I'll start this off by saying it's great to have CS4 on your own computer for once. Right now I'm interning for University Communications and Marketing for Ohio University. Most of the stuff I've been doing has been photojournalism style and not stuff I'm shooting specifically for my portfolio. Some of the images I'm not even sure if it's cool for me to post.
So now that I have CS4 on here I've been playing around with my most successful fashion assignment from last fall, which just so happened to be the final series. I had to get out of the studio, out of Athens, back home and to my friends to do something original and something I personally liked. My original idea was to do something along the lines of skinhead / punk culture that you would see in an older photo-book, not something in 2009. Not all of the people I contacted could do the shoot over the weekend, but my good friends Ariel and Lukas modeled for me earlier in the day, then Lukas stuck around and we took pictures with Tucker. I met up with Lukas at his place (good thing he didn't move to Chicago yet) and we were looking at his albums and books for more inspiration. One of the album covers gave us the idea of finding a spot on the river, and we happened to find a great location on the river with an overhead bridge within walking distance. Both spots in that area turned out some of the best pictures from the entire set. The other locations we ended up finding were around downtown Columbus in buildings that they were tearing down for a possible casino location. All of these locations had unique character to them that complemented the style of dress and overall theme I wanted to explore. In the end it basically turned into an all-out Fred Perry photo-shoot. Which in the end worked out well for me since it was for a fashion series and all of the images related to each other.
Here's a link for the entire series, all of the Black and White images were what I originally edited, and the color ones are newer edits that I just didn't have the time to play with earlier. I stuck with black and white for the original edit because I didn't quite have the photoshop skills I have now. But the new edits I feel work even better just because it is a style and color palette I could easily see a company like Fred Perry using on a website or print.
Fred Perry actually used one of my images to advertise a new website they made for interaction with their fan / consumer base. Pretty cool I suppose, but I don't have a copy of the original flier they mailed out to subscribers and such, if I find it I'll edit this post later. They actually contacted me about using my pictures for print but nothing came of it. Their advertising company is pretty awesome and were great to deal with throughout the process but once I was put into contact with Fred Perry people I asked about compensation and usage terms and never heard back...
Here's a link to their fan competition
Here's my entry
BREW WEEK
This past week I've had the privilege of being part of the media team for Ohio Brew Week held in Athens, OH. Shout out to Andie Walla who organized us and gave me the opportunity to take some pictures at events I wouldn't have done otherwise. Another shout out is necessary for my mentor Kevin Riddell at the internship for letting me borrow some lenses and a flash for the events, it helped out a lot. All I know based off of this week is that Ohio has even more good beer than I originally thought. Naturally Great Lakes is in my top 5 go to breweries, but some of the smaller operations out of Cleveland and Ohio in general are just as good. Big ups to Black Box brewing, their beer was out of this world and my taste buds couldn't resist.
Most of the stuff I went to throughout the week was "meet the brewer" events, where the brewer would come and chat with patrons about the selection he brought. Most of these were fun and very casual with a lot of interaction. I mean, how could I have anything bad to say about an event where everyone was trying new beer? Everyone was happy and enjoying themselves and surely the brewers enjoyed the positive feedback on what they spend most of their time crafting especially for this event.
The main attraction of the entire week was the culmination of the festival on Saturday with the Boogie on the Bricks. Having never gone to this before, I didn't really know what to expect. I went up with my friends and neighbors who both seemed surprised by the amount of people in attendance. For those familiar with Athens, Court street was closed off between Union and State St. and packed with people in between. It really was a great day. It's impossible to find something wrong with drinking a locally brewed stout on a sunny day in Athens, Ohio; all the while doing this on a street you'd normally be arrested for drinking on. Not to mention the Pigskin had a bbq tent set up and Avalanche had pizzas and breads just hanging up, begging to be eaten. All in all, pretty good week.
