Week 04 EOC: Peering into the Future

When I am 50 years old, I will be an established Travel and Glamour Photographer based out of Los Angeles, Ca. Living somewhere on or around Main Street in Huntington Beach, just a block or two from the ocean.

I will be working as a staff photographer for Maxim Magazine or an equivalent periodical and also working as a local freelance photographer, catering to Zed Cards and doing head shots for the entertainment industry and doing glamour and fashion photography for local model’s portfolios. I will work both of these jobs for about 10 to 11 months out of the year and then I will be go abroad to work as a freelance travel photographer for the other 1 to 2 months of the year. When I return from my travels I can host an exhibition showcasing my work and then sell the images to travel magazines, newspapers and to stock photo companies such as Getty Photos.

I want to have the ability to come and go, to work on travel projects as I see fit and as I can afford to fund them until I sell the images to the appropriate companies to turn a profit for my time and energy. Basically my career would be complete if I could just work ten months out of the year for someone else or myself and then traveling for the rest of the year. Making just enough money to pay all the bills and be comfortable. I did need tons of money; just enough to be comfortable and to build a retirement portfolio I can actually survive on when it’s time for me to retire and just run a small freelance studio out of my home until the day I can’t pick up a camera any longer. Course that will probably be the day I die.  

Week 03 Photo Challenge: You Incredible

Here I am in Santorini, Greece. One of the few places in the world I can actually say I am in love with. I plan to move there if I can once I retire and start to think about settling down. I took this photo of myself the last time I was there. I placed the camera on a table top tripod and placed on a ledge that was on an elevated position from me. This was tricky sense I had to get low and spot where the camera was pointed, so I could go and stand in the correct position on the path leading down from where the camera was perched. I set the timer for the maximum amount of time I could set it for and moved into position as fast as I could. I think it only took 4 attempts before I got one to come out. I made sure the sun was behind the camera to provide ample light to illuminate me, the only draw back is that it cause some squinting since I didn't want to wear my sunglasses and block my face. In the picture, I was trying to capture the slopes of Santorini behind me with all the elegant white adobe homes with light blue domes roofs, the color of the Greek Orthodox Church.
I love this particular view of the island since most of the island is made up of only slopes and hills, with most of the shops and tourist destinations at the apex of the island where it flattens out into a hilly vista of open ground. From the highest point on the island looking down at sea and docks, you can truly feel like a “King of the World” surveying all that lays before you. 

Week 03 EOC: National Geographic Photo Critique

 

I chose this National Geographic Photograph as a personal favorite for various reasons. First, the contrast throughout the image is superb. The lights and shadows really make this picture stand out to me. Second, the colors are vivid and make the photograph jump off the page in conjunction with the contrast. The image may show cave explorers repelling down into a large cavern in the ground, receding into virtual darkness but the way the light is captured in this image, you don't appear to notice that aspect. You mainly concentrate your attention on the flora, the rocks, and the mist raining down from a nearby stream/river/ or waterfall. All the water coming in forms its own cascading waterfall falling even deeper into the unknown. You can tell that the shot was taken with just available light, a wide aperture (probably f1.4 or f1.2) and a slow shutter speed. You can tell it’s a slow shutter speed do to the misting/blurring affect of the water in the waterfall. The depth of field is shallow, with slight blurring of the surroundings and background starting just a few meters from the camera lens. It isn’t blatantly apparent since most of your field of view is located in the dark crevice extending downward.

Week 02 Photo Challenge: Paparazzi

 

Week 02 EOC: La Dolce Vita

Federico Fellini's internationally popular film La Dolce Vita, Italian for "The Sweet Life,” made in 1960, coined the name “paparazzi” for the pesky freelance photographers shown in the movie. I believe the movie justly named the photographers for what they were, oversize mosquitos or parasites if you prefer. I think the movie adequately predicted how the paparazzi would evolve into the nuisance they are today for the rich and famous alike. The paparazzi antagonize and manipulate people into doing things in front of the camera that they normally wouldn’t do, all in the name of getting the shot. They will chase celebrities in cars and act recklessly trying to photograph the celebrity. Look at what happened to Princess Dianna. If it weren’t for the paparazzi, she would quit possibly still be alive today continuing to do good things around the world. The paparazzi have no shame and no ethics as far as I am concerned and I would rather never take another photograph again then act like them and jeopardize my integrity.

As for the photo assignment this week, to photograph our self as a paparazzo in the field, I plan to keep it simple. I plan to try doing it two different ways. First I want to find a party or events were paparazzi might be and photograph the scene. Then I plan to take a self portrait wearing all black and carrying a camera bag and camera and edit myself into the picture as if I was there the whole time harassing whatever celebrities that may have been there. The second shot I might try is to actually join the paparazzi on whatever red carpet event they are on and photograph myself in the crowd with them or have another photographer help me by taking a picture of me in the paparazzi crowd acting like one of them.

