2015: A Year in Review

My many apologizes for not keeping this blog up to date as much as I would like. The last six months has been really busy for me and I’ve let some of my personal projects take a back seat like this blog. Anyways, since 2015 just recently closed. I wanted to do an end of the year blog post about my favorite images I’ve made in 2015 and a few of my favorite books I’ve read in the past year.

View fullsize

Untitled, From the Sleep Project, 2015

The first image is from my Sleeping Project (link to the gallery) that I started last March. It was a daunting project, shot over six months, resulting in a selection of 55 images from a pool of six rolls. The image selected from this bodywork was the most surprising because the photograph has no movement what so ever. Giving the viewer a chance to interpret my actions from the day or night before I went to bed.

View fullsize

Marissa, Marin Headlands, June, 2015

On my birthday a few friends and I drove up to the Marin Headlands to explore the area and spend time in the greater outdoors. The image above is of my friend Marissa (website) when we were at the top of a very windy hill. Photographing the feeling of wind blowing across your body is a tricky thing to do because wind is invisible and has to photographic mass. However, Marissa’s expression captures the sense of freedom and relaxation as the air rushes across her skin.

View fullsize

Japantown, San Jose, July, 2015

Taken in San Jose Japantown, the image might not have ever happened because I almost didn’t notice her. In the late afternoon a few friends and I were walking back to our car to head home for the day. It when then across the street I saw in the corner of my eye an interesting fox mask and a woman wearing a beautiful yukata. I sprinted across a busy road and asked to take her photograph. The juxtaposition between the two faces is what draws me into the photograph every time I view it.

The next few images are taken from my trip through Europe (the images from that trip can be found in the gallery named The Wandering Days). I was torn between the two because they vary differently in terms of subject matter. However, the process in which the images were taken is very much the same. I took my time composing each shot allowing me to explore how the relationship between the subject and the image plane.

A welcome change to this year was that I had a couple of hours of personal time outside of work or the studio. It gave me a chance to relax, go out in the great outdoors, and epically the opportunity to read a couple of nice books. The two that stood out to me this year was by Lynsey Addario: It’s What I Do: a Photographer’s Life of Love and War (2015). Lynsey Addario is a conflict photographer, who has made images covering war and other subjects not talked about outside of western culture. While her memoir does cover her life in conflict zones and third world countries. The most touching and relatable parts of her story were when she was trying to strike a balance between her personal and professional life.  The other book I liked this year was A Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005) by Rebecca Solnoit. While Addario’s book was about a photographer’s life, Solnoit wrote about the cultural and historical meaning of being lost. The book brought up themes about the meaning to be lost in the 21st century, religious or personal meanings of being lost, and the idea being lost mentally when we are physically found.

This year was a nice year for me personally. I was working more on things I cared about such as photography, photo history, personal relationships, and my physical well-being. I also had the opportunity to travel to Europe by myself. It gave me the opportunity to reflect about myself and my goals, meet new people, and visit a good friend. Professionally I toned it down but it allowed me to combine my creative and work life. Which I am grateful for all people in my life that have help foster me and force me to work harder and with a purpose.

Lastly, I hope 2016 turns out to be a better year than 2015. This year so far, I have a couple of projects with some wonderful creative artists and designers in the works. I received a new employment opportunity working as an educator in the STEAM field.  Also I have a big spiritual journey thorough Utah planed. I’m hoping I can use this momentum and better myself when the end of 2016 comes around.

I hope 2015 was the same for you and I’m wishing you guys a great 2016.

My Ship is Coming In

Hey Guys, 

By the time you are reading this post. I'm on my way to Milan for a 22 day trip through Europe. I'll be going to Milian, Verona, Venice, London, Brussles, Munich, and Berlin. I'll be spending the bulk of the trip with my thoughts and my trusty Nikon F3. I'll try my best to update to best of my ability but I started an instagram account. If any of y'all want to follow me the username is bellusiumphoto. I'll hopefully post one photo a day from the trip.

