6 Feet Under - Portrait of a Sculptor

Sometimes to mix it up, it is good to get out and shoot some personal work. I'd been to my friend Jean-Marie Grenier's studio before and thought that it would be an interesting place to do some experimentation and create a photo essay about him and his sculpting. He refers to his studio as being 6 feet under because it is in the basement of he and his wife's converted funeral home.

Without time constraints and with Jean-Marie keeping busy on his latest piece, I was able to shoot using the natural lights, supplementing with my strobes, and even playing around with some gels to add some color effects. I also shot a roll of black and white film and will provide a followup post when I receive the scans. 

If you are interested in his work, check out the link below:

Jean-Marie Grenier

Jean-Marie's work is inspired by dancers in motion. His studio is adorned with imagery of this elegant muse and his work is a reflection of the human body's ability to move and be shaped as such.

Future dancer/artist?

Author Headshots for Deedee Derksen

One of the great things about being a headshot photographer here in Brooklyn is that you have no idea who or when you are going to be shooting from week to week. Unlike other genres of photography like weddings that are booked well in advance, often times clients will call looking to schedule a headshot session in the next day or so.

Towards the end of the summer, I got a call from Deedee Derksen regarding setting up a headshot session. Whenever someone books a session, the first thing I do is "google" them. I think it is a disservice to your clients to not have any knowledge about them ahead of time and it gives me something to talk about during the shoot. When I googled Deedee, results came up for a Dutch war reporter who had written a book called "Tea with the Taliban." So I started thinking to myself, this ought to be an interesting session, although I'm not sure all my usual dumb jokes and random things I say during headshot sessions would be appropriate for someone that was a writer of such serious topics. 

But as it turns out, she was a delightful person that appreciated all the ridiculous things I say during a headshot session in the pursuit of eradicating blank expression photography. And it was also interesting to get someone else's take on a country, Afghanistan, that is so often portrayed in one way by our media here in the US - she loved being in Afghanistan - not something I ever imagined hearing from someone.