Classmate Highlight | Michael Hazzard

It's time for another installment of Classmate highlights.  The victim...I mean spotlight today is none other than Michael Hazzard.  Spend a few minutes with Michael and you will find yourself amazed at how personable and nice he is.  I don't know what secret Michael's mom knows about raising a fine gentleman, but it really worked on her son.  Outside of Michael's pleasant personality, he is also a fantastic photographer and a curious student. 
He is great in photoshop and his work shows his technique.

Check out his blog at : Michael Hazzard Photography

Why should you check his blog?

Because the dude only has less than 220 views right now, and he deserves more :)

Advance Portraiture | High Key

Here is another example taken from the High-Key portraiture assignment for our Advance Portraiture class.  More than likely I'm not going to use this image as my final print, but it was nice creating a glowing high key shot that would print really nicely on Epson velvet fine art.

Advance Portraiture| High Key Potraiture

What a fun day today.  I shot maternity photos in the school studio today for our high-key | low-key advance portraiture assignment.  Amber came in with her super adorable baby belly, and the results were great!

Here's a photo of her and Ian on set.  Yeah it would of been better with a smile, but maybe she was matching Ian's amazing camera personality.

Here's a sample of one of the shots

Floral design and Photography

Being in the photography program at Gwinnett Tech gives you access to some pretty awesome electives.  One of the more unique ones you can take is Flower Arranging, which Tiffany, Ian and I started this quarter.

Why flower arranging?  Well one it's unique and very hands-on.  I'm kinda artsy, and it's appealing.  Another reason?  Well there's 10 people in our class, and if 5 of them end up as wedding florist, I'm on their high list of wedding photographers to call.  Yep...marketing! 

The cool thing is we have to make a portfolio at the end, so here's a sample of what I've already done.

From the archive |Summer 2010 Travel

Farmland and a desolate tree outside of Window Rock, AZ in the Navajo Nation

Imagine 14 days of skies as perfect as the picture above, driving around the southwestern United States just capturing everything that the eyes can feast one.  In the Summer of 2010 Ian, Tiffany and I did just that and it was a life changing experience.

Typical.  I swear I'm there, just behind the camera.  Grrr.

In mid July we drove from Atlanta to New Mexico to visit my parents home in Belen, NM. My parents moved out their in 2005 because of work,and I've fortunately been able to visit several times.  It was Tiffany's first time going anywhere west past Texas, and Ian hadn't been out this way since he was a pre-teen.  Going on a trip with other photographers always sound like a good idea, but you hear the horror stories of people who just can't get along because they are crammed in a car together for over 24 hours, they have different schedules and ideas, and also just in general personalities start clashing.  Ian and Tiffany were angels as travel partners, and it really rocked traveling out there with them. 

None the less, I really wanted to share some of the images I took during the trip.  We went to several places such as Meteor Crater, Window Rock, The Ice Caves, and some small place called the Grand Canyon.  Along with the images there will be a little excerpt about how cool the place was.

Oh the glory and pain of Photographic Film

(This post was originally posted at my old blog on 11/2009, with lower quarter now going through film developing and shooting I thought it would be fun to share with them as they struggle with film just like we did.  Hang in there guys, and hold it through.  Click read more to see some of my scanned film work back from Quarter 1.)

 
The new photography class at Gwinnett Tech is now halfway through our first quarter, and we are knee deep in developing fluid, T-Max negatives and Ilford RC Glossy photo paper.  While some may question the need for students to learn film, in all honesty it's been pretty mind opening and quite a fun adventure....to a point.

Like many other photographers enthusiastic about the history of photography, I find the idea of film both nostalgic and in a sense romantic.  Film based photography is so tangible, so impacted by your delicate touch that it isn't only the final result that seems to matter but also the whole process.  Well like many other things, the idea sound great on paper.  The fact of the matter is the developing fluid smells, it's messy, it's aggravating coming from a digital background, and man I remember how much easier it was just to get negatives scanned and printed at Wolf Camera back in the mid 90's :).

From the archives | Photoshop'ing 101

A while back in Mr. Jones Photo Imaging I class we were asked to spice up an image via adjustment layers and various other none destructive methods in Photoshop.  It's hard to believe that it's been nearly half a year now since that class.  This post was on my old blog which is slowly being fine tuned and possibly migrated to this personal blog.

The Photoshop work on this image shows blending of layers, hue and saturation adjustment, airbrushing, and a burn and dodge layer.  The image was light with a Norman ML600R on camera right at about 1/4 power, and a Canon 580ex II on the left with a soft box and a blue gel.  Now you get to see where the blog header comes from :)