See you guys when I get back.

Alex 

The Sleep Project

Over the last few years, I have been thinking/obsessing over the idea documenting myself sleeping. I wanted to photograph the movement of my body while I am asleep. In order to talk about the states between being in control of both my mind and body and only being aware of my mind during sleep.

This idea lead to a longer dialog between what is the best way of executing the idea and how to obtain the best image possible. Early on I knew that I wanted to mount the camera over my bed and have each photograph represent one night of sleep (4-6 hours). Thanks to the help of my friend and fellow photographer Viet Nghiem (website), we found some speaker mounts at Target and modify it to accept a quick release system to mount a camera over the bed. The next step was figure out what is the best way to make a four to six hour exposure. I knew that digital was out of the equation because digital sensors times out after a period of time. (However, Nikon recently released a new firmware update to allow an untimed exposure.) I knew that film would be the best choice because it didn’t require any electrical component and I had a good enough understanding of its chemistry to be able to get the negative to where I wanted it go.

Going into it I had to slow down the film speed because of the long shutter exposure. Which means I had to stop down the lens to f/22 and use a 2-3 stop ND filter to give me an effective f/stop exposure of f/45. I also knew that even with the constricted light. I needed to pull the development by 2 stops. However, I would get a flatter negative as a result from the developing. I settled on using Ilford Delta 100 because the film’s high contrast would combat the decrease in highlight development.

The first images from the study I think are quite unsettling but at the same time still and quiet. I hope over the next 5-6 months. I’ll have more images in which to pull from and create a fully realized project.

Let me know what you guys think. I always appreciate your feedback.

Talk to you all next time,

Alex

P.S. The images presented in this post’s gallery has not been edited for dust but have been edited for contrast in the shadows and highlights.

The Portait and Hair Study

So it has been a while since I’ve done a photo study. However, before I start talking about the image I created. I just wanted to define what a study is for the purpose of this blog and to myself. A study is a simple and quick series of photographs to get a closer look a peculiar subject or theme. In this case “The Portrait and Hair”, is a study of how the subject and her hair affects the over all portrait.   

A few things I’ve learned so far:

1.     Form of the hair can affect the silhouette of the subject.

2.     Placement of the subject’s hair can drastically change the portrait

3.     Using the subject's hair as a prop for the hands gives the photograph a more dynamic feel

While I know for some this maybe a no brainier. In my case this study goes a long way to help better help my clients or my personal work get the image they wait or deserve.

What do you guys think? Is there anything I'm missing or do you think it just hair?

Until next time,

Alex

Tear Sheets

In a stunning turn of events in which I am allowed to talk about. A bunch of my photographs I took for the College of Engineering at SJSU just came out from the printers. I'm super excited and the gallery with all my tear sheets can be found here.

There was a lot of work that went into the production of these images. I'll go deeper into them in another blog post.

Talk to y'all soon,

Alex

2014 A Year in Review

2014 just came to a close and it got me thinking that I should reflect on some of my favorite images and moments in which I grew the most.  My favorite quote about time and reflection is by John Green: "You can't know what an experience will mean to future you, until you are future you.  You need millions of seconds of perspective, which ultimately only time can buy." So lets see what experiences in the past 365 days has affected present me.

My 3 favorite images from the last year has for some weird reason or another pushed my technical skills as a photographer or ability to see and compose moments.

The first is from the series Sidewalls. While some might consider it not to be the most aesthetically pleasing photograph I've ever created. The image has a special place in my heart because of how complicated in terms of lighting, direction, and communication with the set designer.

The second was from my trip to Australia. While this image wasn't my all time favorite from the series or trip. The reason why it is on my list is because of the moment and composition. The moment of interaction between the figures and the lines from the architecture keeps the viewer engaged with the photograph. The act of photographing was simple. I just wanted to capture the moment of the family and didn't care for much else. It was only when I came back and edited the almost three hundred and sixty images. I saw how all the elements brought life to the image.

