>>> aaronbrown, People Photo Challenge #13 winner
aaronbrown won the people photo challenge #13: (Fall) Colors.
WHO ARE YOU? I am a native of Northwest Indiana; it is kind of like a southeastern suburb of Chicago, but, you know... in a different state.
I have a Baccalaureate of Science in Computer Information Systems that I have never used and three years at Columbia College of Chicago's film school under my belt that I'm still paying for. Higher education FTW!
I recently lived in South Korea for a little over two years where I taught English, freelanced for three national magazines and shared amazing adventures with the love of my life, Shannon.
I play chess and the guitar; I love portmanteaus & retronyms, time travel, comic books, and Rube Goldberg devices; I also have a penchant for Kettle One vodka and carpeted walls.
I have never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, eaten an endangered animal, played a saxophone to woo a lover, nor lost in a pillow fight.
WHEN DID YOU JOIN DGRIN? WHICH FORUM(S) DO YOU FREQUENT MOST? I joined in November of 2008 when I started up my SmugMug website. I'm usually found lurking about in the Wedding, Technique, and Mind Your Own Business forums, but I also frequent the Support forums to keep up with the SmugMug improvements and updates. Dgrin is great!
HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY? DID YOU HAVE ANY PHOTOGRAPHY TRAINING? My Pops was sort of an amateur photographer when I was a kid, and I was always fascinated with his gear more than anything. When I worked as the 1-hour "photo guy" at my local Walgreens through high school, I learned about developing and printing 35mm just while the digital age of photography was beginning and I was also experimenting with the first sub-megapixel digital cameras of the time. Shooting embarrassing Hi8 short stop-motion videos (www.rabidmongoose.com) with my friends lead me to attend Columbia College of Chicago's film school where I was surrounded by people with similar interests and aspirations. Even though I was there to learn how to "make movies", we often studied how to make a single frame tell a good story. The foundations of exciting cinematography inspired me to focus on photography. All of that somehow lead to me teaching in Korea for a couple years where I freelanced for a few magazines and stayed involved in the Seoul Photo Club (http://www.flickr.com/groups/seoulphotoclub).
WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU HAVE/USE? I shoot mostly Canon and love my 7D and AE-1 Program cameras, although my friend recently picked me up an old Argus Seventy-Five medium format camera from the 50s at a garage sale that I'm excited about playing with. I really love the creativity and control that strobist-styled off-camera lighting, cheap & virtually limitless memory and the digital darkroom allow me to have. They are, often more so than the camera or lens I’m using, the powerful pieces in my photographic arsenal. Also, not to be dismissed, my iPhone allows me to still “pack heat” even when I didn’t plan on shooting anyone or anything.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE THING/SUBJECT/PLACE TO PHOTOGRAPH? It will never be babies or animals. They’re cute and all, just not my thing.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PHOTO? I love family photos – mine and other people’s. I love being able to travel into the past with old photos. I have a shot of my parents sitting on a couch from the 60s in black and white that I adore. My mom has this beehive hairdo and my dad is very beatnik looking. It’s surreal! I also have a photo of me and my sister (I was about 3 or 4 and she was about 13 or 14). I was wearing a blue one-piece with footies, a red helmet, and sitting in a Big Bird chair. Again – surreal.
WHAT'S THE BEST ADVICE SOMEONE HAS GIVEN YOU PHOTOGRAPHY WISE? WHAT'S THE ONE THING/ADVICE THAT YOU WANT TO GIVE OTHER'S? To me? I got great composition advice from George Eastman (no Kodak relation) at Columbia. He explained how powerful images could be by utilizing the corners of your frame to shoot lines and perspective out from whenever possible. From me? Learn how to quickly halve and double so you can adjust your exposure on the fly. It really helps when switching from digital to film with wireless lighting because you will rarely have the same ISO between the two.
WHO/WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCES IN PHOTOGRAPHY? My big inspirations come from cinematographers in film - Eugen Schüfftan, Janusz Kamiński, Conrad L. Hall, Robert Richardson. I don’t have the research done on photography from the past with exception to well known greats like Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, or, hell, even Larry Clark. I really respect a lot of the modern semi-famous photographers today like Chase Jarvis, Trey Ratcliff and Joey L. for embracing the technology of the times and turning their passions into successful business. I just want to make a decent living with photography, though. I’ll leave fame for the good looking people.
SO WHAT ABOUT YOUR WINNING ENTRY? Robin called me up randomly one day because she was referred to me by a local protographer by the name of Mark Amelse. Word of mouth wins! Take that SEO! I met up with her and her fiancé, Ryan, at Deep River County Park in nearby Hobart, IN. She wanted to get the amazing colors of fall in her shots, and as the temperature was steadily declining, we headed out as soon as we could. It was a good thing too, because less than a week later we lost more than just daylight – all the leaves had fallen, the colors had faded, and the dreary winter grays of Northwest Indiana were upon us. We had at it throughout the park for about three hours, and at the end of the day we were tired but happy because we knew we got a lot of awesome moments captured.
Strobist:
Canon 580 EXII @ full power super-clamped to a…
LumoPro 160 @ 1/2 power (optically triggered)
Both strobes are firing through a 24inch shoot-through brolly behind me at camera-right.
The Sun is rimming them a bit from the right, behind them.
Flashwaves II Trigger / Receiver
Exif data:
Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 43 mm
ISO Speed 100
Lens EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Exposure Program Manual
If you want to see more of Aaron's work, go to his website: http://www.aaronbrownphotos.com/
Comments? questions? post them here!
For more info on the people photo challenges, go here.
WHO ARE YOU? I am a native of Northwest Indiana; it is kind of like a southeastern suburb of Chicago, but, you know... in a different state.
