Ok, well, two duos and a single. I couldn’t leave well enough alone and stick strictly to the article title, as there was one image left that needed to be used.
At least the odd single is in the same location, same lighting, same film. So it kinda-sorta fits. All three are, as tradition, shot on my Rolleiflex 2.8E, with Kodak Ektar 100.
I squeezed in a roll of Tri-X in my shooting with the models. I wish I had had the chance to shoot some frames of Trevor, the other model, in black and white, but such is life. Another time.
Grayson has a very commanding gaze and makes for a great portrait subject. He uses this to compensate for an otherwise willowy physique (not that there’s anything wrong with willowy).
We shot all of these down under the Whitehurst Freeway where it runs parallel to the Potomac River on the edge of Georgetown. Despite the deep shade it creates, it makes for some beautiful, soft light.
The tank top reads “I like bad boys” in French. It was Grayson’s own choice of wardrobe – very fun and cheeky.
The last shot was at a boarded-up building tucked away under the freeway. I’m surprised given the value of real estate in Georgetown that such a place could exist. Whatever, it makes for a neat backdrop for models. The bottle of Fat Tire was found en-situ, and trust me, nobody drank from it.
While we were out scouting a location, Grayson saw this bit of graffiti and said, “I want my picture taken next to a sign that says, ‘Nuclear Age Sucks Shit’. The colors were cool, the message edgy, and the model was inspired, so who was I to say no? I’m going to keep it on my list of places to shoot.
The Anarchy symbol made for a kind of halo in purple for Grayson.
In this case, the diffuser wasn’t big enough to soften the light on the whole scene, and the hard-edged shadow on the wall made perfect sense given the message of the mural – the shadows recall the kind of shadows cast by the blast of a nuclear weapon.
In this last shot, I moved in tight to get the golden mushroom stenciled on the wall. It just seemed a fitting counterpart to the rest of the graffiti.
Again, all shots were taken on Kodak Ektar 100 in my Rolleiflex. It gives punchy saturation when you need it without being over-the-top.
Here are five portraits I did of the models last Saturday. Trevor and Grayson were easy to work with, and I would be happy to give a reference for them to anyone who wants to work with them.
All images were shot on Kodak Ektar 100 with my Rolleiflex 2.8E. I wanted to make a point out of this because I hear lots of people saying “I can’t get good portraits with Ektar – I don’t like the skin tones”. I haven’t had to do anything special to get these, other than the obvious minor retouch to remove a pimple or two (these guys are in their early 20s after all). For the shot of Trevor in bright direct sunlight, I used a white diffuser disc to soften the light on his face. Otherwise these were just natural light. The shots of Trevor in the aviator jacket were taken in open shade in an alley, so no diffuser was needed, as was the shot of Grayson wearing the black cotton top and the one in the white mesh hoodie.
Today, I had a group shoot with two models and several other photographers. We wandered around the streets of Georgetown, one of the oldest neighborhoods in DC and once a separate town but merged with DC in the early years of the Republic. Of course, I shot the majority of my images on my Rolleiflexes (4 rolls Ektar 100 and one roll Tri-X). But I also put my new iPhone 6 to the test. It is surprisingly good- these look to me to be as good as the shots I take with my Canon 5D. Look and judge for yourself:
Some more transportation photos. In France, they have the national rail network, which has two grades of TGV-class trains: the long-distance, high speed trains (the one that goes from Paris to Marseilles in 3 hours) and the not-so-fast trains that stop more places. They also have regional trains that connect the smaller cities and larger towns, and then around Paris there are the RER trains that run on a separate set of tracks from the Metro, but it interfaces with and extends the Metro network.
You’ve already seen my TGV photos. Here is one of the regional trains at the station in Chalon, on the Burgundy province network.
Wouldn’t it be cool to commute on a train like that every day?
Here’s another view of that train, from the platform at Chalon. You can see the name of the station on the sign under the awning over the platform.
Although not specifically depicting trains, I had to include this shot here, as it was in plain view from the platform of the Dijon rail station. If you watched tv in the US between the 1970s to 1990s, this will probably tickle your funny bone.
Finally, two more transportation images that have nothing whatsoever to do with trains, but instead are bicycle related. France is bike-infatuated, after all it is the home of the Tour De France. Will this be the new look on next year’s Tour?
Some would say cycling shorts can’t go away fast enough as a fashion piece; I think they should stay, as they prevent both chafing and blindness.
A very different take on bike-based transportation is this, spotted at the plaza in front of Notre Dame:
A very different, less aerodynamic sense of fashion dominates this cyclists ensemble. Equal risk of putting out someone’s eye, but from a totally different cause.
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