Artful Realist

I received this Fuji X100S about 3 weeks ago for my birthday. All my photography friends have been raving about it. The phrase “the best camera ever” keeps surfacing. I have to say, the more I play with this little gem the more I love it. You can take it everywhere and the quality is beautiful.

What a pleasure it was to collaborate with Brittany Bell … not once — but twice! — this holiday weekend. There is a wonderful kind of electricity that happens when you’re behind the lens and the person in font of it just happens to be — well, electric! You will pry my camera from my fingers when I’m dead.

My adventures in photography continued this weekend when I had the privilege of working with Brittany Bell (Miss Arizona 2010) and Claire Schreiner (Miss Wyoming 2010).

From a test session this weekend with the very talented Temple Hightower.

I am an amateur and intend to remain one my whole life long. I attribute to photography the task of recording the real nature of things, their interior, their life.

// Andre Kertesz, our January photographer of the month (via pabloveshutterbugs)

Words to live by…

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be newspaper photographers

“It’s probably the most dangerous single sport that I’ve ever seen” — New York Times photographer Fred Conrad on his beautiful assignment shooting the PBR at Madison Square Garden. Check out these photos.

One of the shots from this weekend’s session with model Armani Vital.

I love Erwin Olaf’s work because, even though it is meticulously lit, you almost don’t notice the beautiful light.

What sticks with us, always, is light. It is the wand in the conductor’s hand. We watch it, follow it, respond to it, and yearn to bring every nuance of substance, meaning and emotion out of it. It leads us, and we shoot and move to its rhythm.

// Joe McNally in The Moment It Clicks

A model can only be successfully directed by talking her into a mood or attitude. The moment you physically place a limb into position you may as well be photographing a shop dummy.

// Sam Haskins