The third is a image from my 4x5 film study. While it wasn't apart of the original blog post. Once I came back to see the image and saw how the view camera's swing, tilt, and shift affected the image. I understood the ability that the view camera has to offer and its ability to create a different style of photograph.

A lot of things has happened this year. It got to travel to Australia. I was an intern for the de Young Museum and SF Camerawork, a photographer for SJSU College of Engineering, a teaching assistant for Yvonne Williams at SJSU, a window monitor for SJSU photography department, a barista for Cafe Central in San Jose, and finally a assistant gallery manager at Scott Nichols Gallery. All of these experiences while hard and daunting at times, has taught me that I'm still learning beyond the end of my undergraduate studies.

However, all these ups did not have it's downs. It has also been a hard year of no call backs from potential employers, rejection emails, and lack of creativity. All slowly tearing away at my self-confidence. However, these experiences didn't add up the worse news I could've ever received this year. In August, I received news that left me devastated. My friend Dipesh Yadav passed away that month. It was news that I didn't want to receive until I was significantly older. He was a great friend with a good sense of humor. I miss him and somehow I know he's laughing at me for writing this.

2014 has been a crazy year and I have learned so much from it. As we move into 2015, I know that everything I have learned, watched, and gained this year will be experiences has and will shape me for this next year if not more.

Here is to a great year and to the start of a new one.

Love,

Alex

4x5 Study- The Lesson I've Learned So Far

In my last blog post, I stated that I acquired a 4x5 Wista camera. While I have shot with 4x5 film before. They were mostly for class assignments and I didn't have much of a chance to see how the film size would fit in my image making process. (The images in the gallery above are the ones I took using the camera.)

The 4x5 camera allowed me to work with the subject in a style I wasn't used to before. Once the camera is focused and loaded with film. I knew were subject was within the frame and the depth of field. However, I couldn't see what the image looked like on the ground glass as I was posing with the subject. It forced me to stop looking behind camera and talk to the subject without a machine in between the subject and me. As well as seeing how the light was falling on the subject in a more meticulous way.

While I just scratched the surface on learning how to use a large format camera in my practice. It feels like this journey will help me learn how to better tell my story through still photographs.

Alex

P.S. Let me know what you guys think and if there is anything I should work on. I value your feedback.

Life Update 11/11/14

Hey Guys,

I'm so sorry I haven’t been updating this blog as often as I would’ve liked. It’s been a busy last few months and I wanted to give you all at least a life update.

So since I’ve been back from my trip, I have been working at SF Camerawork on the Benefit Auction for 2014. Which was last week on November 1, 2014. It was an amazing auction with a lot of photographs by different artists. During the day of the auction, I was tasked with three other people to pack the framed prints for the bidders who bought the prints. It was a whirlwind of energy because of the amount of prints of pack and the time need to get through all of it. It was an amazing experience cataloging these prints since late May and seeing the final auction with all the hung work.

I’ve also been back at SJSU helping a professor teach her darkroom class. Its fun and has its ups and down. I’m interested in being an arts educator down the road. So doing this helps me see if I have the necessary skills for it.

Lastly, I’ve also acquired some new cameras. The first is a 4x5 camera made by Wista. It is a fantastic camera with a lovely lens. I’ve wanted this camera for a while and have also wanted to print bigger in the darkroom as well. However, using this camera would force me to think away from my usual street or documentary style because of how big and slow it is.  So we’ll see what kind of photographs I’ll be able to produce with this camera. Also I purchased a Nikon D800. So far the files and the images are a big step up from my D90. It was a needed purchase because of the demands from work and need to work on bigger files with a larger dynamic range and full frame sensor.

Lastly, some major life changes are coming their way soon. I can’t say just yet because I don’t want to incur bad luck on myself. So I’ll let you guys know as soon as it passes through the official channels.

I hope you are all doing well. I know I am.

