Music
Towards the end of 2020 I worked with Singer/Songwriter Matt Jackson on photographs for his new EP album GROWTH 101.
I got to pour potting soil all over his face and stick plants into his mouth. It was a fantastic session for a fantastic guy and a really excellent grouping of songs that Matt wrote.
Read about our session after the cut:
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A few weeks before Covid-19 closed down the world in the spring of 2020 I got together with singer/songwriter Liz Simmons to make photographs for her first solo album in 15 years: POETS
An in-depth blog post covering the process from shooting to album design after the cut.
Read MoreTim’s Tunes Episode 2 is up! If you dig videogames, Legend of Zelda and instrumental Hip-Hop, this is for YOU!
Enjoy!
Tim’s Tunes Episode 1 is live.
This is Tim. These are his tunes.
Slow down and listen to the music.
Enjoy!
Cubicle Zombies and war paint and time machines. Since 2012 Weather Mcnabb and I have been trying to work together. In 2018 we finally got to create images for her 5 song EP “Cubicle Zombie”
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I've always surrounded myself with music - in my primary school days I was buying cassettes and records and would sit at home and just listen and digest all these forms of music; from rock to new-age to film soundtracks to rap - I would just absorb it like a sponge. And that has never changed and there isn't a time when I'm not listening to music. I recently brought a record player and all my records to my photography studio so I can spin while I'm working on client images, and I always have a playlist going when I'm photographing someone or something.
I'm not in any way a music critic, nor do I contain a music critics vernacular, but I thought I'd mention a few artists/albums I've been playing a lot lately and maybe find some new ears and make them a few new fans, because they are all awesome.
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Spent some time with my Daft Punk action figures and some small LED christmas lights.
I recently picked up their album "Random Access Memories" on vinyl. I have the cd, but the vinyl release sounds so much warmer.
an homage of Donald Byrd’s “A New Perspective” cover
I love record and album design. Part of what I hope to do as a photographer is make images and help musicians design album covers for their releases. I love the square format of album covers. And nobody has made better album covers than the jazz music label Blue Note Records. There was a period in the 1950's and 1960's where Blue Note was producing what I consider the greatest album design in history. I wanted to share a little bit about it and why I love it so much.
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I’ve recently dug out my old record collection, moved it to the studio, and have been doing something I haven’t done in decades: spin records. Music moves me in a way I can’t explain. I have it playing all the time. I spent my 20’s working in record stores. I love photographing musicians that need images for things like album/cd covers and packaging. After the cut, I’m going to do a bunch of talking about my history with them, their importance to me, and why I won’t ignore my records again
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As y'all probably know by now, I love action figures and toys. I've always had an action figure in my hand since I was a little kid. I'm a bit of a pop-culture junkie, and when I was in college, I started photographing some of my toys as portraits, and over the years I've done a few series' and lots of individual images.
toys hanging on studio wall and displayed on shelf
For Christmas, Sara got me a few figures that had me really excited. One was a Michael Jackson figure dressed in his "Smooth Criminal" video outfit, and the second was a Freddie Mercury figure, both by Japanese toy makers BanDai & Tamashii Nations, who also made the totally awesome Daft Punk figures I got years ago.
I spent a little time with Michael Jackson at the studio one afternoon. It also gave me a chance to try out a can of Atmosphere Aerosol. I've been using and having terrible luck with Fog Machines for years. I've bought three different brands of fog machine and every time I've tried to follow the directions exactly as listed in the manuals and these machines would always bind or gunk up after my very first use. It got so frustrating when these stupid things wouldn't work any longer.
I was poking around the Interwebz and saw a wedding photographer using this Atmosphere Aerosol for a portrait in a barn. It was small and portable, unlike those big fog machines, and you could use it over and over without it gunking up. Cool.
So I ordered a can from B&H and it arrived and I sat down with Micheal and we started taking some images. For the record, I also had MJ playing on the stereo at the studio. Just 'cuz.
Michael comes with a bunch of extra hands in different poses, a 2nd face with a different expression, and he also comes with a second torso (seen in the photo above) in his "Michael-Jackson-arms-stretched-straight-up" pose. Totally awesome.
Eventually I got him posed in the image above and the lighting looked good and I set the timer on my camera, locked in focus and then sprayed a few sprays of the aerosol as the shutter clicked - and I was totally in love with the result. The aerosol is so awesome and works amazing with small-scale figures; you hardly need any of the spray at all, and it is so much easier to use and store and have on hand. It's a tad expensive for a can, but I think it's worth it in the end for simplicity and it should last me a good amount of time since I've only been using it for toy photography.
Here is a behind-the-scenes shot of the image up above:
I had three lights set up: one directly above him, like a stage-light, with a grid on it to control the beam and to create a circle of light at his feet. I had two gridded strobes off to his left and right; gridded yellow and blue, to give some accent colors. I had him standing on a clear piece of plastic with a piece of black backdrop paper underneath that, to make it look like a glossy stage floor. Not shown is the Atmosphere Aerosol, but I just sprayed it directly down from over his head at the right moment.
I like photographing toys because they don't really take up a ton of space and you can mostly shoot them anywhere. If I ever had to just work out of my house and not have a studio, I could continue to shoot toys with no issues, as long as I had enough space for lighting and grip.
I've spent my whole life appreciating figures and little tiny human-being models. It allows me to still connect to my childhood joys while being able to create and totally art-direct the action and situations of the toys - exactly the same way I work with real-life clients; in controlled settings where I'm setting up lights and directing them for the sessions.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! I love sharing the stuff that I'm passionate about.
Toys rule! :D
