These are all out-takes from a recent lookbook shoot I did for the Threadless Select Photo Tees series. The photo on the black tee titled “koohi no hito” is one I snapped in Tokyo about 4 years ago. The other tee with the book made of hearts on it is by the multi-talented Paul Ocatvius. If you’d like to scoop one up it’s available for purchase here!. Also, a big thanks to Elisse Laroche for modelling our shirts.

These are some out-takes from a shoot I did the other day with Ones bent to zeros. I met them by their practice space on the South side. We decided to go for a 90′s feel so I took them to this weird underpass beneath a nearby expressway where illegal parties have been known to be held. There was also a building painted like a watermelon nearby, so we went there and did some really “posey” shots that I really ended up liking. Chicago just continues to be a cornucopia of awesome locations. Then a ride back up the sketchy elevator to their 7th floor studio/practice space for some more promo shots on a big leather couch underneath a stuffed pheasant. I ended up hanging around to listen to them practice for a while and shot a lot of photos at F1.2 ISO 4000, which is pretty insane. Enjoy!

Recently I spent the day with these wonderful guys hanging out in the Harold Washington library, ice-skating, and checking out dinosaur bones. I’m looking forward to shooting the wedding at promontory point in Burnham park being that I’m a bit of a Chicago history enthusiast. Enjoy!

These are some engagement shots of a couple I shot back in fall around downtown Chicago. I really like these, and somehow managed to not publish them, but here they finally are!

I moved into an awesome new apartment this past weekend, and realized I barely own any furniture. Me, Ninna, and a couple of friends jumped in the car to check out a huge flea market about an hour and half outside Chicago. I went looking for a coffee table, but I found this guy first. This is a portable telephone made by the Kellogg corporation in the 1920′s for the US forestry department. It weighs about 50 pounds, and is currently my favorite thing ever.

Ninna and I went out for a walk yesterday in the forest. We stepped in lots of mud, took tons of photos, and found a huge teepee made out of tree bark. It was a pretty awesome day!  Enjoy

This weekend I took part in an epic outdoor Chicago engagement shoot with these two wonderful people. We braved the -5 windchill, ran around downtown all day and had a lot of fun! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Photographers: click the set-up shot below for information on lighting and process!

I recently had the pleasure of shooting a design called “Impasse” for Threadless.com. The shirt features a wizard in some of sort of standoff with a knight. I had a pretty fun idea as far as the lighting was concerned: I wanted to use a speedlight to illuminate the top of the wizard’s “staff”. Unfortunately it’s winter in Chicago and the Bristol renaissance fair doesn’t start up until summer, so tracking down a genuine wizard’s staff would prove difficult. I opted instead to go with a good old-fashioned boom-arm. 

The next step was to find a suitable location for the shoot. There’s an underpass nearby work that’s very reminiscent of a cave which I’ve been using to shoot bear-related tees lately. I’m not a huge Lord of the rings fan, but I do remember seeing the animated version of the hobbit when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure there’s a scene where Gandolf is hanging out with Bilbo Baggins in a cave, so it seemed like a pretty good fit.

The next step was designing the lighting:

Seeing as wizards are typically portrayed as beings with supernatural capabilities, I thought it was only right to make the lighting sort of epic. I kept thinking of the song “The Wizard” by Black Sabbath and wanted to really bring him to life. On account of us shooting outside in the cold, it was also important to be able to set up very quickly before my models get too cold! I ended up bringing my Alien bees portable power pack (which totally rules and everyone should have imo), a 30” octa with grid, and 2 strobes. The octa would serve as the key-light while one of the strobes would be part of the wizard’s staff. The last remaining strobe was used for a little bit of rim-light on the non-staff arm of the wizard. I pictured the final image to be sort of ethereal, so spent a few frames trying to really coax some lens flare out of the strobe on the wizard’s staff by varying the angle and power output of the strobe.

A little photoshop work later, and it was ready to serve up to the internet!….

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