Posts Tagged ‘Steven Sow’

Artist – Born Famous

August 13, 2010

I recently met up with Cameron and Clint from Born Famous in Downtown Fort Worth to shoot some images for their upcoming website, great shoot, fun couple of guys, here are some images from our shoot.

I recently replied to a CL ad, and the first part of the reply email said “I see that you’ve worked with my friend Josh!”  E-Young wanted a intellectual hip hop look, so we met up in Denton to shoot that, and I think that we made that happen!

I look forward to working with E-Young on some other shoots in the future.

As of late I’ve been buying film, because I’ve had this resurgence of wanting to shoot film.  I’m going to start trying to incorporate film in to some of my upcoming shoots, and then in the future I would like to do some shoots on film only!  from one of my previous posts this year, it’s pretty established that I have plenty of 35mm film, and then plenty black and white 35mm at that! (I need to get some color, which is to come!), but 120 film I’m kind of lacking on (because I only started toying with medium format 5 years ago, and the only medium format cameras that I had at that time were a Holga and a Lubitel 166)  I’ve now added a Yashica 124 to my mix, and I’m hoping to be able to set aside some funds to get a Bronica SqA (that’s right I love the square format), so I’m trying out different types of film; I bought some Kodak Portra NC to try it out, and then I’ve been wanting some comparable Fuji Stock (NPH & NPZ) to shoot and compare.   So thanks to Ebay, 15 rolls of film have made their way from parts outside of Texas to my door step, fresh stock too.

And also in my Ebay trawling, I managed to snag a Polaroid land model 220, so I bought me a couple of boxes of Polaroid from Adorama as well, looking forward to shooting those, and learning how to effectively shoot with an older Polaroid model!

*PS, for some reason I didn’t move my old yearbook out of the shot, but I guess in a way it’s appropriate, it was all film back in 93

I had a couple of shoots, a couple of model shoots, a wedding, and these shots for Britini, a local actress/model who I met on Craigslist

Just got some images back from ScanCafe….shooting film these days takes some dedication; either you breakdown and get a scanner (and if you’re really serious, learn to hand process your own film, that way you don’t have to send it to a lab and wait almost 2 weeks to get it back…), or you subject yourself to the time it takes to get a couple of rolls developed and then paying the cost to have someone locally scan it (or send it off for scanning).


These are from the first time that me and Grant Meeks, met and we went for a small photowalk through the streets of downtown Dallas, he shot digital, so he had his post up on this within a week or so of us shooting it….me well it’s almost August and I’m just getting the images up, I got the disc from Scancafe back about a week ago.  I still want to shoot more film, I just need to make the investment so that I don’t have to have such a long turnaround time on the images.

Business Cards!

March 11, 2010

Being an amateur photographer, I’ve experienced when I’m out somewhere taking pictures of something, anything and someone sees what I’m shooting with, I get asked if I shoot ____ (family portraits, weddings, etc).  Last October I was at my niece’s birthday party, at Incredible Pizza, and one of the people working there was getting married and she asked me if I had a business card because she was looking for a wedding photographer.  Business cards?  They’re something that I know that I needed to get at some point in time, but also something that I stressed about quite a bit.  I wanted them to be perfect.  Did I need an image?  or several images?  Which ones?  Did I have “those” images that I could put on a card to advertise what I do?  What about text?  What about color?  Vertical or Horizontal?  I was sent an invite to attend a Pictage group meeting (which people who weren’t members could come, I’m not rolling like that….yet!), where the topic of discussion was going to be second shooting/shooters for wedding photographers.  Hmmm, I’m trying to be a wedding photographer (along with other subjects as well), and I’ve been looking for opportunities to second shoot for someone, and there’s going to be a discussion group on this topic, with plenty of networking opportunities.  As I was getting more and more excited about attending, I noticed a sentence saying “Bring lots of business cards”….Again with the Business Cards! There’s nothing like short term necessity that motivates you to action doesn’t it?  Thanks to the advice of Ashley Kinney (who also passed me along the invite to the Pictage meeting), she recommended VistaPrint, who just happened to be running a free business card promotion, free cards!  so I created an account, and had them rushed to me 3 day FedEx, and I must say for free business cards, I’m pleasantly surprised and happy with the way they turned out!

