Jack Pope

CASEY + STEEL WOOL

jackhpope — Tue, 22 May 2012 23:51:00 +0000

Here is an addition to the makeup shoot that I posted earlier this month. It’s a shot I left out and have been working on little by little for the past couple weeks. I finished it Thursday night just in time for our AP Art Show at Artists’ Path in Bantam. Stop by there this week to see a printed version.

I thought up the shot when Kayleigh was explaining what she was going to do with Casey’s first makeup. She described it as “fiery,” and having watched Benjamin Von Wong’s Steel Wool video earlier that day I thought the best way to represent fire would be a wall of sparks flying around her face. Video embedded below. I had and continue to see loads of awesome steel wool photographs that incorporate landscape, urban exploration, and sillohetted figures. Why not take the technique into portraiture.

I suppose the picture could have been created completely in camera. In other words, I could have spun a whisk full of fire a few inches away from Casey’s face, but it was mid-day when we show her so it would have to be inside with sparks flying around my basement full of open insulation, not to mention the nearly 100% chance of hitting her in the dome with hot metal. Bad news. What I did instead, was shoot Casey against black with light that would mimic the glow of the steel wool. In my most ghetto-rigged lighting yet, I wrapped Christmas tree lights around a plywood square, and attached white poster board to the back to increase efficiency. I used this as my only light and it worked to wrap the glow around the face and prove a circular catch light.

Here are the steel wool shots before I cleaned them up, set them to screen blending mode, and framed them around Casey’s face.

After putting the composite together it was just a few curves, channel mixers, and color balances to get the final image. I threw some textures in on overlay mode as well. Check out some more examples of steel wool photography on 500px here.

ELITE OPEN TRACK MEET

jackhpope — Sun, 06 May 2012 15:51:16 +0000

SARA + CASEY

jackhpope — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:08:49 +0000

As I mentioned yesterday on the post about Banksy, I have some new pictures to share. Sara and Casey came over on Sunday afternoon and spent a good chunk of the day making pictures with Kayleigh and me. The purpose was to create some new work for Kayleigh’s makeup portfolio, which is in its early stages. I just finished the retouching on the final images, except for one composite that isn’t quite ready. We shot one look inside and one look outside for each of them. I was aiming to have more time to work outside, but with the rain and wind it became very cold, especially for people wrapped in sheets and wearing leotards. My lights also failed to fire when getting setup outside so I had to scrap the idea of using artificial light, bump up my ISO, and work between f1.8 and f2.8. Fun stuff.

Enough with the rambling, checkout these gorgeous girls…

BANKSY ON ADVERTISING

jackhpope — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 01:22:20 +0000

You may have already seen this, as it went pretty viral over the last couple of months, but it is worth a read if you haven’t. Or just read it again. I am less interested in the control of media and the misuse of advertising than I am about the way Banksy views trademark, copyright, and stealing as a necessary component of art. Check it out:

See some of his work here.

Also, tomorrow I will be posting photos from a shoot with some beautiful friends. Here is a sneak peak:

I FOUND SOME FILM PART II

jackhpope — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:00:48 +0000

The other film I scanned in this past weekend besides for the lake pictures consists of a lot of pictures of my brother, Michael. On two separate days, both from the fall I broke out the Canon AE-1 and got some shots of him climbing, and attempting to boogie board our flooded river. And yes, it was just as stupid as it sounds.

I FOUND SOME FILM

jackhpope — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:24:34 +0000

I found a roll of film from uh… July. I got the negatives developed yesterday and just finished scanning them. Also have some rolls from the last couple months that I’ll throw up here this week.

I made these pictures with with a $9 film underwater camera that doesn’t seem to be sold anywhere. At least, I can no longer find it on B&H or Adorama. Not the best image quality in the world, but a fun little camera to have around on the water.

W/O MAKEUP OR LIGHTING

jackhpope — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:35:49 +0000

Click over to fStoppers.com to see photos of supermodels without makeup, hair, lighting, and any sort of production. I found this to be quite interesting. The women are already attractive in the before pictures, but the stark difference in appearance is shocking. Goes to show there is more than throwing a beautiful woman in front of the lens.

RISING TIDE

jackhpope — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 02:17:24 +0000

Kickstarter blew off its roof this past month.

People were worried that a drastic increase in the number of products would be detrimental to the community. More projects, more competition, less money for everyone. Their blog post proves this is not the case however. A rising tide really does float all boats. With more publicity and traffic, the amount of donors/backers has grown along with the number of artist who host projects. Read up on the linked post for a more detailed analysis.

@ theFIX

jackhpope — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:19:05 +0000

Had an awesome time last Friday night at theFix with Jasmine Star in NYC. Check us out!

Photo by Richard B Flores

NEW PHOTOS: SIERRA

jackhpope — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 01:33:15 +0000

Here are a few shots of Sierra we made when she helped me out with an art project last week. Same one I mentioned in Rachel’s post. Talk about dragging on…

But Sierra was nice enough to throw me a bone and save my grade at the last minute, so I grabbed these shots for her after we nailed the one we needed.

Makeup by Natalie Wihbey.