And (hopefully) twice, unfortunately.
I have been in a photo contest for what feels like eternity on yobi.tv, it’s for a prize of $10,000 and a trip to NYC. I have now made it to the top three and the final two weeks thanks to the votes of wonderful folk such as yourself. One person gets eliminated per week, so one of the three will be knocked out Sunday night, then votes are reset for the next week (so I need a new vote after Sunday!).
So please, vote for my photograph by going to the following link: http://yobi.tv/yobipics/finalists/view/44
The photograph you are voting for is one I did in the Salt Flats in Utah last summer on my long Warped Tour road trip:
Keaton Andrew Salt Flats
Seriously, some of the nicest guys I’ve come across in the music industry. Always a pleasure to work with them!
I had a shoot a few weeks back for their label, Fearless Records. The photos were for promotional use, I’m assuming for the upcoming summer (warped tour and more). If you’re not a photographer, skip the following two paragraphs and go enjoy the photos!
I’m always attempting to figure out how to do something different in photos, I’m past the point of putting out the same drivel over and over. If you’re searching for inspiration, push yourself to photograph someone in a way they’ve never been captured before. I chose to shoot with gels and use multiple exposures on film to capture a unique look on some of these photos. Maybe for you this means lighting by using a mirror to reflect a light. It also might mean photographing without a face being shown at all.
Push yourself, find something else! It’s so difficult to separate yourself as an image maker in this industry. Would you rather be one of 500 people who put out a certain consistent look or one of one? Even if that image is one less sought for, you’ve put yourself ahead by having less competition. Strobist.com recently featured the work of Atton Conrad on a post about light painting. I highly doubt Atton is facing as much competition as most photographers.
anyway, photos from my Breathe Carolina shoot! The first four are film shots, the last one is digital.
Breathe Carolina
Breathe Carolina
Breathe Carolina
Breathe Carolina
Breathe Carolina
I’m not going to get into the debate, but if your mentality towards the whole thing is like that of Chris Shively… seriously? I hate how people believe they just automatically deserve something for free.
Quote from an Alternative Press story:
In 2006, Chris Shively, 27, a DJ from Chicago who performs as CHRISSY MURDERBOT broke his arm very badly and required surgery.
Chrissy Murderbot“They put a metal plate and eight screws in my wrist, a procedure for which I owe about $10 thousand that I still haven’t paid. In any other developed country, this procedure would’ve been free, and it damn well ought to have been free in the richest country on earth.”
Really? So you get hurt, go to a hospital, have doctors work on you and supply you with medical items and products… and you think this ought to have automatically been free?
I’m not sure how I feel about my generation.
Don’t lower your pricing just to make sure you get a shoot, particularly if it’s a new client. You’ll be stuck at that price or near it for a while. It might suck sometimes, but stick to your higher pricing, even if that means losing shoots. Don’t don’t DO NOT undersell yourself. You’re only hurting both yourself AND the industry by doing that.
Fun shot from a recent Dead Bury Dead shoot I had the other week. Shot a short film that day as well, expect that within a month or two. Click the photo to view larger.
Ingredients -
One giant blanket acting as a cheap 4×8 flag.
Three lights
One smoke grenade (note – obtain more next time. They don’t last long)
Various mixed surplus war apparel.
Fake blood and soot
One killer cigar.
Mix well in an empty field area, bake at ISO 100 400 and pick the best shot for final promotional use. Season to taste.
They seem to be blowing up, I figured it would happen. Just today for example, I went and checked out a video review from gamespot.com on the game Borderlands and a Cage the Elephant song was playing throughout the entire review.
I did a shoot with Cage the Elephant earlier this year, was part of a Sony/Red Summer Music Guide/Mini AP magazine. I had one of the four covers, we did the shoot (stressfully!) at Bamboozle east. Had twenty minutes with the band to pull off two looks, and while it ended up being more like 1 1/2 looks, it came out well.
Here is my favorite photo from the shoot, it’s also posted on my website under the “music” section. They’re coming through Atlanta November 21st.
Cage the Elephant (www.keatonandrew.com)
Quick little update, did another shoot with The Boys of Summer on Monday during my visit to Ohio. Shot in the Temple Court area of Mansfield, one of the neatest areas to shoot I’ve come across over the years. When it comes to finding locations, the best ones are where you can get different looks in the same area. Free is always good, too.
both of these were lit with a single softbox and edited in both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. I’ve been trending into simplicity with my work lately. I like the clean, simple look and that’s what I got with these. The first shot was shot with my Canon 50mm f1.4 lens and the second with the Canon 85mm f1.8. The 50 1.4 tends to have some issues on the left side when shot wide open, large amounts of blue chromatic aberration in particular. When I can afford it, the 50L is definitely next on my list.
The Boys of Summer
The Boys of Summer
Finally had a chance to shoot outdoors for the first time in a long time. This is Aaron Van Dike, also part of Five Giants Studio.
Sadly, it appears Safari 4 has broken the links section in wordpress for the moment, so I’ll have to provide links through text at the moment.
www.flickr.com/photos/aaronvandike to see aaron’s work
www.fivegiantsstudio.com to see what we’re about. There’s some crazyyyyy things happening we can’t tell you about yet 
A forewarning: this is not about photography, but instead one of the random thoughts that occasionally plagues my brain until I allow it an avenue of escape in the form of writing. If you desire something creative instead, take a look at the video I’ve been working on. Also keep in mind I didn’t really have an english education after my sophomore year in high school, so my writing ability may be lacking somewhat 
Dreams are one of the more interesting occurrences in the world we exist in. I say exist, because are we truly alive? I look at us in this existence, and I fail to see us as alive. If we were alive, we would embrace our surroundings in different ways. Existence, however, I shall leave for another post.
I rarely dream. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. By dream, I speak of the world our minds fall into as we slumber. It’s something I rarely find myself in. Of course, this likely means that I usually simply forget my dreams as they happen. I have noted something in my dreams of late though, as I have been fortunate enough in remembering them: a common variable.
All of my dreams feature something missing, wrong, or out of place. And every single time, no one else notices. It ranges from something as simple as a basketball game being played on the court sideways instead of the normal way with one of the hoops over some of the seats to something such as black coal marks on everyones’ faces. The former was an actual recent dream, the latter was simply an example.
I, being more of a cynical, logical person, have never seen my dreams as having any true connection or meaning in my real life. (Many Christians have, I’m not saying they haven’t. I just don’t see it with me.) However, I do believe I have found a tie-in with this. We as human beings often ignore the most basic of things. We see the struggles in the world, and we hurt for those far away from us. We then walk right beside someone hurting just as bad and do nothing, see nothing, we do not care. It’s a blatant attempt to feel better about our position. “Surely that only happens to them. My world is perfect, I am happy” we say to ourselves. In the process, we blind ourselves to our friends, even to our family. We deem what we have as wonderful, when it is just as blemished as what’s out there.
Why do we focus on the suffering of those on the other side of the world when there’s suffering in our own homes, towns, streets? I don’t understand it. Perhaps thiscomes across slightly self-centered, but I disagree.
I’m afraid I just used up all of my inspiration, and I failed to completely finish my thoughts. Perhaps you could leave some of your own thoughts on this? I find it difficult to publish this, as I always do when I post something that includes an opinion of mine. I have a problem with assuming I’m usually wrong about things such as this.
