Last spring I met up with Ellen at her place for a casual portrait shoot. It had been some time since I had photographed her. She had told me that she access to the roof top of her apartment and as sketchy as it felt getting out the window, it was completely worth it. The sun started going down so we went back inside to this patio where we would wrap up the evening. I can’t wait to meet up with Ellen again sometime in 2024 to have our annual hangout/photoshoot!
Downtown With Katie
I’ve honestly been terrible at updating all my work on this. Its unfortunate that I give Instagram more love than my actual website. At least here I can show whatever I want and also get to show bigger images rather than those tiny little image tiles haha.
Anyways, this was a shoot I did with Katie a few summers ago. She was a roommate of one of my friends and I had seen them create some fun portrait work together so I asked if she’d be interested in working together and she happily agreed to meet up and shoot. One thing I remember about this shoot with Katie, it was so ‘effin hot. We tried to hide in the shade as much as possible because it was when Boise was being hit with its usual 1 week of pure hell heat.
One of the main ideas I wanted with this shoot was to play with some color theory and focus on using Katies hair color and pant color to compliment or contrast our locations backgrounds. I started neutral with the white wall, moving to the orange and then finishing the shoot in this alley with an awesome blue wall.
Enjoy :D
Cassidy
Before I left on my Christmas trip to Florida, I met up with Cassidy to do just an impromptu shoot. We’ve talked so many times about going out and creating but we always were so busy, the bad part about being responsible adults. Anyways, I felt as if I was neglecting my Rolleiflex and havent shot with it much lately so I brought that amazing medium format camera out and it is always enjoyable to work with that system. The reverse glass and waist level finder is a nice little challenge to shake up the usual prism, viewfinder the Pentax 67 or digital camera can do.
The weather was great and I was very happy for a sunny day. We met up at my favorite coffee shop in downtown Boise (District Coffee House) and we just went for a walk. I had spotted a few locations I had though this is gonna be super sweet. I was really looking for some direct sunlight, then use contrast light with hard shadows and highlights and then just flattering bounced light. I felt I hit all three on my checklist. I shot some digital, however Im happy with all but 2 frames that were a mistake on my part with exposure.
I know my professor would never see this, but I still always think to myself a huge thank you to Dr. Ponsford for passing this gorgeous camera on to me.
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).
