So I’m starting this new series that’s a little kooky.
Gave my buddy Knuteson a call and he was more than game to help me out.
Had a great time shooting it, and it’s fun to see the results.
Stay tuned as there should be more of these bad boys in the coming months.
More always,
Mike
postscript: Lucien says ‘sure, I can help you out on that, but you’re going to have to do something for me. . .‘
I’ve had an idea knocking around for quite some time about a portrait series showing folks doing simple math in their head. Think I was interested in the idea that no matter how comfortable you are at computing digits in the brain, the simple act can indeed yield some interesting portrait results.*
Seen above is Muna, a graphic design friend kind enough to sit for me as the first subject of the day. I realized pretty quickly that math was not Muna’s strong suit, and she had no problem telling me about it. Wanted to push it another layer, so I got a few more folks into the studio who do math pretty much the entire day.
This is Kasey, my favorite teller from the local bank where I do most of my financial business. They’re the nicest folks and when I ran the idea by them, they jumped at the idea of sitting for these left-of-center portraits.
Here’s Cat, manager of the bank. She was always at me about getting that business account. When I came through on that for her, I told her she owed me one. She’s a sport and delivered quite exceptionally on that promise.
And finally, Sam, the lone guy at the bank. Don’t think he’s smiling because there’s a 5:1 ratio of guys to girls. Oh no, it’s because he was the quickest calculator in the bunch.
Several interesting projects in the works, so stay tuned for new posts over the next couple weeks.
More always,
Mike
*quick note on the project: the left panel image was captured from behind the camera by way of cable release. The right panel image was captured about a half-second to second after by way of ‘capture’ button on a tethered laptop by a completely different DSLR system set up in profile to my subject. Diptychs composed from chronologically symmetrically-sequenced images from either capture system.
That’s right. We’re moving the furniture around over at The Office of Michael Clinard website.
For the next few weeks, the website will be offline. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to update the blog with images from the Ecuador sojourn along with a host of exciting new projects I’ve been undertaking.
If you need to get ahold of me, don’t hesitate to do so.
More always,
Mike
Had the great fortune of photographing Mr. Ron Fulton for my Refugee project. If you’re unfamiliar with it, check out past explorations here and here.
Met him a few months back after finding myself in a conversation about The South and Jimi Hendrix. We hit it off immediately: he telling me about Arkansas, his time serving in the military and his 40-year-old parrot, Sailor; myself talking about Bama and my quirky, conceptual portrait style.
Since then we’ve been chatting every other week or so about getting together to do a little colab in the studio, and a few days back we finally had an opportunity.
What a treat to hear Ron move with ease from Hendrix to Skynard to ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow.’ I found myself smiling and kind of zoning out, rapt in his guitar wizardry. This man has got endless amounts of talent, and a damn fine bird to boot!
On this great Memorial Day, I wanted to get this post up to honor Ron and all the service men and women who serve or have served our country to give us the freedom we enjoy today.
More always,
Mike
Getting things square in the studio today for a shoot tomorrow.
In sum, part of the gig involves a bird of flight, so–during pre-light–we busted out our best parrot impersonations.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m really digging these images. Hope the parrot brings it as hard as we did this afternoon.
Enjoy,
Mike
Photo Illustrations for Mental Floss Magazine
I hit the newsstands once a month to look for magazines that jump out at me. Have always liked thumbing through Mental_Floss for the nerdy factoids, fun design and catchy feature openers.
It then came as a great surprise to get an email back in September from their AD, Winslow Taft, asking if I’d photo-illustrate an upcoming feature. After reading his abstract regarding science attempting to solve 10 of the world’s most annoying problems, it really wasn’t hard to say yes.
WRONG WEATHER FORECASTS
WHINY KIDS
WOMEN WHO DATE JERKS
SPAM
OVERHEARD CELL PHONE CONVOS
SONGS STUCK IN YOUR HEAD
NAME AMNESIA
LONG WORK MEETINGS
CEREAL DUST
BEER GOGGLES
His list above had some immediate contenders for me, so I got started straight away on my typical doodle-sent-to-creative exercise that helps to gauge which ideas he liked most.
Our collaboration was effortless, and I really loved how this thing came into being as a barrage of emails sent over one weekend. Perhaps one of my favorite Winslow lines from our convos:
maybe something with powerpoint slides – slide 4 of 1000. . . maybe rip van winkle is passing a plate of donuts with dust and spiderwebs on it?
I wanted a very distilled look to the images that would put the concept front and center. Because these images were photo illustrations — their payoff being completed in post — we opted to photograph all the scenarios in a controlled, studio environment.
In the end, we decided to pursue cereal dust, overheard cell phone conversations, songs stuck in one’s head a.k.a. earworms, long work meetings and spam email.
Sounds weird, but I just saw the spam image so clealy in my mind’s eye before it was ever completed. Because of this, the direction for the shoot had already formed as this modern-day everyman in a quasi-purgatory space going about his daily tasks.
All of the images were preconceived, so it was just a matter of marrying plates containing subject matter — the cans of spam above for example — with the everyman character in another image to create the final, finished photograph.
If you have seven minutes and are still in the dark as to what I’m getting at, there’s a pretty good video tutorial on the compositing process within Photoshop over on Layers Magazine here.
Thanks to Ian Goode for coming out of his squid tank to lend that stellar face of his, not to mention his rad photoshop skills.
Must also extend a big thanks to Mr. Donald Markwick for his amazing beard and Ms. Alexandra Rose Dennis for her multiple personalities (chuckle).
Couldn’t be more pleased with how these turned out, I hope to tackle something like this again soon. Either way, keep your eyes peeled for more exciting updates coming up!
More always,
Clinard