"Steamed Vision" Prop Builds

Hey all, just wanted to post some of the props that I've made so far in my "Steamed Vision" project. These are constructed from mostly found objects pieced, glued and taped together and then hand painted using acrylics. Some of these have been used in my first piece, "The Cantina" and some will be released in my next piece "The Gallery". I'm planing of taking the weapons with me to Animaritime later this week as part of the steampunk theme of the convention this year. Which is why I want to give people a heads up, that if you don't have a prop, you can use some of these when I'm taking pictures in my photo room (just the guns, the other stuff is too fragile for transport and multiple use). Anyway, on to the pictures.

Interesting note on the rifle, I had it propped up with clamps and then removed them in Photoshop. Also the gears and watch pieces I got off Ebay, but for the price I paid, I wouldn't do it again. You can find reasonable prices, just avoid things marked as "steampunk", it's typically overpriced. 

-Larry M. Holder 

"Steamed Vision" Process and Exploration

Hello everyone! Well my college year is over, I'm officially now on my own as a professional photographer and artist, and our grad show is up and opened! That means I finally get to share my images and process with you all, as well as my future plans for the series. First I'll describe the project a little by ripping my artist statement that's beside my piece on the wall.


""Steamed Vision" is a fantasy/science fiction based photo art series, set in the genre known as "Steampunk". The intent was to create an imaginary world, using sensibilities of the genre, while creating allegorical parallels to our world. I believe is the sole purpose of the genre is to have us look and understand ourselves more." (if you need some info on steampunk, I wrote about it in several blogs this year, click the tag at the bottom for more info) 


This is a highly edited version of my overall idea. Before I get to explaining it further I'll show my piece in entirety. 

These three pieces compose one tryptic in the series called "The Cantina" (yes it is referenced from my love of Star Wars). The image was meant to show a "class separated" scene taking place in another world. The presentation emulates the look of windows that look into this world. The frame of the window is created using acrylic paint. Everything you see in each photograph actually exists as a physical object. The photographs are edited but are not really manipulated using software; only minor color balance has been done. Each panel has a layer of acrylic gel to connect the image to the frame. The process lead to some trail and error and seen below before I got to the point of completing the image in it's current state.

 I have worked with fashion orientated costume designers and fiber artists who have also modeled for me. The props are either hand painted and constructed from found objects or just found objects themselves.

Kayleigh Smith plays the first character (left); she constructed her costume from found wardrobe and did a wonderful job of capturing the style. Kayleigh set the bar in which the photos would follow.

The second character is played by Bronwen Robbins (right); her costume is made of pieces from her cosplay designs, which we pieced together to fit the style. 

The third character is played by Stacy James (center); Stacy constructed her costume by modifying found clothing and designing her make up to make an all out presentation of the central character. 

Working with these talented ladies wielded many photos and many different layouts; in the end I picked the images that would best tell a story. Much in the same way a director will edit a movie. That being said, the story is left very open and ambiguous on purpose, I'd rather not tell you my version, rather I want you com interpret your own version. That being said, I will say that there is, what is supposed to be, a social class representation of rich, working and poor. Their relationships and motives I leave to your design. 

This is but one piece of a larger series, I'll be looking very soon to continue it wit new models, sets and wardrobes. I look at this mainly an exploratory project to lead into future works with a similar theatrical presentation. My hopes are to continue this body to completion and then create similar work in different sub genres of science fiction and fantasy in the future. The work is allegorical, which I believe is the sole purpose of fantasy/science fiction and will address issues in society. Real world issues will be explored, forcing us to look at ourselves, our actions, and the morality or lack of morality behind them. It's heavy context wrapped in fun and creativeness. I can think of no better way to bring all of my artistic and photographic skills together as one. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I look forward to the future of my work, a I hope you know do as well.

- Larry M. Holder 

101st Post! Steampunk Outtakes

I wanted to do something special for my 101st post so I'm doing a sneak peak of my steampunk images from my series "Steamed Vision". The first part of this series "The Cantina" will be unveiled at our Graduate Studies gallery show, "Cross Processed" on June 15th, 2012 here at NBCCD. These are selected outtakes from each shoot. I had three wonderful ladies help me on this shoot.

