Shaun Bailey Photography

Gots myself a new photoblog

2010-04-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

I don't even know if people still look at this thing anymore because it's been so long since I have posted anything, but I decided that with starting up my new website which you can visit here, that I would start fresh with a new blog as well, which you can visit here. I will be updating that fairly often and hopefully everyone will like the layout a bit more.

2010-03-03T11:38:00.001-08:00

Weekend in Boston

2010-02-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

Had a pretty sweet weekend in Boston. I met up with my old bud Joel and crashed at his house. He helped me out with some night time shots outside of the city and also in the city on Saturday. I did a shoot at this restaurant called Pazzo in Boston. They were super nice and asked after I took pictures of them if I could get some of the restaurant for their website!

I'm pretty excited simply because I've never had my photos used on an actual functioning website that wasn't my own! I'll put more from that day up later. This was just what I couldn't handle waiting for after getting home last night.

New Portraits

2010-01-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have been pretty rough for lots of reasons, but with everything going on, it's been pretty distressing trying to keep my morale up. I've been pretty down about the progress I've been making with everything and wondering what i'm going to be doing when I get done.

We received a portrait assignment to choose one of four magazines to do a cover for, Wired, Sports Illustrated, Seventeen, and Time magazine. I chose Wired because it seemed like it would be the most fun.

I ended up getting sick the day we had set aside for that assignment and wasn't able to get it done until tonight! and it is due at 7:45am tomorrow morning!

So Lauren was nice enough to help me out with it and it ended up turning out really great! Kris came in towards the end and wanted some shots of her new hair-do so we played around with some more lighting for her and ended up with a really neat picture. I was pretty unsure about how it was going to work but when I got everything on the computer I was really excited for what we ended up getting.

It's been a while since I can really say I'm super jazzed with what I'm coming out with. I think I'm really hard on myself and really want to be content and happy with the progress I'm making but never can seem to let my breath out when I finish a piece of work. But tonight I think I can let out a good breath of contentment.

I'm by far where I want to be as a photographer and have a long way to go, but I'm really feeling blessed tonight.

We're on our way Kari!

New stuff

2010-01-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

Haven't been around here much and figured I'd put something on here just in case people actually look at it. Here is some stuff I've been pretty stoked on recently.

This is Lauren. She's a cool band photographer kind of girl from Vermont. We had a class from Gregory Heisler about how you can take a really good photo with stuff bought from Home Depot! He bought a bunch of florescent lights and work lights to give a difference in tones. If you can look at her eyes, I had the long florescent light going horizontally behind a shower curtain to soften it and the yellow light at 10 oclock. It came out really cool I think. and with crap materials that didn't cost an arm and a leg!

I was able to get a bunch of my "Holga" negatives and scan them in at school. Film has kindof become the "artsy" way of doing photography because the industry has obviously gone digital. But I have been dying to get these scanned in properly to have a really lasting file for these pictures.

This is Colin again. We had a high key assignment and I really liked the way this one turned out.

Portrait fun

2009-12-13T20:37:00.001-08:00

Colin, originally uploaded by shaun m bailey.

We had an assignment to take PR shots and when we were done with that, we needed to change clothes and everything for a fun shot. This is Colin, he had the black shirt and tie, so I decided to grab a red gel to put over the light and play with poses.
The crazy eye was just me bored while in photoshop and to see if I could white out his eye. I think it makes the photo a bit more interesting. ; )

Strobes and Artsy

2009-12-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

Got a chance to go up in the smallest plane in creation and take some pictures. When we were done, we got to take out a strobe kit and play around with it! I actually had more fun with the strobes than flying (not much fun taking pictures through a dirty old plexiglas window)

But Dakota, Kris, and I were able to get some pretty cool stuff!

Boston Temple

2009-11-17T18:49:00.000-08:00

This is the only good one I have thus far, but we'll be heading to Boston for Thanksgiving and I might be able to get some more. Let me know what you think!

dorky demo

2009-11-11T14:14:00.001-08:00

So i thought just seeing a photo of silverware doesn't look all that cool, so I remembered taking a picture without the screen I used to soften the light and making the silverware that cool white color, so I merged the who photos together and erased the spoon and fork to show the polished soft look. Pretty crazy right?

COMMERCIAL!!

