SOHc It To Me

I was rummaging through my hard drive and realized that I haven't posted this picture yet! My bad.

The SOH stands for the Student Open House 2009 at the Hallmark Institute of Photography. We were in charge of the Car Shoot portion of the shindig and man, was it fun. It was the first time I actually directed people on a project. With the help of Chris Myska and Ashley Heyl, we were able to accomplish this incredible feat:


After much deliberation, we decided to follow this Ken Brown joint that can be found on his Flickr. We just changed it up by trying to show more of those sexy wheels, but I wanted to keep as close to the original, that's why the face wasn't totally lit up.

I know it doesn't seem like much since there are tons of different ways of achieving this but since we wanted to have a grandeur showcase, as well as stick to purism, we constructed a giant, roof-suspended reflector.








And here's a tiny (and I mean tiny) view of the final output.




Special Thanks:
Randy Ahart, Michael Curry, Darryl Dobbs, Ashley Heyl, Fallon Hutto, Tiff Marcy, Leland Marshall, Dan Menard, Chris Pino, Mandi Rowland, AJ Smollen, John Stevenson, Mike Thomas, TJ Turner, and everyone lending a hand for even a few minutes. Thanks also to Hallmark staff members Lindsay Ciavattone, Thom Burden, Paul Teeling, David Turner, and Gabriel Hmieleski.

Web Site!

So it's finally up!

http://bryutasphoto.com




Werd.

I like when I get mail...

So check it out. I ordered some camera equipment online a few days ago and it finally came in! But ho-hum...who doesn't order things online nowadays? Well, that's not the exciting thing...





YUP! I got it addressed to BRYUTAS PHOTO! hahaha. I'm on my way to becoming legit lol.

But hmm..."What is it??" You might ask yourself. Well stay tuned for some mad tyte pichers to find out! :D

Care Package #2

Thanks, Mom!

1 - bag of pan de sal (spamburgers ftw!)
2 - garlic nagarayas
3 - personal shrimp chip bags
1 - thing of yan yans
1 - thing of spam lite (cuz they only have regular spam here)
1 - big bag of spicy nacho doritos. I can't find em here
1 - spindle of DVD-Rs that I couldn't fit in my bags back to TF

Word.

And Yet Another One...

I did try and keep up with some natural lighting stuffs not related to cars. I think it turned out not too shabby. :)

Aww...isn't Sophorn cute? ^_^

Phase 3 Self Portrait

Ok, ok...here it is. ;p

8) OMG SEKSI V2
Self Portrait.

Win.

This image came out exactly how I imagined it. Unfortunately, though, it's not original. I got the idea from this BADASS studio car photographer Kev Brown. I found this image he did which is pretty much the same thing but instead of my 94 Accord, it's an Austin Martin Zagato. The only difference is that I envisioned myself sitting in the driver's seat w/in the outline.

Big ups goes to Mark Nelson for helping me out on this one. He helped w/ the setup and the breakdown of the set and was really, really fast at it especially with the breakdown.

Phase 3 Addtional Personal Submissions

So in addition to our mandatories, we had to submit more images but not pertaining to any criteria whatsoever...except for maybe having it support our current body of work and adhere to our career business plans. I wanna do car culture stuff. So here goes. :)

I'll start off w/ what I feel is one of my weaker ones.

1) Mini Tach

This one was inspired by a shot that Easton Chang did of a Civic SI (?) tach. I shot a Mini Cooper's tach since, well, Minis tend to be...cute but sporty. I'd rock the S model for sure...and fly around your fat mustang in the corners hahaha.

Oh, and yes, that's 41*F outside...I was in a sweater. I've officially shed my SoCal skin but I'm ready to feel the friggin sun again.

2) Subwoofer
So sound is a big part of car culture. If the person two blocks ahead of you can't hear T-Pain's "tunes" blasting out your car, you ain't doin' it right...lol.

So anyway, I wanted to shoot something in the tabletop studio. This didn't turn out the way I pictured it. It actually turned out better. I originally thought of it floating in space so you can see it emerging from the shadows...nope. I went on the Kicker site and saw that they designed some cool-looking background for their speaker so I decided to draw my inspiration from them.

Word.

Ok, now on to the real stuff.

