This is my new endeavor that I am working on for the summer, TorinTalks! which is a weekly channel on YouTube.  The plan is to discuss music, movies, art, comics, and of course Star Wars and a bunch of other pop-culture artsy nerdiness. The process is going slower than expected, but I am sure the pace will pick up very soon. The channel can be found here, and I have included a look at the promo video for what's to come. This process is also helping me to improve my skills in after effects, a program I haven't had much experience with before this, and also Premiere and Sony Vegas are becoming my new best friends.

This is a photo shoot that has been stuck in the planning stage for a very long time, and I'm glad that it all came together. My model is a friend of mine, Johnathon Stewart Newman, who is an amazing artist in his own right. His paintings and drawing work blows me away every time I see it. He has a quote that's written in the photograph that says, "Art is self-expression through any medium you choose." This is a statement that I fully agree with, and taking drawing for an entire semester has only solidified my choice of photography/film as my art form. 

Just had an off day from working and decided to photograph my friend Rebecca. Even with shower hair and sans makeup, the camera is her friend.

It's Easter, and tonight I was asked to retouch some images by a fellow photographer, Rachel Wright. I love pin up photography, so I was happy to do it. This is my favorite image I edited.

Portrait of a artist from Marina Del Rey, 2011

I recently got a holga lens for my Canon 7D. The lens is plastic just like the holga lens, its just modified to fit on a digital camera. People keep asking me why I would buy a expensive camera just to put a 20 dollar lens on it. To them I say because I can.

I am still in a tutorial mode from doing the workshop yesterday, So I will give a breakdown of how I created my surreal self portrait. I am not going to go into detail on how I edited the images in Photoshop, but more so on how I took each image for the composite.


The first thing I did was photograph the broken mannequin head. I originally had another type of table for the surface, but I'm glad I chose the wooden surface. It adds texture and like the mannequin and me-- it's not perfect.

The next step that I took was to photograph myself for the face of the mannequin. I had my assistant for that day help me with this step. The metal bar in the lower right of the image was a marker to help me know where to align my body so my face would match up with the mannequin head.I realized I had to take a second picture of myself to get my lips and the mannequins to match correctly. Since the first image was shot at a different angle, I couldn't use the lips from that portrait because the mannequins lips are laying against the table.

So I had to align my face at the same angle as the table. The bar to the right was my guide to where I should be so the lips would line up.

From there I took these three images and composted them to get the final image. Which I will repost down here to avoid scrolling all the way back up.

This picture of me was taken by one of my very best friends, Anthony Castro. It's his birthday today, so I just wanted to put up a pic that I like of me , but taken by him. He recently had a show, The Lure of the Local, and it was amazing. He is constantly pushing to top himself, and that is a quality that is very inspiring to me. You can check out his work here.

This image is an outtake from a shoot I worked on yesterday with LA RAWwater. I really liked the paring of these two models.

This image is from a test shoot in 2010. People often mistake me for the model, (which is hilarious) I only wish my body was that good looking.

This is one of my favorite portraits, my model is a talented photographer named Joshua Rayburn. His images were always some of my favorites in studio lighting class.

I recently was featured in a local magazine LA RAWWater, as an artist, and also a contributing photographer. The founder of the magazine is a friend, who commissioned me to photograph him. The lighting of this photo is what I like the most.

©2011 Anthony Castro Photography

Event Description

Phantom Galleries Presents "Lure of Local," a body of photographic work exploring the urban aesthetic beauty of neglected corners, damaged streets and forgotten alleys.

Fine Art Photography by Anthony Castro.

Curated by Neil France.

Artist Reception Saturday, February 5th, 2011.

Located at 346 E 3rd Street Long Beach, CA 90802.

For more information, please visit our website or call (562) 786-7092 or e-mail us at thesaltypoet@aol.com.

This was an image that I had envisioned in my mind about 3 months before I actually executed it. I knew I wanted it to be a rock star, seedy, just woke up from a hangover type of vibe, and I think it worked pretty well. The song names are from inside jokes between friends. This image was featured in the LBCC 2010 Student Exhibit at the LBCC Art Gallery.

This image is an appropriation of the famous 1970 Kent State shootings where the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard took place on on Monday, May 4, 1970.

My group and I decided to take that iconic image and apply it to a modern setting. One of the group members made note that they were alive when this massacre happened and it affected students nationwide, and nowadays students probably wouldn't notice what's happening right in front of them because they're always on there laptops, ipods and texting.

So that's when the proverbial light bulb went on above all our heads and we decided to use that as our concept. (Group Members: Jade Aldrich, Denise Favre, Lisa Herman, Louis Castellanos, Will Gonzales, LaToya Tyson, Steven Lopez)

This is my favorite image from my first semester of studio lighting class back in the fall 2009. It took about 20 minutes, which was my fastest shoot ever, then due to my general absent minded self, I lost the files and had to re-do the entire shoot. Still took about 20 minutes the second time as well. It taught me a valuable lesson about backing up my files.

© DB8S Photography

Event Description

Darnell Bates at DB8S Photography

"NOT ALONE"

Presented by Phantom Gallery Los Angeles/Long Beach

An exploration of solitude while in natural, urban, and/or open landscapes, by Darnell Bates.

Artist Reception: Saturday, January 8, 6:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Exhibition runs January 8 through February 6, 2011.

Sunday - Friday Open by appointment only, Saturday Open 4pm - 6pm

For more information, please visit our website or call (714) 794-9895 or e-mail us at darnellbates@db8s.com.