Last spring I met up with Ellen at her place for a casual portrait shoot. It had been some time since I had photographed her. She had told me that she access to the roof top of her apartment and as sketchy as it felt getting out the window, it was completely worth it. The sun started going down so we went back inside to this patio where we would wrap up the evening. I can’t wait to meet up with Ellen again sometime in 2024 to have our annual hangout/photoshoot!
Lily Yasuda
Lily is a friend I first met when she was a manager for a local artist grant company, then got to meet a bit more through some mutuals. A few weeks ago she made an announcement that she was going to be leaving Boise and I asked if it would be possible to take her portrait one last time.
We met downtown Boise around golden hour and we just went light hunting for some spots to have some nice soft lighting but also play with some more harsh lighting. I’ve been enjoying the idea of playing in more harsh light because in photography, especially with portraits soft lighting is key. However at times that can get boring. Knowing that I would be putting Lily into some really high key sun, I’ve always wanted to have a diffusion filter to play with. Luckily the filters came in the mail hours before meeting up, but I used a 1/4 strength Neewer diffusion filter this entire shoot. Now if you have no idea what the hell a diffusion filter is, the main idea behind it is to diffuse highlights. Essentially, soften that harsh lighting. Digital photography has a real crisp edge and when things are sharp it’s very easy to notice. I didn’t want my digital photos to be so sharp, so this softens things and kinda gives a “dreamy” or “film” look.
I enjoyed getting out and taking Lily’s portrait. She is off to Chicago in a few months so I was happy she had time to meet up for a bit and be creative with me! Best of luck with your future plans Lily!
Downtown With Katie
I’ve honestly been terrible at updating all my work on this. Its unfortunate that I give Instagram more love than my actual website. At least here I can show whatever I want and also get to show bigger images rather than those tiny little image tiles haha.
Anyways, this was a shoot I did with Katie a few summers ago. She was a roommate of one of my friends and I had seen them create some fun portrait work together so I asked if she’d be interested in working together and she happily agreed to meet up and shoot. One thing I remember about this shoot with Katie, it was so ‘effin hot. We tried to hide in the shade as much as possible because it was when Boise was being hit with its usual 1 week of pure hell heat.
One of the main ideas I wanted with this shoot was to play with some color theory and focus on using Katies hair color and pant color to compliment or contrast our locations backgrounds. I started neutral with the white wall, moving to the orange and then finishing the shoot in this alley with an awesome blue wall.
Enjoy :D
Julie Rose
I met Julie via Instagram last year and I photographed her wedding and since then I’ve become good friends with her and her husband. They messaged me saying they were in town visiting family and that we should meet up. I then suggested why don’t we meet up and create some creative photographs just for fun and see what comes of it.
We had only about 90 minutes or so to shoot, already knowing I wanted to shoot some film I decided that is all I will do. No digital. Scary because I could just waste all our time, even though just hanging out with Julie and Jordan is always fun I still had expectation to have work to share. I brought out the Pentax 67 with the 105mm only along with two rolls of film: Tri-X- 400 and Lomography F2/400. I developed the black and white film myself and then the Lomo film was developed locally. However some light leaks happened with their people and at first I was really upset, but then as I scanned the negatives I saw how it played with the compositions quite well.
2019 started off with work I’m very proud of. I hope this year is filled with plenty of work that I can share and eventually do something with it. I want to either have a “zine” or even have work be displayed locally. I want to have more progression of myself as an artist this year.
