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. 

I got an assignment to create a image and layout base on an article with no pictures or visuals. So this is what I came up with.  My model is a fellow photographer from Long Beach, who I photographed in the spring of  2010. Part of my inspiration came from Terminator 2, which is a favorite of mine.

photo courtesy of liam-stock

Used my day off to work on some surreal images. This one in particular is a re-edit. I'll post the other one later to compare.

I recently did my very first album cover art; it was designed for an up and coming artist, Flash. it was inspired by Frank Miller's The Spirit. I really like the idea of incorporating text into just about any image. Also it allowed me to attempt to use Illustrator, which is another beast all together.

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 image combines two elements that I personally like, in an ironic way. Surreal imagery and 1940's Pin Up styled portraits. Pin up portraits are generally seen as classic, beautiful, feminine and nostalgic. This completely contradicts the mechanical element of the image; which is hard, cold, very technical, and in some ways, masculine. So I think its a good mash-up. Also a little commentary on the "stepford-esque" conceptions of women during that time.

*The actual portrait image was not taken by me, but all the photo montage work is :)

Here's another image from my surreal series of images... It was my take on a tutorial I found in Digital class last semester. This one is for Denise, who motivates me even when I don't want it, lol

What I like about doing surreal images and photography in general, is that it gives me an opportunity to tell the story of the world through my eyes. I have always gravitated toward the darker side of things, not because I'm morbid but because it holds a certain fascination and interest to me. The mysterious was always more appealing to me than the ordinary.

This image is inspired by many things, but the one inspiration that stuck out to me was a song by the group Shinedown who sings this amazing song called "Fly from the inside". The lyrics are so moving to me.

This image is another one from my surreal series, I have yet to name this particular series. To bad My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is already taken, haha.

Here's a new image I worked on, it's part of a new surreal based series i have been working on, and I really enjoy making art that has a dark or fanstasy element to it.