3) Mini Dogfight
I was hella inspired by Scott Dukes, tuner mag photog extraordinaire. He shot a Porsche RS60 Boxster vs. Carrera GT in a very similar fashion and since he shared a photo breakdown, I thought I'd try my hand out on it.

I teamed up with Ben Spell on this one. I used Katy Pritchett's Cooper S. The red one's Ben's. This shot was a MAJOR P.I.T.A. Oh science...for one, it was cold as hell. Second, we didn't have the right sync cords for the remote triggers. Third, Ben went home to pick up some of his wireless triggers but when he came back, his batteries were dead lol. So in the end, we just relied on a slightly longer exposure and good communication. Ghetto! But all in all, a decent learning experience.

4) Nakey Helmet
So the reason I started out w/ the first two images is because I didn't want to start off w/ some semi-noodies haha. Here you go.

I shot Ilene again. She's awesome. It was a little more difficult this time for some reason but we definitely got the shot. I love the expression in her eyes since it's basically what sells the image...other than the fact that she's half-naked.

I didn't have an extra $200 laying around so I hit up the local bike shop Green River Honda to borrow some equipment. Big ups to PJ Short. He definitely hooked it up. At first he was a little reluctant, but after I mentioned that the lady would be wearing a helmet--and only that--he was a little more willing to lend me the gear lol.

5) Bike Shop
I came back a day or so later and asked if I could use Green River's garage for another shoot. Here, the lovely Shannon Bradley was gracious enough to model for me. Justine Rosazza was my assistant and helped out a bit w/ lighting and styling.

Hawt S#!t, huh. lol.

Back to the rides...*ahem*

6) Turner's Car
There's this one dude at school who presented one day as a guest speaker. Then all of a sudden after his lil spiel, we get word that he's going to be joining the staff full-time! So who cares, right? Well, if you know anything about fashion mag W magazine, then you know something about his pictures. Anyway, before coming up here from NY, he went at got this sick-a$$ Audi Quattro 2.8L V6. He just let me drive that bad boy around the town looking for locations and stuff. Let me say that YES, I want one now lol...

This is a lot closer to what I want to be doing with my life. It's kinda cool looking, but I definitely have a LOT more to learn.

Oh, I got yelled at by some dude on a power trip for being on the road since it's a private access road with designated parking spots. The whole 2.5 hrs I was there, a whole three or so cars went by and like, 10 pedestrians walking their dogs and whatnot. Apparently, leaving about 20-30' of open road and not being in the proper runoff is a crime. Kids, don't do this at home! Whatever, I got my shot. I'm happy. :)

7) OMG SEKSI...
I don't even have to write any words for this one...

Thanks goes out to Peter Chilton on this one for lending me his Mini Cooper S. Thom Burden for opening up the garage for me. David Turner for pointing me in the right direction. And Johnny Jones for helping me out with the shoot itself. The original shot I wanted to do was of a blue Cooper S by Trevor Pearson but since we're ill-equipped here (no 20'x30' soft box/scrim) we had to make do.

Still, one of the sexier shots I've ever taken.

I have a self portrait done already (lol if you've seen it already) but I think I wanna save it for another post. ;)

So that's about it for Phase 3. Now that I'm done a day early, I get to go home and chillax. Now I can just concentrate on packing, getting some rest, and doing my laundry before I'm off for sunny SoCal for Spring Break!

Misc. Props:
-Bridge Street - Good times...
-Erin Kirtchner - Thanks for letting me borrow your mini.
-Chris Myska - Thanks for the Sub and all the Armor All products lol.
-Pat Stepney - Thanks for always lending me gear.
-Scott Dukes - Guidance and inspiration.

Phase 3 Mandatory Set

Oh my science has it been forever! I'm soooo sorry about that. I got busy. Then, I got unbusy and had to take a little breather. Now, I'm about to get busy again lol. But before I get busy, I thought I'd finally post what I've been up to. I kinda streamlined my watermarking, too so it was actually pretty painless this time.

Well, on w/ the show:

Brochure Design.
Yes, I need to work on my design skills. The lovely folks at Lorenz Honda were nice enough to let me come in and shoot their dealership. I like cars. I want to make a living shooting for the automotive world. It kind of made sense that I shoot a catalog revolving around cars. It consists of a cover and an inside 2-pg spread.




