Christmas Dinner

My Mom goes a little crazy when it comes to the Holidays. Here are a couple shots from Christmas Dinner.

Illuminated Project

These are probably my favorite shots from a projects I worked on over the last two months. I call the project Illuminated. The project features a series of light painted still lifes. To see more of the series visit my website alishamariephotography.com

Cherry Hill Farm

The Mug of My Dreams

I'm absolutely in love with this mug! Shot from my still life class

Herbs

I photographed each herb individually and then put them together in post. I also created versions such as the one below with the intent for them to be framed in a kitchen or placed in a cookbook.

Herbs grown by Christine Armbruster

Copy Cat Ad

For my Still Life class I was asked to recreate an ad. I choose a POM juice ad thinking it would be easy to replicate. Man was I wrong. After hours in the studio of trial and error and a lot of post I finally figured it out.

My Version

The Original Ad

Peppers

Arrangement of Peppers

Totally Twisted

Shots from my still life class

Scott Ski Goggles

By far the hardest product I've ever photographed.

Juicer & Lemons

Product Shot: Coach Purse

Belts

Silver Reef, UT

Being an frequent driver of the I-15 in Utah, I cross a sign directing me to Silver Reef a million times. I always think about stopping to explore this so called Silver Reef but never end up doing so. Took about 21 years to get to this point, but I finally stopped. The town is located about 10 minutes off the freeway. Not much is left but the remnants of a few stone buildings. One building has been restored and stands as a museum for Silver Reef. This building use to be the Wells Fargo Bank of the now abandon town of Silver Reef.

The photograph above is an HDR image of the Wells Fargo building.

Other adventures of the day included:

Hiking down a 30 ft cliff with a large format view camera (30 lbs) and all of my digital gear (15 lbs) . There was part of an old mill built into the cliff that I was standing on and I wanted to capture an image from a lower perspective. Did I mention that I drug my little sister along with me--she not as adventurous as I.

Yoga Master Extraordinaire: Benja

My aunt by far is one of the most eccentric people I know. Always the life of the party she is a yoga instructor, the owner of the only Thai Restaurant in Southern Utah (Benja Thai & Sushi in St. George), and much more.

I was assigned to create a documentary illustration and this is what I came up with. I have tons of images that I love but I felt that this particular photograph created a much more informative scene.

Portable Flash with Reflector

My hairstylist friend Sam needed some images of her work to apply to a program, I needed an image for my portrait class. And thus this photograph is the product of such needs.

It was shot at around 4pm using a portable SB Nikon Flash with diffuser. I also used a silver/gold reflector to bounce more light into her face.

Mixing of light: Daylight with on location Flash

I had this idea to use a ton of balloons that seem to overpower the main subject. The shoot turned out to be a lot different than originally anticipated.

Veggie Bouquet

For my Color Class. Saturation vs. Desaturation

In the end I would like to do a series of these type of images.

Low Key: Trevor Myers

Trevor Myers is the guy who won my old roommates Samantha's Heart (the girl in my previous post). Don't worry he doesn't always look like this, I roughed up his look for the photo shoot. Being the first experience shooting low key, this wasn't my most successful photo shoot.

Samantha Myers

My old roommate Sam is a hair stylist and wanted some professional portraits for a website that she was creating. This is one of my favorite shots. Apparently the way she is holding her scissors is the way the pros hold theirs.

I used a 24" beauty light above Sam with a giant soft box behind her. I also boxed her in with white reflectors and a silver reflector below her at waist level.

The Story of the Fish

This was the final image that I turned in for one of my color class assignments. This photograph is supposed to demonstrate the theory of warm verse cool colors.

Although this photo shoot was a lot of fun, the excitement was all after the pictures were taken. I bought 4 common goldfish; three small and on 5" long. I brought the fish home after 7 days the first 2 small fish died. 24 hours later the 3rd small one was gone.

Then 36 hours later the big one started freaking out. It was swimming in circles ramming it's head into the rocks at the bottom of the bowl. Then it started to jump out of the bowl (luckily it was not successful at getting out). 20 minutes later it was floating at the top of the tank. I was in the middle of doing homework so I was waiting to flush the fish. 40 minutes later the supposedly dead fish was swimming again doing the same acrobatic moves as before. 20 minutes later it was floating upside down at the top of the tank. One hour passed and it was alive again, this time swimming upside down. Then it was dead. I felt like I was in a zombie movie. Afraid that the fish would suddenly come back to life as I was flushing it, I decided to postpone its funeral until the following morning.

