Jerusha At Home

Hello.

It for sure has been a hot minute (nearly 2 years to be exact!) since I have been on here to update and show any sort of new work! I’ve been working on my masters degree and now that it has been successful completed I will have so much more time for all photography stuff. Between shooting and sharing.

This set with Jerusha was from last summer in her downtown Boise apartment. It had this UH-Mazing window light that would ricochet off the nice off white painted walls and just gave light that made me super excited. I shot with my Pentax 6x7 with my 105mm, Im pretty sure I shot wide open at 2.4 or at least 3.5 with both the rolls of Ilford HP5+ and Portra 400. I really enjoyed this day shooting with Jerusha because it was such a simple set up of things and to me it has a real clean, professional look. Only regret is I didn’t bring more film to shoot, I could’ve shot an easy 10 rolls with this light.

Anyways have a look and enjoy. Feel free to give a comment or even just a heart at the bottom of the page!

First Roll: Ilford FP4+

In the fall I messaged Jennifer if she would be interested in creating some work and she agreed. I was super excited about this because I needed a mental health day from work. So we both had a Friday off and I met her at her awesome studio apartments in downtown Boise. We shot a ton this day, however I told her I had a roll of film that required a ton of sun. So we did one last outfit change and headed outside her apartment into the sun to feed the FP4+ extreme hunger for light. I rated this roll at box speed (ISO 125) and went through the roll pretty quick and it sort of saddens me there is no 220 of this in current production. As much as I love the 6x7 negative size, it really cuts short a roll at 10 exposures and if you only have one roll you become quite stingy on pushing the shutter.

Usually I am a Kodak fan boy at heart and I LOVE shooting Kodak Tri-X 400 but I was looking to explore other black and white films and when I ordered my Fomapan rolls forever ago I thought why not FP4 too? This roll was a joy to shoot and I honestly will be investing in more to keep stock in my fridge. The contrast is perfect for my taste, nice rich blacks, solid middle gray and great highlights. It was easy and quick for scanning, I barely spent anytime on adjustments, in fact I spent more time on removing dust. Kodak Tri-X is great but for more mid day shooting and harsh sunlight, FP4 will be an easy go to without hesitation.

Jessica Sulikowski

For quite awhile I have had a strong interest in photographing ballet. I had this huge inspiration from other dance photographers on my Instagram and I finally wanted to try this myself. I reached out to a local dancer and she agreed to come to the studio she trains and teaches at, which had a over abundant amount of light pouring through the windows. Before I had even taken a shot I was already in photog heaven because of the amount of light and space we had to work with. 

During this shoot I really had no direction I wanted to go. I simply wanted to just get a foundation on photographing someone doing dance and understand the timing and proper framing. I also didn't want this collaboration between artists to be a commercial feel. Sure I took shots that were traditional in a sense and got Jessica to show her artistic talent but deep down what I wanted was simple. A documentation of Jessica in her space that she spends 40+ hours a week in. 

Lastly I shot digital and 120 black and white film. And as usual I wish I had more film, than space on my SD card. When I developed my rolls I was blown away at how gorgeous these portraits came out and with film that had been expired (totally accidental).