Like I said, I need to work a bit on my design work. But I do believe it was a real good experience. Beth, the owner, is quite the character...and so is the parts manager. Crazy old fart. :p

CD Cover
This one was really fun. It turned out pretty much exactly like I had pictured it in my head only this one ended up in color. I originally pictured B&W but after some peer feedback, I decided to keep it in color.


Child In Studio
This is the lovely Christina. She was a little ball of energy, but what kid isn't? Well, she was quite the model. She'd have all these little ideas w/ posing that she wanted to act out. I shot them, but in the end, she had to do my poses. It did show in her face that she didn't want to do some of the "boring" ones, but eventually, I ended up with this shot. Kids can be a real handful for me sometimes, but I'm learning how to have fun with them while being able to take care of business.


Executive
This is Mr. Balbuena, construction company owner extraordinaire. Real nice guy, albeit a bit intimidating at first. He kind of looks like a political figure in this one, doesn't he?


Family Indoors
This is a shot of a real nice Pennsylvanian family the "Walleys." I call them that because I can't remember their last names lol. I went to PA w/ fellow classmate Paola and shot and assisted with her. She hooked me up with this family. They were all pretty cool. The dad, Wally, kinda sounds like one of our instructors at the school! His speech pattern and inflection and everything! It was hard not to laugh lol. But anyway, this family of Macintosh lovers (yes, we bonded immediately) was pretty fun to shoot. I got the shot in about 11 frames. I guess it's easy when your subjects look good.


Glass
Yep. Here's some glass. Let me just say that Target has come up! I hope that one day they crush Walmart. They have decent prices on designer stuff. I was walking around looking for glass to shoot and came across this Riedel Vivant vase. Pretty nifty. The box had it shot against a black background so I thought I'd try white. Despite the plainness of it, it's friggin sexy, huh?


High Key Female
So this is my high key female shot of the beautiful Ilene. She was a real blast to shoot. Such high energy. It was originally a jump shot similar to the legendary Lois Greenfield, but since this pertained more to my industry, I shot my first half-nudie and it made it to my phase 3 final lol.


Interior
I could do better. I was strapped for time so I shot a friend's house. It turned out ok. I used the HDR technique and let me say while it has its place, and while great things can be done with it, I'd much rather get it right with actual lights. Nonetheless, here it is.


Low Key Male
Here's Brian, an actual Iraq Vet who came back after a two or four year tour. I can't remember. But this was actually one of my favorite shots of the phase! Despite how awesome this shot is, there are few things I could do to make it POP even more. But I'll leave that to you to figure out. :p


Metal
Dope.

Haha. I liked this shoot because it was another one that turned out pretty much how I pictured it. The leaves were an afterthought...well, not really. Just the minimal amount of them was the afterthought. I imagined a whole pile of 'em strewn about but ended up going with this. Simpler is better.


Occupational
This is Mrs. Balbuena. Yep, scary Mr. Balbuena's wife. Just playing, lol.
She was a real sweetheart. She had a cozy little clinic that reminded me of my orthodontist's office.


Outdoor Portrait
This is Balbuena Jr (Sorry, it's midnight and his name escapes me right now). He was a real chill dude who was also interested in snowboarding. Does it look like the shot was done on the mountain? I hope so...'cause it was actually shot in his backyard lol. I had him look over his shoulder pondering his next stunt. Doesn't he look like he's farting?


PR/Alternative Shot
For this one I had to shoot a corporate PR shot of someone and then another shot that portrays something about their personality. The shots are supposed to contrast each other dramatically.

I shot my landlord Lou. I loved this shoot! Can you guess what his hobby is?



Product for Advertisement
Oakleys are just awesome in and of themselves. It was up to me to photograph them Sexily.

Yup, design work needs work...but I think I achieved the sexy. Much love goes out to Dick D'Alessandro. He's the man when it comes to lighting any object!


Product for Catalog
Here, we had to do what's called a Drop N' Pop w/ intent to create a background. I kept getting many comments on how boxes are so boring (which they are) but for this one I just wanted to get it done. Plus, I like food so it just made sense. But there's also an explanation to why I just shot whatever came to mind, which I'll touch up on later. But for now, here's the pictures.



So that's it, folks! That's Phase 3! Looking back, I definitely have progressed.