I have a Baccalaureate of Science in Computer Information Systems that I have never used and three years at Columbia College of Chicago's film school under my belt that I'm still paying for. Higher education FTW!
I recently lived in South Korea for a little over two years where I taught English, freelanced for three national magazines and shared amazing adventures with the love of my life, Shannon.
I play chess and the guitar; I love portmanteaus & retronyms, time travel, comic books, and Rube Goldberg devices; I also have a penchant for Kettle One vodka and carpeted walls.
I have never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, eaten an endangered animal, played a saxophone to woo a lover, nor lost in a pillow fight.
WHEN DID YOU JOIN DGRIN? WHICH FORUM(S) DO YOU FREQUENT MOST? I joined in November of 2008 when I started up my SmugMug website. I'm usually found lurking about in the Wedding, Technique, and Mind Your Own Business forums, but I also frequent the Support forums to keep up with the SmugMug improvements and updates. Dgrin is great!
HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY? DID YOU HAVE ANY PHOTOGRAPHY TRAINING? My Pops was sort of an amateur photographer when I was a kid, and I was always fascinated with his gear more than anything. When I worked as the 1-hour "photo guy" at my local Walgreens through high school, I learned about developing and printing 35mm just while the digital age of photography was beginning and I was also experimenting with the first sub-megapixel digital cameras of the time. Shooting embarrassing Hi8 short stop-motion videos (www.rabidmongoose.com) with my friends lead me to attend Columbia College of Chicago's film school where I was surrounded by people with similar interests and aspirations. Even though I was there to learn how to "make movies", we often studied how to make a single frame tell a good story. The foundations of exciting cinematography inspired me to focus on photography. All of that somehow lead to me teaching in Korea for a couple years where I freelanced for a few magazines and stayed involved in the Seoul Photo Club (http://www.flickr.com/groups/seoulphotoclub).
WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU HAVE/USE? I shoot mostly Canon and love my 7D and AE-1 Program cameras, although my friend recently picked me up an old Argus Seventy-Five medium format camera from the 50s at a garage sale that I'm excited about playing with. I really love the creativity and control that strobist-styled off-camera lighting, cheap & virtually limitless memory and the digital darkroom allow me to have. They are, often more so than the camera or lens I’m using, the powerful pieces in my photographic arsenal. Also, not to be dismissed, my iPhone allows me to still “pack heat” even when I didn’t plan on shooting anyone or anything.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE THING/SUBJECT/PLACE TO PHOTOGRAPH? It will never be babies or animals. They’re cute and all, just not my thing.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PHOTO? I love family photos – mine and other people’s. I love being able to travel into the past with old photos. I have a shot of my parents sitting on a couch from the 60s in black and white that I adore. My mom has this beehive hairdo and my dad is very beatnik looking. It’s surreal! I also have a photo of me and my sister (I was about 3 or 4 and she was about 13 or 14). I was wearing a blue one-piece with footies, a red helmet, and sitting in a Big Bird chair. Again – surreal.
WHAT'S THE BEST ADVICE SOMEONE HAS GIVEN YOU PHOTOGRAPHY WISE? WHAT'S THE ONE THING/ADVICE THAT YOU WANT TO GIVE OTHER'S? To me? I got great composition advice from George Eastman (no Kodak relation) at Columbia. He explained how powerful images could be by utilizing the corners of your frame to shoot lines and perspective out from whenever possible. From me? Learn how to quickly halve and double so you can adjust your exposure on the fly. It really helps when switching from digital to film with wireless lighting because you will rarely have the same ISO between the two.
WHO/WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCES IN PHOTOGRAPHY? My big inspirations come from cinematographers in film - Eugen Schüfftan, Janusz Kamiński, Conrad L. Hall, Robert Richardson. I don’t have the research done on photography from the past with exception to well known greats like Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, or, hell, even Larry Clark. I really respect a lot of the modern semi-famous photographers today like Chase Jarvis, Trey Ratcliff and Joey L. for embracing the technology of the times and turning their passions into successful business. I just want to make a decent living with photography, though. I’ll leave fame for the good looking people.
SO WHAT ABOUT YOUR WINNING ENTRY? Robin called me up randomly one day because she was referred to me by a local protographer by the name of Mark Amelse. Word of mouth wins! Take that SEO! I met up with her and her fiancé, Ryan, at Deep River County Park in nearby Hobart, IN. She wanted to get the amazing colors of fall in her shots, and as the temperature was steadily declining, we headed out as soon as we could. It was a good thing too, because less than a week later we lost more than just daylight – all the leaves had fallen, the colors had faded, and the dreary winter grays of Northwest Indiana were upon us. We had at it throughout the park for about three hours, and at the end of the day we were tired but happy because we knew we got a lot of awesome moments captured.
Strobist:
Canon 580 EXII @ full power super-clamped to a…
LumoPro 160 @ 1/2 power (optically triggered)
Both strobes are firing through a 24inch shoot-through brolly behind me at camera-right.
The Sun is rimming them a bit from the right, behind them.
Flashwaves II Trigger / Receiver
Exif data:
Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 43 mm
ISO Speed 100
Lens EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Exposure Program Manual
If you want to see more of Aaron's work, go to his website: http://www.aaronbrownphotos.com/
Comments? questions? post them here!
For more info on the people photo challenges, go here.
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Comments
http://www.flickr.com/groups/seoulphotoclub
Thanks again Ivar for putting this together and for the votes I got in order to win lucky contest #13.
Have a great Turkey Day, those of you in the US.
Cheers!
-ab
Website: www.aaronbrownphotos.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/aaronbrownphotography
Twitter: www.twitter.com/abrownphotos
www.ivarborst.nl & smugmug