The El Mateo!
Luchador mask courtesy of the limited edition “Weird Sports” book by Sol Neelman.

Check it out: I’m in good company.

Jess

Drew Anthony Smith

These are a few “test shots” from an Athlete of the Year shoot I found last night while rummaging through my hard drives.

I wanted to make a time lapse video of the snow piling up  in my backyard (don’t judge me) and look who wanted to be in it?

Keep posted for the time lapse video AND for more photos of the neighborhood alley cats.

God! I sound like such a lame-o! time lapse…? cat photos…?

Whatever. That stuff is fun, too.

Not to worry. I’ll try to keep the images up to a certain standard.

Why oh why do I love this picture?

Everything about this shoot makes me roll my eyes. First of all, I’m breaking one of my cardinal rules! I HATE HATE HATE making portraits of people holding books, or whatever it is the writer decides the story is also about. So, I don’t do it. If I can make a book or a photograph, or whatever the subject made into a detail photo, that’s what I’m gonna do. — especially with authors. It’ll probably help the layout, and add an extra “click” to the website. This woman, however, is a faux finisher. Rita Melnick’s is a featured artists in the resource book “Modelo by Design, Volume 2,” — which is what she’s holding — and that’s pretty much what the article was about. Ugh! This newspaper article reads like a website bio. I could talk at length about how this assignment isn’t really journalism, but I think y’all are smart enough to figure that out.

So, why in the world do I love this image? Well, on the one sense, Rita was super pleasant to deal with, and got what I was going for. She was up for anything. …and why wouldn’t she be? We’re giving her faux finishing business free advertising! But this image (not unlike the article) is just ridiculous, isn’t it? I could try to make a heady analogy about faux paint/fake news/faked enthusiasm blah blah blah.

…but the fact is, every time I look at it I chuckle.

I get something out of it.

And hopefully the readers do too.

when I see this I think… POLITICAL CENTAUR!

@lopossay

Scott McIntyre

The world is funny, isn’t it?

Or at lest that how it seems to me. …but then again, I’m the guy who laughs too much during movies.

This is the second installment of my Best Runts of 2010. The first is here.

Can I first start by saying I can’t stand lifestyle images. You know what I’m talking about — Beautiful people laughing for no reason. …maybe holding a glass of wine, or frolicking through a field of wheat. It’s cheap high-gloss stock. Sure, there’s a semblance of a story being told, but it’s trying too hard to be perfect and beautiful. …but it lacks substance. What ends up happening is none of that joy those beautiful people in the photo translates to the end user — the audience.

Me? I roll my eyes.

…well, I sometimes chuckle. but it’s usually because a miscreant blacked out one of the boring hot chick’s teeth. …you know the one. She’s about to eat some spaghetti.

Now that’s funny. …at least to me. Like I said in Runts part 1, I like to celebrate the imperfect in life.

And I’m starting to realize (and I’m kinda cringing while I write this) that Happy is Boring.

…at least in photography.

Sure, if some kid is opening a birthday present and he’s making the craziest face in the world — like OUT OF HIS MIND HAPPY — because he got the most bad-ass toy robot ever, then that’s good stuff. That’s an emotion we can enjoy through someone else’s experience. But laughing on the beach FOR NO REASON isn’t entertaining. Those are passive photo. It’s like the white bread of photography. no nutrition.

To be clear, there’s a difference between BEING happy and trying to make a picture of happy. People smiling for no reason is void of content, void of purpose, and void of personality. It’s the quirks and our imperfections we, as individuals, are loved for. And so, I look for those when I’m out making pictures. Ultimately, I want the audience to relate to the subjects and stories in my images. …and rather than show them pictures of people laughing, I’d rather them enjoy a chuckle or two. Enjoy!

My mom got married to a wonderful man, Rick, this summer. They have so much in common, such as not liking bubbly. You gotta give em’ props for trying, right? So, lets raise a glass and wish them well! She finally found a good fit for her.

My college friend Margaret Goerig is going on a 21st century-style road trip! That is, she’s driving cross country with her dog Rennie, meeting up with Facebook friends, writing *cough* — i mean blogging about it on her site, http://www.flitflitter.com — and driving everywhere in a charming jalopy of a camper — Roxie — which is probably older than Margaret. She came to visit me in Baltimore Wednesday, October 27, 2010. After i saw Roxie, I couldn’t not make a portrait.

She’s a really good writer, too. I personally like this post about learning how to not always finish a task — a hang up I often wish I had.

Draw a mustache!

Maia Krapcho, from Columbia, first learned baking at vo-tech school. While she has since moved on to a different career, she finds cake-baking to be a creative outlet. She is photographed in her home kitchen Monday, September 20, 2010.

Here’s the Howard County Times’ Go! story.

She makes crazy cakes — for fun! Like, for her husband’s dad’s birthday, she made a Scrabble cake! I saw a picture. It was awesome! The problem I had was illustrating her whimsical cake-making ability without a cake! Turns out, the assigning editor (a word person) told Maia not to make a cake for the shoot. He was worried it might cross some ethical photo line. And if it weren’t for a portrait I’d commend him. But it seems that in our little photo department’s fervor to explain photo ethics to the writers, we seemed to have confused some of them. So, I show up to the shoot, and there’s no cake. — well, there’s an ugly practice cake — but we can’t use that! So, we bang our heads for a while, trying to think up ideas. She was like, I could draw a mustache with icing. BRILLIANT!!! See. it helps to listen to your subjects. I asked her to send photos of her cakes to the editor and I made it my mission to showcase her personality. And trust me, this is all Maia.

…during a semi-pro football game.

Grant and Marie are getting married!

Believe it or not, but this was shot in a Gaithersburg, MD subdivision — not on a magical hillside.

I really didn’t want to make the traditional “updated prom photo” pose, as my girlfriend Jess calls it.

Of course I made the safe shots. …we also called them “grandparent” shots — because grandparents are usually the demographic who want the traditional photos the most.

Ultimately, I wanted to make a memorable image that describes them individually and as a couple. …emphasis on MEMORABLE.

I find that the best way to make a portrait memorable is to tell a little story. Pretty people will always make pretty pictures. But there’s no better way to sear an image in your memory than a little theme-action!

…it doesn’t hurt to have someone hanging upside down, either.