Some recent stuff I did for 2 local street culture magazines. I like to use my mono lights when shooting indoors on jobs like this, but the key I have come to understand is to use it in a style where it is clear that it is being used but doesn't take overhand. The back ground must as well be taken into consideration, this is something you learn when you are shooting on the streets or where ever you are shooting for that sake, what ever style you are doing. Look at Steve McCurrys photos and you will see what I mean. He is for me the ultimate master of how to use whats available and use it scarcely so the context of the image falls on the portraits eyes but fgoes in a tone harmony with the back ground. Well, Mr. McCurry does what he does and I do what I do and there is maybe a world apart, but I take inspiration from photographrs like him to get a better result of my own work. Elliot Erwitt and Arnold Newman are 2 other great masters I study, and of course Salgado and Annie Leibovitz.
I personally like the "One-Side-shadow" angle of a model, it gives the image and model an overall contrast easy to lay your eyes on as well as it gives it an easy amateurish style "feel" to the image, something which I like.
In this case with the guitar gal we wanted a bitchy underground style, not touching the fancy or cute, more the tacky or cheap. Could have been worse I beleive, which could have been better... next I wanna make it more "cheapish".
The skateboarder shot shows almost no part of the board in the image, a thing never heard of in Skateboarding magazines where the location of the feets and so on is of utter importance...bullshit! This image should make the reader to stop up flicking through the mag and actually read the article and look and more important, SEE the image. Well, this shot was not taken for a skateboard magazine and I wanted to give the viewer of this 2 page spread a sense of "speed" rather than being a skateboard shot. The person in the picture isn't a professional skater and the interview that follows isn't about being one either, but it is nevertheless an important part of his life and shapes who he is. He got written on his board "The Moment Of Truth" as well, which says alot and can give the photographer a stronger sense of who he is dealing with, how far he can strechit and how the shots can be done to suit both the magazine editors and designers needs as well as giving the subject a fair deal.