Week 01 Photo Challenge: Self Portrait

I chose the famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe as my artist of choice, to share a self-portrait with. He created this image, "Robert Mapplethorpe Self-Portrait 1988" just before he died of an AIDS related disease. 
 In 1986, he was diagnosed with AIDS. Despite his illness, he increased his creative efforts, broadened the scope of his photographic inquiry, and accepted increasingly challenging commissions. The Whitney Museum of American Art mounted his first major American museum retrospective in 1988, one year before his death in 1989.
 I respect Mapplethorpe’s perseverance and determination to continue to do his art and shoot what he wanted even though he was dying.  Don’t let a little thing like death hold you back from doing what you love. I also appreciate how he would shoot what he wanted and when he wanted to shot. Mapplethorpe would shoot stylized compositions of male and female nudes, delicate flower still lifes, and studio portraits of artists and celebrities just to name a few of the styles of photography that would interest him at any given time.
I shot my self-portrait in the studio using three strobe lights and approximately five flags to direct the light from the strobes to exact locations on my body with the help of an assistant.  I attempted to use depth of field to make it appear as if I was standing behind Mapplethorpe and slightly above, so as not to take away from the main importance of the subject, Mapplethorpe himself. I purposefully allowed more shadows on my face to help show I was behind the subject in the photo. I also wore all black and used a cobra headed cane instead of a skull headed cane in the shot.

Week 1 EOC: Stallions not Unicorns

The photography career that I want to do most is actually a two-part career. For most of the year, say ten months, I would like to work for a magazine company doing Glamour Photography, something along the lines of Maxim or FHM would be perfect for my style of photography. The rest of the year I want to be able to make enough money from the job at Maxim to be a Travel Photographer working freelance or for the Marriot Corporation or Travel and Leisure Magazine. Traveling around the world photographing the Marriot’s various resorts for travel guides and company brochures. I have a strong grasp of composition and style when it comes to taking both Glamour and Travel style photographs. I have the experience and eye needed for Glamour Photography and I work well with models in a studio environment and location shooting.

For Travel Photography, I enjoy the challenge of trying to capture the perfect shot with just natural lighting and/or just using a flash as your only source of additional illumination. Sometimes finding that perfect shot is all about luck and other times, its all about understanding your environment and knowing to look for the signs of a promising shot versus that of a regular person just pointing and clicking with their camera. 

I would consider working both of these jobs as my one unicorn job. It would be a great accomplishment for myself to be able to do these and make a living at doing them. I would be able to express my creative side and travel the world, as I have always wanted to do. I couldn’t think of a more perfect union of jobs to make the one perfect job.

Week 1 EOC: My Voice

My name is Joaquin Lares and photography is something that instills great passion in me. I describe myself as essentially a travel photographer with a strong interest in portraiture. I am currently based in the Las Vegas, Nevada area.

My interest in this addicting medium began in my early teens when I was able to buy my first Canon SLR camera and I have had a love affair with photography ever since. Photography is my way down the rabbit hole, my looking glass. I use photography as a means of self-expression – I make pictures for myself, to identify with the hidden qualities of my character, to better understand my reality, and to express my interpretation of the world around me. A clearer understanding of myself and of my world allows me to explore fragments of life as an abstract form, and also to interact with people I would otherwise not be able to engage with. My goal is to use my camera like Alice’s rabbit hole, to open an unexplored world, a place of curious self-expression, but also a world of new relationships, new chances, new beginnings, and most importantly new stories.

My choice of subject comes from a place of intuition and is fueled by an insatiable desire to partake in the stories that unfold around me. Being able to travel and experience new places and people, satisfy my wanderlust and furthers my understanding of my reality. I know that I can be colorful and I know that I can be gray in my interpretation of the world but to experience life as those indigenous people I visited and shared their culture with, without bias, can and has been truly rewarding. I have traveled abroad and have seen and experienced many things in the name of photography and adventure. From walking the streets of lost Pompeii to watching the sunset over a sunken volcano in Santorini, Greece. You can truly appreciate how fleeting and persistently life is, but with my camera I am able to capture these special moments in time so that others can experience them visually.

During my studies to broaden and deepen my understanding of photography, I have developed skills and an appreciation for portrait photography with an emphasis on Fashion and Glamor styles. Just like with any other looking glass, there are always other angles and directions one can look. Keeping my focus straight-ahead and narrowed doesn’t allow me to better understand my reality but makes it stagnate and it chokes the creative process. Portrait photography lets me tap my inner child, the creative side of me. It lets me be bold and expressive, limited only by physics and my own imagination. If that isn’t living and exploring your own reality, then I missed a turn somewhere. Before this show, this life is over and the storybook closes, I plan to walk among giants in this field.