Country Folk

So, I've been meaning to post this for a while now. I keep telling myself I'll do it one day, and then the next day comes and I tell myself I'll do it then.
At any rate, here's my newest post, and my first foray into the professional business so to speak.

About a month ago in late June, I happened upon a concert review website that was in need of photographers in the area. Every june for the past 20+ in the western slope of Colorado, a country music festival known as 'Country Jam' hosts a variety of well-known to emerging country music artists and bands over the course of 3-4 days. For whatever reason, the editor of the site was short on photographers and needed some hands on site. Though country music isn't really my thing, I still took the job.

So, armed with a press pass, I went over to a ranch near Mack, CO every day from the 23rd to the 26th to take pictures of all the acts as they showed their stuff on the main stage. While most of the bands and artists were new to me, I still recognized a few faces (such as Alan Jackson, Clint Black, and Lady Antebellum)

Here's a small taste of what I took.

Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum

Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum

The famous Alan Jackson!

(L-R) Jimi Westbrook, Karen Fairchild, and Kimberly Schlapman of Little Big Town

Chris Lucas of the LoCash Cowboys

Mark Sissel and Lane Turner of Western Underground

Lane Turner of Western Underground

If you care to look at everything I edited and submitted for digital publication, check out this link right here: http://www.theconcertscene.com/Country_Jam.html
Each set is divided into different photo pages, so you have to click on each name to view them.

(Note: by my own choice, I'm credited as 'Kit Foster.' It's just a name I use now and again. The name may be different from what most of you are used to, but I'm still the same, more or less ;)

The Dark Knight Revisited (and reworked)

Three years ago today, the highly anticipated sequel to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins hit American theaters. The Dark Knight, which proved to be Heath Ledger's last completed role, created quite a sensation in the film industry and around the country. I myself wore face makeup (a rare occasion for those who know me) to the midnight premiere in small town Grand Junction, CO. I ended up seeing the film a total of four times (once in IMAX) through its theatrical run, a feat I've yet to duplicate with any film to this day.
Everything about The Dark Knight was great. Great story (more of a crime saga than a Batman film), great characters and acting, great production values, and a great viral marketing campaign to back it up (see batman.wikibruce.com for more details).

A couple of months ago, in the midst of my senior photography project, I dug up some of the many props and memorabilia I had collected throughout the summer of '08 and created two original 'reworked movie posters' for the film. Both posters were made through completely original photography and design, although I must admit that I borrowed some elements from the actual promotional materials.

Gotham Sky

This was the second of the 'Dark Knight' posters I did. It was definitely time consuming (about 30+ hours of shooting, layering, and blending), but it is one of my personal favorites. The buildings are actually taken from downtown Chicago (where production of the film took place). By a stroke of luck, I had been in Chicago visiting some friends last March and had taken a lot of building photos in RAW. Even though I took the photos with my older camera, I was actually able to use a few of the building for the poster.
Each of the cards were individually photographed and adjusted for brightness, contrast, and blurriness (in order to create a sense of depth).
The logo was made entirely in Adobe Illustrator, and then imported into Photoshop where I added some additional effects.


This second poster was actually one of the first ideas I had when I started this project. Even back when the film was first being marketed in mid 2007, there were a lot of ambiguous photographs of Ledger in costume and makeup, such as you see below:

(images are copyright Warner Bros., links are provided by wikibruce)

Taking that approach in mind, I took the coat and gloves of a joker costume I had assembled back in fall of '08 for Halloween, and got my good friend Chris to pose as the Joker in the studio. The result is what you see below:

Mr. J

The joker card and knife are both screen accurate props as seen in the film and used by the Joker in different scenes. Aside from a vignette effect and some slight color correction and sharpening, most of the photographic elements were done in camera. The custom logo is the same one seen in the above poster I did, albiet with a different filter effect.

These poster are, for all intents and purposes, my work, and they continue to bring me joy at the possibilities of what I can do with my camera and computer.

For you other movie buffs out there, the teaser poster for the sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, was released just about a week ago, and it's already got people talking. Kind of interesting to note some of the similar 'bending building' skyline theme between that poster and my 'Gotham Sky' poster...

Hope you enjoy what you see!

Fireworks

First off, hope everyone had a nice 4th of July, wherever you were in the country, and with whomever you spent it with. I myself spent it with several of my relatives at my aunt and uncle's place out near the Redlands. Funny thing is, even though we live within a short driving distance from one another, I haven't seen them for almost a year now. Even so, we weren't completely out of touch with each other, and it was great to catch up with them and my cousins who were visiting from the Denver area.

Because we had dinner out by the Redlands, we couldn't see any of the city fireworks that usually happen in the recreational part of town (near the community swimming pool). As such, we all brought several packs of fireworks and spent the better part of the evening lighting them up while indulging in each others company and the available booze.

What follows is a series of photographs I took at an extended exposure (roughly 2-3 seconds for each one, although some were as long as 4 or 5 seconds). Most of them are 'mortar fireworks,' which are fired from a tube and then explode about 60 ft. in midair:


If you look closely on some of these pictures, you'll notice there are two explosions (from two different fireworks) in the same frame. I should note that everything you see here is in camera, with only a few slight adjustments to color saturation, darkness, and contrast (just to enhance the look and make these magnificent images look as much like they did in the sky last night).

(this one was my favorite. After the first explosion, it crackled into smaller parts, giving a nice, interesting texture to the light)

These next two photos are extended exposures of kids that were holding 'firework batons,' or something like that. These batons are essentially long tubes that shoot out balled fireworks in intervals. The box said there are '10 fireballs in every baton,' and while that may be the case, the most that ever shot out of a single baton was 8 (maybe 9).

I enjoy the first photo the most, as the little girl holding the baton is very clear thanks to some backlighting from one of the fireballs, which gives a very nice, crisp silhouette effect.

These last three are extended exposures of sparklers stuck in the ground. The red one on the left had a shutter speed of 1 second, while the 'supernova shots' (as my dad described them), were about 2-2.5 seconds apiece.

I had a great time improving some extended exposure experiments with fireworks, and I hope to further these kinds of experiments in the coming months

On a final note, I'll try and write entries earlier in the day, and not at 9:30 at night...

Happy 4th of July everyone!

It begins...

So, it's been many years since I last tried to maintain a blog. It didn't last very long, and it was all done in the name of a school assignment (for the record, it wasn't even done on this site. It was WordPress).

Being a recently graduated photography major, I've been told that it's good practice to blog experiences and work, mostly in the name of networking, but also to give the folks at home something to look at.
While I intend to show all my recent and current work, I'll likely crack open the archives now and again to show some of my older work, hopefully so readers can see how much I've done in terms of shooting and editing, and what my over all body of work looks like.

Anywho, here's to hoping I can actually make it work this time. Hope you like what you see!