We had to write out these things called Career Business Plans basically mapping out in words where we plan to go with our photography. My pictures don't match my CBP at all. Why? Well, because the CBP was due about a week before the portfolio was due and I didn't realize what I wanted my industry to be until then. I want to work in the Automotive Lifestyle realm so from here on out, my work will cater to the likes of magazines such as Import Tuner, Super Street, and Modified Mag, etc. Not that I will halt my family portraits or anything (since apparently I have a talent for them), but it is my goal...or at least the beginnings of my five-year-plan. And it's not like I can stop taking pictures of people. Pick up one of those mags and you'll see that I'll be dealing with fashion models as well...though not your typical fashion-type models lol.

Right now, we're working on the Additional Personal Submissions which should be geared towards whatever your business plan is. I'm going to try and base mine around the car world. But we'll see where it ends up.

So 'til next time...

Thanks for stopping by!

-Bry

p.s.
I kept telling myself not to forget, but everytime I do that, I FORGET! urgh...But anyway, here it is. Big THANK YOU goes out to Paola Balbuena for taking me down to PA w/ her (for a 10-shoot-in-2-days-"fun-filled"-weekend lol). I probably would have got the project done, but this definitely made it a lot easier! And Thanks goes out to Juanita Hong for giving me the contact for my first child to shoot. Basically, she helped get the ball rolling.

Art Historical Reference

Ok, so it's been a while but would you believe me if I said I was crazy busy? Ever since this Phase III thing hit, I've been doing something photography related every day...which is nice, but honestly, everyone needs a break every now and then.

So that's why I'm posting again! 'Cause I found a couple minutes to post. I have a bunch of P3 stuff to post, but I gotta edit all of them first.

So enough of that. Here's my Art Hist. Ref Piece. I chose a painting by this guy named Lichtenstein. He primarily does a lot of flat-looking, 2-D styled, old school comic book influenced art. Check it:


Cool, eh? Now here's my rendition of it:


Basically, I tried to photograph it as flat as possible to retain the 2D style, but I didn't want to completely emulate the art piece because if I did, then why not just completely draw it in Illustrator, right?

I did the strokes around the jacket and cheese to tie the piece into the original w/o being too obvious. I added some stroke lines on the curtain but it looked horrible. Then I tested the jacket and it looked lame, too.

I don't know what grade I'm going to get on this. But what I do know is that I'd like to redo this again but in a more fashionable shoot. Stay tuned!

Magazine Project

Here we had to pick between four different magazines to "work for." There was Seventeen Magazine featuring a new teenie-bopper, Time Magazine featuring a retired politician, Sports Illustrated featuring an athlete, and Wired Magazine featuring an eclectic computer nerd. Guess which one I picked...THE GEEK, of course! Haha, just playin', Jason. :p



I LOVE how it turned out!

Character Study

For this one, we had to take a certain individual and try to portray a certain aspect of their personality (character) through imagery. I shot my upstairs neighbor, Evelyn, for this one. She absolutely loved it!



I think it turned out interesting.

Conceptual Still Life

This is my conceptual still life shot. I LOVE it!

We were supposed to take one word from three different columns (1: object, 2: some organic material/mineral, 3: an emotion). I think it turned out well.



Strobist:
-scrim from up top
-a couple fills (but minimized in post) from 7 and 4 o'clock low

Environmental Studio Still Life

The point of this assignment was to shoot an image of something in its "environment" or give the illusion that it's shot in an environment, but it is entirely shot in-studio.

Mine was supposed to look like a night scene, conveyed by the bluish outside light. Throughout cinematic history, night is always portrayed as blue...'cept mine is more purple lol.

This shoot was pretty fun. This time, Jason Carrier was my assistant. We had a lot of fun w/ it. After the shoot, I shared the cheese and crackers w/ the class. Not the wine, though. Kendall Jackson Riesling ftw! I'd rather have some polka dot though...

Public Relations & Alternative Shot

This shot was to photograph an image for a corporate PR shot as well as a shot defining the individual. The lovely Sara modeled for me and le Judester assisted this time and let me tell you they were real troopers. We were so swamped that we had to do this shoot at night. Despite being us all being tired and cranky, we still had fun.

So enough of that stuff. Here's the PR shot.


Turned out good, eh?

Now the alt shot:


Yup...this one turned out badass!