Alex

Ambient Studio Lighting

Gregory Heisler said, “There are two kinds of lighting in the world of photography. There’s one kind of lighting that you do to simulate ambient lighting situation. So it looks like light coming from a lamp or light coming from a pool. There’s another that you do just do cause it looks cool and who cares?”

It is certainly true for me. One project where I tried my best to recreate ambient lighting would be the photographs I took for Sidewalls. This project was a series of images to juxtapose different lifestyles and clothing.

In this shot I wanted to compare the male and female sleeping attire while contrasting it with a midnight gamer and an average nighttime sleeper. The lighting tried to reflect that lifestyle and time of day.

I used two types of light modifiers. The set to the camera left used a ring flash and camera right used a hard reflector with a 10-degree honeycomb grid.

If anyone who has been in a room with only a TV for light on would notice. The light coming off the screen tends to be very flat and with a blue tint because of the LED lights. In the gamer side of the image we used a ring flash with a blue gel to replicate that kind of light. I decided to use the ring flash because it has a very flat quality of light and can be placed on the same plane as the computer screen. Allowing for the light coming from the ring flash to travel in the same fashion as the TV screen.

As for the image to the right, I wanted there to be a reason for light to be in a normally unlit room. I decided to have a sliver of light fall on the model similar to that of an open door with a light coming from the hallway. So we placed two black mat boards to shape the light and we used a 10-degree honeycomb gird to constrict the light from spilling else where on the set. Finally an orange coloured gel was to use to mimic the tungsten light blub used in most houses.

This project was a challenging one in terms of lighting. I needed to use the right light and modifiers to mimic the correct ambient light. I believe that simulating ambient light is harder than unleashing the full power of one’s creative abilities to light a subject in an interesting style.

Shooting with Film Overseas

Being a photographer and traveling overseas can be a nightmare. There is a lot to consider from which type of camera, lenses, and accessories too take. It becomes even more daunting when you add film to the mix. Here are a few gear choices I choose when I'm traveling overseas to insure my film and gear are protected.

The first thing I always take with me when I travel with film overseas is a x-ray bag. When going through security checkpoints the agents will always tell you that film is fine up to ASA 800 without protection. However, I don't want to take the risk of damaging the film and the shots. Also, I would recommend to always keep the film and x-ray bag in your carry on luggage. Just because the check-in x-ray machines are stronger and most x-ray bags are not designed to protect film from these kind of machines.

When traveling I don't have the luxury of carrying a dedicated camera bag with me. Mostly I take two bags with me when I fly: one check-in and one carry-on. So I have to chose a bag that can fit into a carry on luggage and hold a moderate amount of gear. Welcome! Crumpler's Haven (L), it fits in most backpacks and can hold your camera, a few lenses, and all the accessories you need. The padding and the material the Haven is made from provides a lot of protection for the gear inside. Also it has Velcro system which allows you to configure the compartments inside to your taste. 

A few extra things I carry with me is a sharpie to make notes on the film canister about exposure, and a detachable neck strap. So that I can quickly put away my camera without needing to fumble around with the neck strap.

It is worth noting that you can make the existing gear you have to fit in most carry-on luggage. It just depends on how creative you are with them. I hope these gear choices will help you on your future trip.

Talk to you next time,

Alex

The Australian Days

I recently add a new gallery to my Fine Art page called The Australian Days. As the name suggest, they are the images that I took during my trip through the east coast of Australia. I traveled to Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. I was also a given the the opportunity to spend a large part of trip with my amazing friend and fellow photographer Melanie. (Who's website you should check out here. She's a fantastic image maker.) Also because of her, I was given the opportunity to travel from Sydney to Brisbane by car. Allowing us to see fantastic views of small coastal towns and parts of the famous Australian Bush. 