2009-11-11T11:25:00.001-08:00

We're actually getting into stuff that will look pretty instead of just accurate! We're starting phase 2 with photographing metals. So we had to go get a set of silverware to photograph and make it look good. Our commercial instructor made the comment that after one day in the studio we will produce a better image than 90% of the other stuff out there. (speaking about silverware) and I researched different placement settings on sites like Crate & Barrel and Williams Sonoma and he wasn't kidding! But whatever, I think the stuff I did turned out pretty good. Take a look!

These cologne bottles were just for funsies after I finished up with the silverware. The dark one on the right was an accident and I'm so glad i made it cause it looks really cool. I have a light meter to get the correct exposure from the lights I had set up on it and forgot to plug it back in to the camera. So when I fired the shutter, the only light on the product were the pilot lights. I just had to bring up the exposure a bit and got this really neat silhouetted vignette look. But the other one turned out pretty good!

MAMIYA!!!!

2009-10-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

So we got our Mamiya camera today and I am officially stoked and overwhelmed! This thing is a beast! The smallest picture in the middle is the Leaf Aptus digital back that cost the school ALOT of money. I can't wait to take this thing into the studio!

Three bits of good news!

2009-10-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

First:
This is a video that one of our instructors does that is teaching us about photojournalism and the stock photography industry. He puts them on youtube about different stuff we're doing at school. I'm excited because one of my photos made the video! It may not seem like much, but it's really exciting for everyone here when one of the staff recognizes one of your photos. The photo below is the one on the video... it's at the very beginning!!

Second:

We finally stepped into the studio!!!!! So the picture below is the first of many pictures that I will be doing in the product studio! French's Fried Onions anyone???

Third:

There's a story and a couple parts to this one, so take a breath.... ok.

There is an instructor here named Gregory Heisler (www.gregoryheisler.com). I didn't know who he was before coming here, but I really know him now!

Anyways, Gregory is an amazing portrait photographer that worked for another amazing photographer that was pretty much huge in the photographic world. His name was Arnold Newman (www.arnoldnewmanarchive.com). One of the assignments given to us by Gregory was kind of in homage to Arnold Newman. Newman had a very distinct way of taking a portrait that has in many aspects died with him. He really pioneered location portraiture. I.E. taking a photo of the president in the Oval Office instead of a studio. Or a pianist with a piano, but in a really radical way. Here are a couple of his shots. And you have to remember these were the 40's and 50's, really different from what was mainstream.

So the assignment was to look at Mr. Newman's stuff and apply it to a portrait of a partner. I took mine of a good friend here named Jon. There was a couple of Newman's photos that stuck out to me which is how I came up with the picture below. To me his images were really "quiet" and very geometrical. And rarely was the person in the middle of the frame.

So for the cool part, Gregory was the keynote speaker at the International Photo Expo in New York City this past weekend and was introducing a fund in honor of Arnold Newman. He spoke about the time he worked with Arnold and showed how some of his work has been indirectly influenced by Newman. At the end of his speech, he showed about 10 photos from our school of the assignment he had us do

AND MINE WAS ONE OF THEM!!!!!! He gave us a breakdown of his speech to us today and showed us the photos he used. I seriously almost cried. Only because these few weeks here have already had their ups and downs. From turning assignments in wrong, to not feeling up to par with some of the other kids here, being away from Kari and Olivia (which believe me, has been the hardest part and if you can ever avoid being away from your family, do it!!) But to have someone like Gregory Heisler recognize one of your photos AND to use it in an internationally recognized expo in a room with so many other huge names in photography, was really nice.

It really made me feel like I didn't make a mistake by coming here and that I really can do my own thing and it be ok.

Flash is wonderful!

2009-10-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

We had an assignment for flash today that dealt with taking photos at specific settings indoors and outdoors, and also incorporating action. This one of Jon was just a snapshot after Kris was done with him. I told him to look "emo", I think he did a good job.

And the one below is a guy named Chris I got at the skate park in Turners. I really enjoyed shooting this and asked if he and some of the other skaters cared if we came another day to shoot them again. I think it's so much fun. They would love it. So I'm excited to go tomorrow afternoon!

Stock Photography Assignment

2009-10-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

I'm having a hard time picking what I want to do for my stock assignment, I think I like this one, but I had another image that was good to, but I think I'm set on this one.

We basically need a horizontal and vertical representation of the subject, another one that it totally different from the first two, and a last one that we "unleash our creativity" with. The one below was my horizontal, but I think the one I picked fits with the set better. I dunno! BAH!!

