The variety of work I have the honor of doing is amazing. It also makes it difficult to describe when someone asks “what kind of work do you do?” One of my clients is the GSU Fiber Arts department; a couple of times a year I shoot the student’s work. Practically every time there is something I find exceptional. This time, it was these masks, by Amanda Whitaker.

I’ve shot Aalia’s work for years, but this is the first time we’ve shot on models. There were always a few men’s pieces mixed into the shoots, but I didn’t realize there was a whole men’s collection until we scheduled this shoot. Really enjoyable to see all the designs together and shooting for a sense of style, rather than individual pieces.

Some of the amazing pieces of jewelry I shot for Brenda Smith last week. Such a variety of work. I always have to look extra closely at each piece, as Brenda is fond of hiding small diamonds, so you only see them when they sparkle… lots of sparkle…

Just shot a gallery opening for fiber artist Carla Powell. Fascinating work, mostly in deeply colorful silk thread. The theme of the show combines with Carla’s commitment to teach women in Nepal how to set up and run their own businesses as a means to becoming self reliant and raise them out of poverty situations.

I shot this ad campaign and booth graphic images for a high-end commercial lighting company. The art director and I concepted the shots before we ever saw the product or understood its scale — which was way smaller than either of us thought. Our main shot was of two lighting fixtures suspended between the box of artist’s pastels and the camera.   After completing several variations on our main shot I suggested working the lights into the pastels since, like the pastels themselves, the lights come in a variety of hues designed to match a retail store’s existing light color.

I was fascinated by a series of 18th century paintings I recently saw at the Portland Museum of Art.  So much so, that I decided to recreate the feel of them when I set up this shoot with actress Hayden Bishop.  I spent a lot of time with those paintings but got pulled away before taking down the artist’s name.  I’m now in a search to find out who he was and see more of his work.

What do you do when your ladder won’t reach?… you learn to fly!

I started out with that arm flapping thing — and sure, I could get a little lift but there was no way I could also operate a camera — so I added a drone to my collection of camera platforms.  My drone had a nasty on-the-job accident a few months back (I don’t want to talk about it) but that hasn’t kept me grounded.  The new improved model should be in soon, but in the meantime, I’ve been working with a hand built, duel control drone.  For this model, the pilot controls the aircraft, while I control the camera.  This is a great combo for difficult flying conditions like populated areas or obstacles in close proximity to the ideal shooting angle.  I’ve been shooting both video and stills with the drone.  For this particular shot, my client needed stills of some baseball diamonds for a commercial display.  This is the first of many.

The new Decatur police station — one of several shots for a forthcoming police recruitment brochure.  I was surprised to hear that there’s a fair amount of turnover in the Decatur police department, due to the fact that there are almost no high speed chases… or anything else to do for that matter.  The city realized that to attract the right kind of officers, they needed to start advertising how nice it is to be on bike patrol or otherwise hang out at the square.

To show this building at it’s best, I had to create a composite of several shots.  The flag, Marta train, officers, and pedestrians were all from different shots — like lapse photography, but where I combined the best parts of all the images.  We also couldn’t get into several offices to turn the lights on, so I recreated the lighting by pulling parts from other windows.

Cleopatra was envious — or would have been if she’d seen this necklace by Lainey Papageorge.

I’m currently working with Lainey on a retrospective of her work for a show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta.  These pieces are amazing.  Only about 100 left to do… piece of cake…

“On another note, I have been accepted into the first three juried shows that I have heard back from! I think that is outstanding and were it not for your fabulous photography, I suspect there would have been a very different outcome.”

Susan Toole

Brimstone Studio, Atlanta