Sex Talk

Last week the African Student Union hosted a forum about safe sex and all-that-jazz (for those of you who don't know me "all-that-jazz" is my way of saying "things of a similar nature"). As a guest speaker ASU brought Devin T Robinson X a.k.a. Egypt. Apparently, he has been on BET and MTV. He is the founder of AIDS Awareness Poets.

After this shoot I promised myself that I wouldn't put my self through the agony of shooting in a place with crappy lighting when I am not allowed to use flash.

Anyway I have to figure out posting Soundslides to my blog.

Caio.

Power in a Yell

Again with the lighting. This photo was taking using two warmer modeling lights. The light on his right had a reflector on it and the other (on his left) had a soft box.

P.S. Just noticed his shirt is also shouting.

Studio Portrait - Flash

Janelle Rich, 20, displays her alter ego Perry in a photo shoot on Sunday afternoon. Perry, a rich model, expresses her talent and personality in many different poses.

Shemuel Arrindell
Studio portrait: Flash
9/8/09

For this assignment I was able to find a model sooner and so I was able to plan to some degree what it was I wanted to get done. She was really excited to be photographed so we were able to play with some props in the studio. I now wished we had more props but I think that might have complicated things more at the time.
I found this assignment to be very challenging at first because I did not know how to set up the lights or my camera to get shots like the second one you took of Logan. So I decided to just use the light to remove the shadows on the background and try and capture her personality (Photos 1 and 2). Later in the shoot, after a little practice, I was able to use the lights to change her appearance (Photos 3 and 4). I like the third picture because the position of the life added shadows to the goose-bumps on her arm and shoulder. In the last picture the light was softened but point them to the black piece of board she was holding. It created a shadow but it was not doubled like when using the soft boxes.
In all this assignment was hard because it took a while for me to figure out how to use the camera and lights together to get the results I wanted.

Stop The Sickle Cycle

So one of my best friends, Darrell Stevens, is involved with a campaign called "Stop The Sickle Cycle" and as part of his vision we have to find people with Sickle Cell to interview. I was first.

I did the lighting in the studio and left the direction, shooting, editing and all the graphics and elements up  to him (after all this was his campaign). We used a regular Kodak point-and-shoot and three modeling lights. One with a reflector, another with a softbox and the last directed at the background to remove shadows.

We will do a few more interviews for the month and have more videos up for your viewing pleasure. We uploaded it for Facebook and Youtube for all to see.

However, I am now part of an online publication called Blacklisted Magazine so the link I will be using to show you this video will take you to the Blacklisted mag Web site. So look forward for my editorials and photography on the site but for now lets Stop The Sickle Cycle.

Beginning A Semester of Light

One-light portrait: No flash
9/1/09

One discovery I made was that friends who would usually jump at the chance to be photographed, shy away from the camera after they find out the photos are for class. However, the promise of getting copies of profession pictures of themselves usually wins over. A challenge that I faced was trying to be creative while tired. Luckily my model was very excited about the shoot because it made things easier.