The first is a Fashion graduate of NBCCD, Kayleigh Smith, who provided the starting point for this project. We did close to 200 shots because at this point I had little direction on the project, just an idea. Kayleigh wore some clothing which fit the ecstatic of the genre which she said she had on hand in her closet on hand. It's a good thing she was familiar with the genre because she did a really good job with what she had. I either found or constructed the props you see in the photo and the smoke machine was a great purchase for this project. In the series Kayleigh is the first image in the line, here are the selected outtakes I really like.

My second model was Bronwen Robbins, by this point you might recognize both of the ladies names from other work I've done. Bronwen is also a Fashion student in the same Graduate Studies program as me. Bronwen's speciality is of course costume design, we used pieces of her existing costumes to dress her character. We didn't do as many shots for her, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted from her character. Thus I think we had about maybe 20 shots, none the less great. She plays the third character in the piece, here are my selected outtakes.

Last but certainly not least, was Stacy James. She's a good friend of mine from back when I went to college in 2005. Stacy is also a great artist, she knows fabric arts and surface design and she actually weaves with metal wire now too! In the future I'll be documenting she of her new work. When I told her about this project she researched the heck out of it and designed her own costume and make-up with the simple direction I gave her of "your a bartender". Since her character was to be the interacting point between the other two, we shot several different poses and ideas. Once again ending up with around 200 at the end, this was definitely the hardest to pick from. This was simply because she performed well in almost every shot, and the chosen image would define the tryptic. After much debate and several opinions I did settle on one, that being said here are selected outtakes.

I can honestly say I had a blast making these, and I can't wait to make more on a larger scale (hopefully) in the future. Not to mention, these images are in no way "bad", which is exactly why I want to show them off.  So bravo ladies and thank you for your help on this. That's all for now, hope I intrigued you to come see the final selected images at the opening on June 15th!

-Larry M. Holder 

*Edit* I just realized the opening is on the 15th not the 16th so I edited the date. 

Let The Image Flood Begin!

The NBCCD fashion show is over now and it was amazing, more on that to come! With that said the image gates have been unlocked and I can now start posting all the images I've done relating to said show. this should amount to about 4 to 5 new posts in the next two days (including today). I'm also highly considering posting outtakes of all the other great images from my steampunk series, however I'm worried about it lessening the impact of the opening on June 16th, we shall see. The point of this post is just to prove I haven't been a slack butt for the last few weeks, in about an hour I should have the first post ready, which will be about Graduate fashion class photos, stay tuned!

-Larry M. Holder

Location Ideas

Been doing a lot of walking around with my camera since the weather started warming up and besides some nature shots I've also been looking for interesting locations to shoot in. Here's a few that might interest people.

Top Part of O'dell Park

Off the Prospect Street Entrance, I so want my next fashion shoot to be in here.

Under the Westmorland Bridge and Surrounding Area

This could make for some epic Steampunk group shots.

These are all along the walking trail, therefore easy to access.

Anyway, just wanted to through that out to the internet and see who bites.

-Larry M. Holder 

Little Update

I had posted a little info about a month ago about my steampunk inspired series I was working on, well it is still coming, just very slowly. It's really been difficult to resource pool all my needs of people, costumes and props all together on a budget of basically nothing. All I can ask to anyone that reads my blog is, if you can help and have any of these resources available, I could really use the help. I mostly am looking for people to model and costumes. Thanks everyone that's helped so far, I know your probably eager to see the final image, but I've been trying very hard to keep them low profile before they're done. That's all for now, should have more pictures soon. I'll be trying to sort out a location shooting setup in the next few weeks, so I'm not sure how much material I'll be posting in that time frame, but stay tuned.

-Larry M. Holder

Happy New Year with Some Previews

Though I have a huge update of work coming up next that I did for the wonderful Karen Leblanc of her wall hangings, I thought I'd just take the time to wish everyone a Happy New Year and tease a few images from my steampunk series. I'm pretty sure the series is going to be called "Windows on a World of Steam", but that could change as I think about it more. Since the images are huge I just crop a little teaser selection of my two new images, they don't show much, but are hopefully interesting.

Well that's all for now, again Happy New Year!

-Larry M. Holder

Preview Image From The Steampunk Project

Ok, now the update on my art project. So once again the model featured is Kayleigh Smith, thank you Kayleigh. This image is not the one I'm using for the final piece but rather out of the 100 shots that we did, I felt this one stood on it's own as a interesting portrait. It will also give you an idea of what the images will look like, at least the photographic portion. Enjoy!

Hope this sparks some interest, keep in mind this is all done in camera, no fancy editing going on here.

-Larry M. Holder