As I said in an earlier post, I took my Nikon F3 with a selection of lenses and my favorite film Kodak Tri-X. While some people questioned why I would take film with me overseas. I believe using film allowed me to focus on photographing the spaces in front of the camera easier than using digital. Documenting Australia was liberating and the most creative I've been in a long time. I was allowed to photograph subjects (within reason) that attracted my sensibilities and interest. However, there were times in which observing the spaces, places, and faces over ruled my photographic itch. 

There is so much for me to write about Australia. It is a lovely country and will be a place I will visit multiple times.

Talk to you soon,

Alex

I Need Your Help

Hey Guys,

I need your help but first a little bit of back story. I just finished scanning the film negatives from my recent trip to Australia. However, there are a few images that I photographed in which they similar but different at the same time. If you can let me know which one of the pairs you would pick in the comments. I would appreciate your feedback.

Thank you,

Alex

P.S. As a note the images have not been photoshopped for contrast and dust.

Pair 1

A

B

Pair 2

A

B

Pair 3

A

B

My Trip

Starting tomorrow, I leave for a trip through Australia for about twenty-one days. While I'm there I'll try my best to update you guys every two to three days. However, don't hold it against me if I do not update like I said I would. 

As for my camera gear, I'll be taking with me my trusty Nikon F3 loaded with Kodak Tri-X and my favorite street lenses 50mm f/1.8 and 24mm f/2.8. I'll have a more through blog post about my documentary kit in another blog post

I hope you are doing well and I hope to update you when I arrive in Australia.

Best Wishes,

Alex 

Life Update 6/26/14

I haven’t made a blog post in few months. I wanted to update you guys about the things that are going on in my life.

The internship with the de Young Museum ended in early May of this year. I learned a lot about Georgia O’Keefe’s life and work, and I gained a lot of skills in arts education. The shocking thing about seeing schools ranging from private to public was how the much art education was involved in K-12 school curriculum. However, that is a conversation for another day.

My teaching assistant position with professor Yvonne Williams ended in mid May as well. It was very hard semester working with students with varying skill sets but rewarding seeing their growth as portrait and studio photographers.

I’m still interning at SF Camerawork. Things have changed a lot since I began in early September of last year. We changed executive director at the beginning of February and gallery manager mid May. It was a learning experience working with all of these people as well the other interns. I leaned a lot about the gallery world and the art market in the Bay Area.

Also, I’m leaving for Australia in early July. It’s going to be a fun trip leaving all my equipment behind and only taking a film camera with ten rolls of black and white film.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to release a new gallery of this trip at the end of August or early September.

Finally, I published two projects. The first is Boy Scouts of Troop 101. I’ve made an earlier blog post about the project and my editing process. The second project is called Sidewalls, it a series of images taken in one take. It was a complicated project with a lot of collaborators and very patient models. I’m hoping to make a new blog post about it later this month of early August.

Besides planning future projects and photo shoots, that is all I want to update you guys on.

I hope you all are doing well.

Alex

The Editing Process

As a documentary photographer, the most heartbreaking and painful process for me is the editing process. In my fine art page, I have three galleries. The most recent gallery page made was named Boy Scouts of Troop 101 and will be the example of my editing process.

            The majority of my fine art and documentary projects are photographed on film. The medium forces me to photograph in more deliberate way due to its finite quality. The Boy Scouts of Troop 101  was one of my longest-term documentary projects. It was shot over four years starting from 2009. After counting the amount of negative sleeves and subtracting negatives for other projects. I shot over 1000 individual photographs of this project.

              The first part of the process is going through the negatives and selecting the first batch of images. I chose the images based on composition, moment, and lighting. After selecting and making notes, I scanned the selected images on the Epson V700.  After the first round of editing and scanning, I had pool of about forty images to curate from.          

            The last step is selecting the images to tell a narrative of the scouts I was photographing. This means I had to remove images that worked well on their own but didn’t work well with the over all narrative. Once I had the final selection. The project consisted of only eleven images.