RIP: One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue fish

Dilemma Over Ink Bottles

My assignment was to create a photograph that showed examples of analogous colors. According to my professor, my photograph was a dynamite image that was technically well done. Unfortunately he gave me a lower grade because the colors where not exactly analogous. I went back later and in post altered the color to satisfy my professor. I'm debating if I like the changes or not.

Original Version


Version 2

Version 3Let me know what you think?

HIgh Key Beauty Shot

I was given the assignment to create a High Key beauty shot or head shot. I lite her using a frontal beauty light and a soft box directly behind her. I also used reflectors on the sides and below her to bounce more light into her face.

Inspiration : Girl with a Pearl Earring

Over the course of studying Art History, I have come to really appreciate the work of Dutch painter Jan Vermeer. I love his use of warm lighting seem to capture the peaceful moments before the world awakes. In my portrait class, I was assigned to create a portrait using another image that gave me some inspiration. While most people used photographs, I decided to derive my inspiration from Jan Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. It was a lot of fun recreating this image. I used sheets of fabric and a million safety pins to create the head piece.

All in all I was pretty satisfied with my final result. A big thanks to Caitlin for being my beautiful model.

First Time in the Studio - January 13th

These are a couple of shots from the first time that I experienced the joy of a studio. It was definitely a learning experience and just a great reminder about the importance understanding lighting, especially when it comes to portraiture.

Pear Bulb

Above all this was my most favorite image that I created in my Intro to digital class. I love the clean imagery and fun graphic that the pear creates. My professor made a suggestion to have the light bulb on. Sometime I would like to add this imagery and see if I like it better.

Tower

I went up to Salt Lake to photography the Galvin Ice Arena. I've heard about this arena for a while but never have seen it. When I went to photograph, I came to the realization that the arena was a lot smaller than I anticipated and at the time it was way too busy. So as photographers must always be, I had to be flexible and decided to get a few night shows of the federal building's clock tower.

My Dad

I wanted to photograph my dad for a while, but with him living in San Diego and myself going to BYU, I just haven't had the opportunity to do so. Luckily my family spent Thanksgiving in Utah and I was able to photograph my dad using my uncles workshop. It may not be an accurate representation of my dad in his workshop but the image still works. I wanted to place the side of the sail plane in the photograph because it is a representation of where my dad came from. He comes from a line of hard working men, one of which was my grandfather who was a aeronautical engineer. The piece of the plane comes from a sail plane that my grandfather designed.

Panoramas

View of Utah Lake from Geneva. This photography is a combination of about 10 different images. To me this photograph is not about the subject, but about the texture that are found. Specifically I love the swirls and tints of colors found in the frozen lake.

Standing on the East Bank of Utah Lake looking towards the east at with Geneva Steel towards the right. Another Panorama that I composited with 12 different images.

On going Project: Provo Doors

I grew up in the suburbs of San Diego where the majority of houses were all cookie cutter styled. Everything looked the same and nothing had originality or a spice of flare. Provo is the only other place that I have ever lived and I love all of the different shapes and colored front doors that I have come across. I have wanted to do a photo project on this topic for a while. I threw this one together in a hurry, so it wasn't exactly what I wanted the end product to be. May be in the next two years that I am still at BYU I will find time to create my original idea.

Angelica

This is an image that I captured for a CD cover that I had to create for my digital class. I was given the artist Lauryn Hill, but unfortunately living in Utah I had a hard time finding a model that fit the artist. in the end I liked the photography but just not the layout of my CD. I need to improve my graphic design skill level.

Bowl

This by far is my favorite bowl and I thought it would create a beautiful high key print. During my portfolio critic in class, my professor mentioned that the photo needs something. He suggested a dead goldfish. When I get the nerve to kill a fish, I'll try to recreate this image with the few modifications.

Smoke Self Portrait

Another image from my Intro to digital class last fall. I know it's definitely a little amateur in my skills as photoshop but I thought the idea behind it was interesting. Originally this photograph had a blue tint to it but I decided it look better as a B&W image.

Ship

I was driving around utah valley last fall in search of anything that caught my eye. I actually first captured this image on B&W 4x5 film but as I was leaving I decided to take a few digital images for a back up. The faded blue and yellow along the stern of the boat is my favorite part. I wished I took a few more abstract images of the boat. Other than that I love the irony of a boat on dry land.

Spoons

While creating these different still lifes, I wanted to focus more around the repetition of shapes found in common objects. Another thing that I loved about this image, is that it almost would seem like a black and white image minus a slight color found in the reflection of the spoons. In the future I would love to use a tilt shift lens to really limit the depth of field.