This year has certainly been one full of changes. I got a new job, moved out, and spent most of 2018 adjusting to my new environments. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep to the strict “1 post every Sunday” rule I had originally set up, but that taught me that perhaps I shouldn’t have such defined terms when it comes to blogging. I love writing. I love photography. I love writing about photography, but in 2019 I’m going to shift my efforts back onto actually taking photographs. I miss all the avant-garde shoots I used to do back in college and even the chill headshot sessions that allowed me to get to know people in a more meaningful way. I’m going to make it a goal to get out of my comfort zone by networking and asking people (who aren’t friends) if they’d be interested in doing collaborations. I think this will really get me back on track in regards to Shekinah Shazaam Photography. In terms of the Chiaroscuro challenge, I basically limited my focus with surprisingly pleasing results. I originally planned on doing portraits as well as miscellaneous subject matter that fulfilled what I picked from Lindsey Adler’s 52 […]
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  This month I chose another shot of interesting art to feature. This was a cube sculpture made completely out of crystal. The way the lights shone through it and how it distorted things behind it looked really intriguing.   May the light be with you.           Follow
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  So this month I’ve got to be completely honest and reveal that I didn’t match up an image with a predetermined prompt. I was trying to find something in my archives, but couldn’t. However, I do really enjoy this image and find that it matches with the overall theme I have for this series so that’s why it deserves to be posted.   May the light be with you.           Follow
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  This month’s challenge had me digging in the archives once again (busy summer, what can I say?) This was from the winter when there were ice sculptures all around and bits of the frozen stuff were stuck on a nearby fence. I love the simplicity of this single nail in all that texture.   May the light be with you.           Follow
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  So for this month I basically winged it. I have come to find that I no longer want to pursue the dual portrait/abstract subject matter for this challenge (though that may change when I have more access to models.) Moving forward, I’d like to be less strict with “following the prompts” and have more fun photographing what I see. This was an enamel sculpture I saw while traveling in Minneapolis and I couldn’t resist the beautiful curve of that shadow.   May the light be with you.           Follow
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  Going through the archives again, I found this lighted wonder. It’s so cool to see how light can be captured & reflected on various surfaces.     May the light be with you.           Follow
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  For this month I wanted to try my hand at a more minimal composition. I chose “Unusual angle” as the prompt and found that looking at objects in a different way really encourages my creativity.   This is an overview (slightly angled) of a ping pong table. I really enjoy how the top of the net contrasts from the dark table with its bold white color. I also enjoy the subtle mid-line that is further up on the image itself.   Try to shoot more than the typical “eye-level” shot of your subject. Getting up really high or low or angling yourself differently can really change the photos you make.   May the light be with you.           Follow
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  Another year, another challenge. I’m going to continue to modify Lindsay Adler’s 52 week challenge because there are still prompts in it that intrigue me. With that said, I am making a change though.   Instead of doing random shoots based off of various challenges, I’m going to shoot all of these with the intention of adding them to 1 cohesive series. My hope for the end of the year is to have enough content to feature the work in a gallery for the first time. Just another thing to cross off the bucket list. 🙂   The series title is “Chiaroscuro” which literally means light & dark, but is broadly defined as using light & shadow to define 3 dimensional objects in space. I wanted to focus on other aspects of design such as line, texture, & shape and not rely on color like I do for most of my work.   Though I appreciate the timelessness of pure black & white, I’m not so much a fan of how overused it is. I decided to apply a burgundy color overlay on the images, which gives them a sepia-esque quality that I love even more.   Another tenant […]
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After 12 months of challenges, we’ve finally reached the end. (Unfortunately I couldn’t post one last month because the model had to reschedule and I didn’t have a backup plan because of how busy I was with work.) This month I’m going to show what I had planned for November. I wanted to really show some of the decay of all the trees around in winter, so I started researching different characters that could portray this. I found Lauma, a Latvian “atmospheric” goddess who is similar to a dryad in that she is usually near trees & nature. This challenge is “have the subject match the background.” I made the branch prop that frames her face, but also allows dimension as it fades into the background of the woods behind her.   In addition I’d like to pick my favorite 3 from the year.   1) Bionic Beauty – This kicked off my Archetype series and is still one of my favorite self-portraits to date. I loved making the moodboard, scouting out my location, setting up my flash, using the wireless capabilities of my camera for the first time, & the overall mood communicated with this. 2) Itzpapalotl – I […]
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  This month my challenge was to shoot an out of focus portrait well. That is in the featured image as you see, but I did want to try and capture a few more that conveyed the ‘constantly in danger’ motif many post-apocalyptic movies have. Check out my full archetype series here!     May the light be with you.           Follow Save
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