extension to their US pipeline, Nebraska rancher/landowner Tom Genung decided to get involved. 

Genung hasn't fought for any cause before, but this is one he thinks is worth it. 

Single Flash

 Direct

Trainer Jeff Watson spits water into the mouth of his 1,500-pound Kodiak brown bear. Watson and Brody drew crowds for their performances at the Missouri Deer Classic Saturday and Sunday. During the show Watson performed tricks with Brody and talked to the crowd about bear safety.

The lighting for this one is pretty self-explanatory. I stood outside the bear's cage and shot a flash into both Jeff's and the bear's faces. 

Bounced

Augustine Accurso, an employee at Get Lost Bookstore, works on a Sudoku puzzle in the paper during some down time. "There's usually a lot to do here," Accurso said. "There's rarely any down time." Columbia-raised Accurso has been working at Get Lost since last November.

I tried bouncing my flash off of everything I could find that was even a little white or reflective. I am pretty sure that my select from this take was bounced off the cash register. 

Also...

He had a cub with him too, it kinda looked like a pig.

Metal/Glass

Lighting glass

Due to climate change, polar bears and other arctic animals have become trapped in their own ecosystem as the increasing water temperatures melt the ice beneath their feet.

The U.S. Geological Survey predicts that the warming of sea ice will lead to the loss of two-thirds of the world's polar bears by 2050. During the warm summer months, bears can be stranded on land until ice forms again in the fall or winter. While on land the bears eat little to nothing, scavenging for carcasses and bird eggs, and sometimes resorting to cannibalism just to stay alive. 

Lighting Diagram

For this assignment I wanted a dark rim on the glass jar that contained the polar bear and his icy perch. I set up a couple pieces of plexi propped against one of the wooden tables in the studio. After attaching a blue gel to one of the strobes, Tatiana and I placed it behind the plexi so it would shine through onto the subject. We went through a lot of trial and error before we could get the color of the background to a deep "Arctic" blue. After that, we began setting fires. 

At first the fire looked pretty terrible. It was kind of pink and blurry. After  asking for advice from Rita and Allison, we learned that we would needed to turn off the mod. lights so that they wouldn't light the scene on the longer exposures I was doing to allow the fire to be captured. After that the shoot went pretty smoothly.

A couple more photos...

There were times when the snoot got a little tickling from the two-foot flames we created. Something I learned: Rita really loves fire.

Classmate Portrait

Single Light Portrait 

Aimee Gutshall, a senior agricultural journalism major, has found her place at Mizzou. "I am involved campus wide," Gutshall said. Outside her busy class schedule, Gutshall is involved in a number of clubs and organizations, including singing the national anthem at various MU sporting events. 

For this portrait I used a single skinny soft box on the right side of the frame and balanced the light slightly with a silver reflector which was positioned at left. I was using the gray backdrop for this photo.

Multiple Light Portrait

MU student Aimee Gutshall has been on the path to agriculture since she was born. After growing up on a cattle farm in the rural community of Trenton, Gutshall moved on to MU where she has studied agricultural journalism, and involved herself in a number of CAFNR activities outside of class. After graduation, Gutshall will seek a career in the ag industry.

For this portrait I used the large soft box for my main light source. I also placed a silver reflector on the right side of the frame to add a little fill light. To keep the background a bright white in the area directly behind Aimee I placed a small softbox (with a grid) behind her pointed at the backdrop. To keep any possibly backlight off of Aimee, and to direct the light from the light exclusively on the backdrop I placed one of the black panels on the side of the light closest to the camera. 

Others to look at...

Inspiring potraiture

Portrait inspiration, sort of

I chose this portrait of surfer/bum Keith Malloy photographed by fellow surfer Jeff Johnson for the portrait research assignment.

I liked this portrait because of the even light and the use of the flowers for the background. I also liked the candid style of the picture that the look on his face creates. It isn't posed, and that shows his personality. 

I would like to try something similar for my classmate portrait assignment, even if my subject doesn't have a scraggly beard to stick flowers in.