As I’ve been working on developing my music portfolio, I’ve been replying to ads like crazy, it’s what you gotta do sometimes!  Marktavious was one of a couple of responses that I recieved; so on a recent cold and gray Sunday, we took to the streets of  Dallas and shot some photos….First we stopped at a downtown parking garage and went all the way up to the 11th floor, the security guard that rolled up on us was pretty cool, he was just making sure that we didn’t jump off!

I totally think that the one on the right could be an EP/Album cover photo….not tooting my own horn or anything, it just has that feel to it.  After these, we made our way into Deep Ellum where I had seen this awesome red brick wall and I knew that it would make the perfect background, especially when I hit it with a 20 degree Grid spot….

This was a great shoot, Marktavious brought energy from the moment that I told him “Stand right here” and snapped the first test shots.  Looking forward to working with him again in the near future…hmmm…maybe we’ll get in the studio and throw down on the white seamless!

Oh, yeah, if you want to support local artists/music; Marktavious has a single for sale on Itunes, check it out right here.

.…printing 12×18′s is a must!


I just opened an account with FullColor Lab out in Dallas.  I know that it’s probably something little, but when you have to fill in a URL for your blog/website and then a day later you get a call to say that your account has been approved and that they’re ready to fill my first order, I was a bit excited!  It’s just the little things that give you validation…   I didn’t know what I wanted to print, but I know that I wanted to see how they did black and white so I picked a fairly recent image that I shot toward the end of last year:

The packaging was first rate, as well as the delivery time; I placed this order on Saturday, it was printed that day, and in my hands on Tuesday…very fast turnaround.

I’m very happy with the tones of the print; from the deep blacks of the shadows, to the greys, all the way to the whites of the highlights! Just have to size it next time so that I can have a border around the edges, I’ve never been too fond of borderless prints, it was extra to have them resize and add it, just need to take an extra couple of minutes in post next time….

Even the grain is showing through nice.  I can’t wait to use FullColor again!  Maybe a gallery wrap next time…


Oh yeah, KRS-1 will end this post (for those that might not know the reference of the title of this post, just give a click and listen)

I’ve been waiting for it seems like forever to go to a camera show, but it’s not like none have come around these parts; they have.  I saw that this past September, there was a show in Grapevine.  I just always seem to hear about the shows AFTER they’re over.  It’s been years since I’ve been to a show, they’re always a good place to pick up little odds and ends that you might have a hard time finding in your local camera shop, and you didn’t want to pay full price from like B&H or Calumet Photo.  Plus if you want to get some old film or early digital gear, there’s no better place  to get it.  I was excited because my favorite place to buy my gear KEH, was going to be in the house – buying gear on the spot and paying you in cash, then and there.  So I unloaded a couple of D1-series bodies that I stopped shooting regularly with when I bought my D300, and I said goodbye to my Tokina 12-24.  A great lens, I just wasn’t using it enough to justify keeping it.  Now that KEH put some cash in my pocket, I’m torn about what I should buy…I know that I’m getting a lens, something in a focal length that I’ll use.  I’ve narrowed it down to either the 85 1.8D, or the 20 2.8D….choices, choices.


I came across this one dealer’s table…well he wasn’t really a dealer.  He was a collector who was trying to sell off some of the cameras that he had collected throughout the years.  He was worried what would have happened to his collection if he passed away, that his kids would sell it at a garage sale, not knowing the value of the items.  He had a lot of great stuff, he let me shoot some photos of his items:

He had a lot of old Nikon manuals for lenses and for some of the motor drive models, and I wish I had bought that old Bolex!  Everything that he had was in immaculate condition…

He had 3 of those Speed Graphics, 3 of them, all in excellent condition.  Check out the box of KodaChrome II movie film by the old Bolexes!  And he was telling me how cool I would look with that Nikon 300 2.8 attached to one of my Nikons….I don’t really have any use for glass that long, but I couldn’t disagree with the coolness  factor!


Other than the cold hard cash that KEH put in my pocket, the only other thing that I left with was something else that is easy to find at camera shows: old film.  I saw a vendor selling rolls of film for $1 a roll, so I bought four rolls of Ektachrome 160T:

***Yeah, you’re seeing that right Expiration date: August 1984.  I’m curious to see what kind of results I can get from 26 year old film, see how much color shift I get!  Even though those eighties Kodak boxes are awesome as well, I hate the thought of cracking them open to get at that film inside.