Here's some of me

2009-10-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

So just as much as i've been taking pictures of other people, I'm having to get in front of the lens too! I really don't like it and feel really awkward, but supposedly it will help us in the future and make us empathetic to our subject. whatever, it's still awkward!

Kris took these pictures of me through our different assignments we've had. Some are nice, and obviously, we were fooling around with different poses. Tell me what you think!

A Day in Shelburn Falls

2009-10-08T18:54:00.001-07:00

We had a field trip to a little town in the mountains of MA called Shelburn Falls, the assignments (note the plurality, not just one assignment) was focused on contrasting and complementing colors to make a more striking photo, and the other was an exercise on depth of field and how to make it do what you want. These are some pictures that I really liked, so tell me what you think!

Some pictures

2009-10-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a minute since I posted some actual pictures. I had some fun with these so I figured I'd show some off. Let me know what you think!

This guy cracked me up, right as he jumped, his pocket got stuck on the swing and he freaked out in the air and landed like a cat. His face is priceless.

This is Kris, I am forever indebted to her for coaching me on how to get the "sunburst" light flare in a picture and not make it look like an overexposed piece of poop. Kari knows I have tried and failed many times to try and make this look good and hopefully it sticks, cause this is a super cool look!

We had an exercise during one of the classes to go out and take a lifestyle photo with the people "texting" and could be used in a stock photography agency website. I think it turned out pretty good, except for the sunlight going through the poor girls head!

Another one of our assignments was to "pan" a moving vehicle to make it in focus and the background blurred. I love the way this one turned out, but for the assignment, it needed to be the entire vehicle, and sadly this one cut off in the middle.

We had another assignment to mimic the style of a really great portrait photographer that had been around since the 50's named Arnold Newman. He was kind of like the Picasso of photography. He used weird composition, lots of symmetry, and were really "quiet" pictures. And obviously black and white because he was from before color. This is Jon, I took this at his apartment.

This was for another assignment, but the cool thing about this one is that when I was messing with it on the computer in class, one of the instructors asked if they could use it in this years catalog for the school! I was really flattered, just because there are so many really great kids with a heck of a lot more imagination than me when it comes to this game, and it really helped that he would want to use this to represent the school! Especially just in week 3 of the program! So hopefully we'll be able to get this one in there!

This was goofing around during one of the classes about perspective and angles. It's been done before, but I've never done it so I wanted to get it out of my system. So there ya go!

The next two are for an assignment that I'm turning in tomorrow(10-6) by 7:45am! It was supposed to be for an energy drink ad. I absolutely love the way they turned out, but I'm a little frustrated with myself, because we were supposed to incorporate movement with the photo and he is obviously posed... Oh well, hopefully they like the photo enough to look past it....pays to look at the directions better... But I can't decide which one I like better.

OK, last but not least, these are some photo's we did at the Clark Art Museum in western Mass. (it was like 10 min.s from the NY border!) Anyways, we were supposed to do architectural shots, abstract shots, and stuff inside. I figured out from some of the design classes how so correct "barreling " that happens when you take a photo with a telephoto lens. You can see it most in the third one, but I am going to have to perfect this if I'm going to be working in Dallas...lots of architectural work in Dallas. Anyways, I wanted to show the before and after shots and the ones under are just bigger files to show the "after" shots. Hope you like em!

The greatest SNL skit they've ever done

2009-10-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

got bored again

2009-10-04T02:07:00.000-07:00

I got all carried away with photoshop again tonight. I wanted to see what i could do and this is pretty basic, but it will be fun to learn some more at school!

Design

2009-09-29T20:55:00.001-07:00

Part of the program here at Hallmark is the design side. We're mainly going to learn how to put together our own letterhead, logo, cards, and more self promotional stuff. I really like it though.

I've had very little experience on Photoshop and am really excited to get going with all this.

Anyways, one of the starting exercises was to work with lines. They showed us a few things to manipulate lines and stuff and let us loose. She gave us words to portray with lines.

Tell me what you think!

Just kidding, THESE ones are rediculous!

2009-09-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

No need to explain, just awesome!

crazy interesting video

2009-09-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

So one of our assignments is to put together an idea book. (and by book in this age, (they mean a folder in Adobe Lightroom, not an actual book...)

Anyways, they have a whole slew of websites to help us find stuff, and one was called www.booooooom.com no joke, there are that many o's in the name. But whatever, while I was looking for photos and design ideas, I came across this video and all it said about it was that it was amazing.