            Boy Scouts of Troop 101, was the most daunting project to edit. Through out the entire process I was selecting fewer images. Many of which had great photographic moments. However, they didn’t fit into the narrative I wanted to tell. Once the project was finished I realized I was only showing about one percent of this four-year project.  Some how it made me realise a photographer can tell a powerful narrative with a small number of photographs than an entire books worth of images.

Death Marches of 1945: Indiegogo Project

Sometimes the photographic or creative process leads us to places many other people are not comfortable to go. The film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky said "That one of the best things that movies can do is make people look at things they'd rather look away from…" I believe it also applies to any forms of art not just cinema. One topic that many people still shy away from are the acts committed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Italian photographer Victoria Cagol is currently working on such a topic. A senior at Edinburgh Napier University, Cagol has tackled other social issues using photography. Such as the arms and weapons trades, and its consequences in Africa. Named Consequences (2012), Cagol created a series of diptychs showing the power a single object has over an entire community.

In her current project Death Marches of 1945 (2014), Cagol went to revisit the evacuation trail of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp towards the city of Wodzisław Śląski, using a camera as the device to pay respect to those that died during these horrible times. Cagol’s photographs show a deep reverence towards the landscape and the personal effects left behind by the people forced to participate in the march. These images call to mind the film named Shoah (1985), directed by Claude Lanzmann. Both of these projects aim to juxtapose the modern day landscape with the horrors of the Holocaust and how we attempt to remember those times.

However, this project is still unfinished. Cagol has only spent a few weeks in Poland to document this ambitious project. She wants to go back in April and hopefully May to document areas she was unable to photograph during the winter. As one can imagine a trip from her university in Scotland to Wodzisław Śląski, Poland can be an expensive affair, because of this reason. Cagol has started an Indiegogo page hoping to crowd source enough funds to finish her documentary project.

As a recent graduate from a university, I empathise with Victoria’s struggle to accomplish a project without having to compromise her vision. I highly suggest you to visit her Indiegogo page and see if you can contribute to her project. Victoria has a lot of perks if you go above and beyond the call of duty.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/death-marches-of-1945-a-photographic-project

Until next time,

Alex

Busy Bee

I’m sorry for the lack of posts on my blog. Things have been pretty busy and I’m not sure how I’m coping with all the craziness. However I wanted to fill you in on what is going on in my life

Lets start off with what I’m doing with on a weekly basis. As of today, I’m interning at San Francisco Camerawork and de Young Museum up in the city. Which I love because I get to work with art and learn more about the museum and gallery world. Also I’m working for the SJSU’s Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering as their Staff Photographer and Café Central at Westfield Valley Fair Mall as one of their food staffs. Finally to add to that craziness I’m a Teaching Assistant for one of the professors at SJSU’s Photography Department.  I don’t know how I’m managing to keep all of the things on my plate organized but I’m managing. However, I do have to let some things slide. One of which is the blog on the Bellusium website. I promised myself that I would make a blog post about once a week but it’s hard to find time to write things down. However I’ll try my best to keep you all updated on my creative life.

Speaking of which, I’ve have some exciting news for all of you that follow my blog. I have two projects in the works. The first is a new page on the Fine Art Index. This new page will curate a project I’ve shot for over four years. It is exciting and I hope you all enjoy it. Finally I’m in collaboration with an interior designer to build sets for a lifestyle and fashion project. It’s a fairly daunting tasking and I will keep you guys updated on the project as it develops.

Anyways I hope you all are doing well and I’ll do my best to keep you informed on the craziness that is my post-graduate life.

Best Wishes,

Alex

New Website

Hey Guys,

This is my new website. I have used other free websites but weren't happy with the layout and webpage design.

Quick Question! How do you guys feel about the name Bellusium Photography? I have gotten some feedback about the name and many said the name is too confusing. Any help?

Most of the blog posts from here on out are gonna be explanations behind projects and hopefully give you guys some insight behind my processes and techniques.

Talk to you all soon.

Alex