Friday, November 4, 2011

Reflection on Older Work and What It Means for My Future Projects

So what is this blog about? Well I feel the need to explain my apparent paradigm shift in styles this year. Most people that know me remember me as an experimental photographer and might be taken back by my very "commercial" showing this year. Well let me say, the artist is not dead, he's trying to make a reality based situation for himself. Truth is commercial work is the bread and butter of this practise, I ignored it for far too long. That doesn't mean I'm aiming for "boring" work. Product photos, especially those for fellow artists are very exciting to do in my opinion, I get to capture these beautiful pieces of creative work for the sake of historical record. Even if the original piece gets purchased and placed in some private collection the photo will exist for all to view, potentially forever. That makes me happy, it's part of the draw of this craft in my opinion, creating a slice of time in an image. Besides I think my portrait  work is turning out different enough to stand out from the crowd an really exist as an option for people to have something different then the norm, maybe even change the norm! Ok, that's a pipe dream, but still, better to aim high then not aim at all. So what am I getting at here, well, I just wanted to talk about my head space really, but enough ranting. My next big art project is on it's way, I just wanted to reflect a little. So what is this art project you say? Well, using technics I developed during my "Regeneration" series, my first professional show, I intend to create a new series based in "steampunk" style world. Here's a montage of the series I'm referencing:



 What the heck is steampunk you ask? Here's an example picture:


Basically it's many things, mainly it's a sub-genre of science fiction that focuses on analog, steam powered technology, it's mainly influenced by Victorian and industrial age styles. Needless to say I'm undertaking a huge project, but I'm so excited by the idea! Be sure you'll see some stuff from this project as it roles out later this year. Thanks for reading folks, till next time.

-Larry M. Holder 
   

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Pottery of Chanelle Creamer

Here is a shoot of the lovely pottery work of Chanelle Creamer. I did this with a very similar lighting setup to Dan's work, only this time I had a front facing light instead of an over head. I did some HDR on the plates so that the focus was sharp all the way across, one is from 3 images and one is from four. It's becoming a lot easier to envision the light setup on the fly now and I really feel I'm getting to near perfect already. I can always use more experience of course!




The pot was just a straight shot, no HDR.

-Larry M. Holder

A Low Key Portrait and Simple Graphics

This is from a recent job I did for the college. The request was for a artist bio card, so I did a quick portrait of the subject, Melissa LeBlanc,  on the black background to mimic the look of the example I was given. Then I did a quick graphic layout for the card and added the text and then printed them on card stock and cut them into individual pieces. This is something that I'm glad I have a small graphics background for, it really helps in this business to know how to do simple things like this.



Especially on tight deadlines.

-Larry M. Holder 

Monday, October 31, 2011

Fun with the Dogs

Just a fun little shoot I did outdoors on the weekend using two on camera flash heads, I used a dark sheet as the background. These are my Boxer dogs Hayden and Raine.



-Larry M. Holder