I was looking through some of the images I’ve shot of Dallas-area professionals, and thought I’d share a few. There is a good mix here, including the head of the Bar Association, a video production company executive, and a business consultant.
I Hope You Subscribe…
I subscribe to the Dallas Morning News… it’s a good paper, and I’m always finding an important story to read. I hope you subscribe, too. Not to mention, it gives you a chance to see more of my photos, like this one of the recent Death Cab For Cutie concert:
Give The Drummer Some Credit…
Rock and Roll drummers often get overlooked by photographers. Maybe because they are tucked away at the back of the stage, or maybe because the lead singer gets all the attention. Either way, a good music photographer should always check out the the action back there… it can make for some pretty intense imagery!
Did you spot some famous faces? You might not be used to recognizing the creators of your favorite beats, but you’ve just seen pictures from The Police, Mute Math, My Morning Jacket, Secret Machines, The Roots, The Black Keys and more. Who knew percussion photos could be so fun?!?
Dear Carrie Brownstein…
Carrie Brownstein of the Washington rock group Sleater-Kinney performs at the Gypsy Tea Room on September 13, 2002.
I’ve had a secret crush on Carrie Brownstein for over a decade now. Long before she started getting recognized by regular folks for her wonderful acting/comedy efforts on Portlandia… Even before most of the hipster music kids jumped on the Sleater Kinney bandwagon in the mid-2000’s… I photographed her on stage a couple times over the years at Deep Ellum‘s Gypsy Tea Room, and was always mesmerized by her stage presence. This girl can rock!
If You Read FD Luxe..
If you read FD Luxe, you’ll see my photos. Of course, you’ll also see my photos run in D Magazine, D CEO, USA Today, The NY Times, The Dallas Morning News, Businessweek, and a million other places… it just so happens that a copy of the current FD Luxe was the closest thing to my desk at the moment. But, you get the idea. Keep an eye out!
Photos of SMU…
I was scouting locations this week for a magazine that wants to do portraits of our Olympic athletes for an upcoming issue. They plan to do all the shoots in Dallas, so I had to go through and take detailed images of each potential location. Though I only do it occasionally, some location scouts do this full time.
One of the locations I scouted was the SMU campus. I’ve always enjoyed the architecture of the old buildings, but this gave me a new fondness for some of the under appreciated parts of the campus. The school has been around for a hundred years, so it’s had plenty of growth and change over the years.
The photos below are from the old natatorium. The brick, wood and metal throughout the building seemed to hum and vibrate with stories of the past. I could almost hear a swim meet from the 1940’s taking place. It would be fun to go back and really document the lesser-known parts of the campus with an 8×10 camera, instead of just zipping through it with my Canon 5DmkII.
Student Life…
I was recently hired to photograph student life at a north Texas trade school. The campus was pretty great, teaching all sorts of technical skills. They had nursing, carpentry, electric, culinary and more. All the students seemed very nice and pretty happy, which says a lot for the program. Here are some sample shots of what I got the other day, while shooting these students in action…
If you like these photos and want to see more, you should visit my official website at www.janikphoto.com or give me a call. I’d love to work with you, too!
Surfin’ Safari…
If you are a Beach Boys fan, you should pick up today’s issue of The Dallas Morning News. Mario wrote a very accurate review of their Dallas show (OK, Verizon Theater is technically in Grand Prairie, but you know what I mean). Sadly, my picture only made the jump, but not the front page. Oh, but I did have a second photo run with Mario’s official DMN blog post. Go hunt that one down, if you need even more Beach Boys in your life!
Using A Fan With Portraits…
The use of a fan can do a lot for a photograph. There are companies that make fans specifically for professional photo and video use, but they cost a pretty penny. So, I decided to use a standard box fan for this demonstration – something that most anyone can pick up for under twenty dollars (if you don’t already have one in your closet).
The above photo is our model without any fan. She is very photogenic, and this photo is just fine on its own! These three photos are not touched up, so you can better see the effects of the fan. The only adjustments were a basic crop for continuity and a basic contrast adjustment – the same adjustment was done on all three frames to maintain continuity.
The above frame has some mild air blowing… nothing too strong or wild. There’s just enough wind to give the hair a little lift. It is a very appealing look. I prefer it over the first image, though ANY fan may be out of the question for more conservative subjects. For example, when I photographed the President of the United States, I didn’t even consider using a fan.
This is what I would call the Farrah Fawcett look. Lots of lift on the hair, which is very pretty – but way too much if you’re taking a conservative photo, like a corporate head shot. Of course, I have never used a fan for corporate head shots, but I could see the mild fan setting being acceptable for just the right CEO.
Now, if I were making some other post processing adjustments to this photo, I’d probably do the following: The hair in the red circle looks too thin. I’d clone that area to fill it up. The stray hairs in the blue area are a bit distracting, so they’d be cloned out. The highlights in the green circles are a touch too hot, so they’d be brought down some. The freckles in the yellow circles could be removed or softened. Also, a general softening of the skin and a minor vignette would be added to bring more focus to the model’s wonderful smile. You can see these minor adjustments below…
Of course, you can keep going and going with all sorts of post processing tweaks, nipping, tucking, liquifying, and adjusting until the photo looks like someone else entirely! I prefer to keep my images looking very natural and real, so I usually avoid going overboard. I think she looks great already, so why mess with success?!?
Pictures of Dallas 1977…
I didn’t make it to Dallas until the summer of 1979, so I won’t be in any of these photos. However, it’s still fun to look through the archives of Nick DeWolf and his trips to Dallas (and other cities). It’s mostly just casual snapshots, so don’t expect to see some sort of Pulitzer-wining documentary work here. However, it’s still a blast to dig through photos of the Texas State Fair dating back thirty five years or more.