So I watched it and it really does show how technology is going. Kinda amazing, but kinda weird too.Now the music is really not very good, but the video is really creative. I hope you like it, if you don't like the song,(which is in an asian language, just listen to another song and think its for that : )

Kris

2009-09-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

We had a photo assignment to photograph using a light meter, a grey card, and a reflector so we were paired up in teams of three to accomplish this. The third person acted as an assistant to hold the reflector and we rotated who took pictures of who.

This is Kris and she was really funny. She reminded me of an old co-worker Alexis. For the assignment, we simply send over the files, but I really wanted to beef em up a little bit so here are some before and after shots. I didn't do much to them, just kicked em up a notch.

Afternoon in greenfield

2009-09-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

Jon

2009-09-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

This is Jon, he's going to Hallmark with me and we went out tonight to do some pictures. He's had quite a bit more experience with lighting and had some gear, so we went to a park and he showed me how to put stuff together. The mosquitos about drove us mad, so we weren't there too long.

Old Deerfield

2009-09-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Our first field trip was to a little...very little...town that has dedicated itself to preserving all the old houses and building from 2-300 years ago. Apparently the people that live in the houses can't actually own them, they are owned by the preservation society and they allow the people to live there. There were a slew of private schools though which were pretty exclusive. We most of the restrictions we had were to steer clear of a few of them because they didn't want us there.

It was a lot of fun just to have the time to go out and shoot. I walked around with a few other students, went on my own, and left a little after 3.

The assignments were light driven, and with it having been overcast pretty much the entire day, there wasn't much to work with, but i'm hoping I got what they were looking for.

2009-09-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple from that cemetary a few days ago. I just like em

Nature excursion

2009-09-12T15:28:00.001-07:00

I seem to be have been in an abstract and close up mood today.

The only lens I took with me was my 50mm which is an awesome little lens that lets in lots of good light (which is really nice in rainy dark weather) and is really good for doing close-ups and making really shallow depths of field... (i.e. focused in part faded to blurry)

It helps to create a cool dreamy effect if thats what your going for.

Being my first weekend and only having had orientation at school, we haven't had any official classes or received our cameras yet, so I'm still having to slump with my little camera. ; )

It has been sprinkling all night and today so I got my umbrella and set off. It started with a farmers market on Main St. then just getting in my car and driving around. The picture of the river is right outside of Turners Falls on a bridge next to some factory and the other two were just out and about.

A Cemetery in Greenfield

2009-09-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

It's my first Friday alone since Kari and Olivia left and it's pretty sad. After we were done with school and I started driving home, I realized I have another 2 days with nothing to do. So I needed to find something to do. I went scouting for stuff to shoot and realized as I was driving past a cool church that there was a cemetery connected to it.

I know it might be morbid, but New England has the best cemeteries. They can be soo eerie yet just simply look awesome. And the fact that the town I'm in was settled in the late 1600's makes finding old tombstones even cooler.

2009-09-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

Well, after a long time we finally made it this weekend to massachusetts! we stopped by the school on saturday because they were closed on monday due to the holiday. Kari and I really liked it and I am way excited to get started tomorrow! (the lady that showed us around told us that Bill Cosby actually lives about 20 min's from here and his private jet is not joke vanilla and chocolate colored!)

Here is the house I have made my home for the next 10 months. It's a cool old hundred year old house and there are 3 guys, including me, and the land lords living in it.

We shot this video of Olivia today at the tail end of her doing "peek-a-b00" with me while I was getting her ready to go to airport in Boston.

Here is a snip of the little... and I mean little.... studio apartment i'm renting. It's basically a glorified bedroom with a refrigerator and stove. (and no table, hense lunch on the bed)

After a very emotional send off of Kari and Olivia today, I had a few hours to kill before I met up with my old friend Joel. So I came across this old church and square that had a cool farmers market going on and lots of fun stuff. It made me feel like I was Paris again...but alone : (

Fields & Flowers

2009-08-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

These are a couple of shots I did before a family shoot.

Preggers Pictures

2009-08-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

One of my co-workers Lauren is expecting and asked me to take some pictures for her. I think they turned out pretty good. ; )

Seigert preview

2009-07-25T19:33:00.001-07:00

I didn't have much time to do much tonight, but here's a preview of more to come!!

2009-06-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

I wanted to re-vamp this blog because it will be the one I most update when I head to school in Sept. I was messing with some pictures from Europe a few weeks ago and really like this one.