Author Archive for Julius
Shooting your best friends is a hell of a lot different from shooting strangers. Is it easier or more difficult to shoot people you know?
For me…its easier and much more fun to shoot my friends, but for others it isn’t so. Here are some things that i keep in mind when i have a frame full of homies aka idiots.
It is important to remember to not let your friend control the session, keep them at bay and remember that while standing in front of your lens they are subjects, not friends. If they are true friends they will respect what you are doing and respond accordingly. If not, just keep breaking out your camera until they get used to it.
Schutz- This is his quintessential face. Someone told him that it was a costume party and he showed up in that damned hat. Nobody else in attendance wore a costume and schutz never took off the hat.
When shooting, I suspend the fact of friendship and what I do is treat them like models, not the guys you just spent 9 hours drinking with. The camera in my hands gives me a license to be the boss and them the employee. So I direct them as such, tell them what to do and react to their responses. If it isnt working then we try something else and continue to move forward.
Dave- He bought those sunglasses in Venice the day before. I think everyone at the party tried on those glasses and they quickly became the prop of choice during the photo shoot. He wanted to fix the glasses and I stopped him from putting them on correctly. This is the “i know what you are trying to make me look like” face.
Smith- has never been to Brooklyn
The environment and circumstances played a large role when i chose to photograph these guys. All of the images in this post were taken from 6am-7am after a party at a friends house where we all spend too much time. I saw that the sun was coming up and I had 5 of my best friends together all on the same level (which was lower than most at 6am). I grabbed my camera bag with the 6×7 and 35mm bodies and put my friends up against an ivy wall in the yard. We were still drunk and still drinking. It was an overcast morning so light was everywhere and the mood was somewhere between excited and haggard. The setting was neutral place for everyone, nobody was intimidated by their surroundings and my equipment was minimal which made everyone that much more comfortable.
These are the first five images that I shot. It was a little after 6 am and the sun was just coming out behind the overcast sky. There wasn’t a lot of light and I had Velvia 50 in my camera not the best for this situation but i worked with it. The images are a bit dark and grainy but the moments are still there. I think these were taken at about a 15th or 30th at f2. This combination worked because I didn’t necessarily want to freeze the action. The movement in the images adds life to the pictures.
With friends, you are already familiar with their distinct facial expressions and unique behaviors and you know what you can do to get your friends to react in ways that clearly demonstrate who they are. Use that to your advantage, get them smiling or get them looking at you the way they always do. Take the time to freeze them the way they really are.
Dylan- was actually flipping off Morgan
Morgan- was deeply saddened about graduating college. That night he challenged three University of Arizona frat kids to a drinking contest and won. The other three guys passed out hours earlier. One even needed to be slapped awake and put in the shower.
Smith- ? i have no idea whats going on here but that’s a stale bagel in his hands.
This was fun. it was one of those times where everything just lined up and i was in the right place at the right time. Sometimes thats just what happens.
That is pretty much my process or at least was the way this particular shoot went down. We had way too much to drink and couldn’t laugh enough about it. It was a fun time and well worth the seven rolls of film. Thanks for reading and l please let me know if you have any questions. I promise to get back to you as i’ve been working on my correspondence technique.
-J
The hounds over here at MJR are pleased to announce the winner of the Intimacy contest Dina Goldstein. Although the decision was close, we feel that her frame simply titled “#4″ was far from ordinary and actually quite stunning. The moment captured strikes close to home for everyone who remembers those adolescent days where going to party and grinding with that special someone was a profound moment. The bond between the people is unspoken and for that 3-5 minute song everything else around is dark and inconsequential. The moment between the two of you was confidential and undisclosed until after the dance, when the gossip takes charge. Suddenly your invisible moment was not as sub rosa as you thought.
The “feelup”, the “booty grasp,” the prepubescent togetherness on the dance floor is not only intimate, but an often overlooked milestone in people’s lives both as the copper and the copped. This image is as intimate as it is momentous, carnal and prime. Congratulations to Dina for winning the contest and thank you everyone for submitting. Keep on the look out for more competition notifications in the upcoming weeks.
Here is Dina’s winning image and be sure to check out more of her work at http://www.dinagoldstein.com/
Here is the MJR teams intimacy tribute. Unfortunately the downloadable PDF was not created due to time constraints/travel plans and the likes. But we will be back with renewed vigor next month. As for now the MJR intimacy tribute is published below. Thank you for understanding.
Intimacy
“Whether in the privacy of a stranger’s home, or close proximity, it requires one to give and take more than usual. As subjects, they are giving a large piece of themselves. As stranger, I have to resolve and justify what they’re experiencing as a photograph. And so light must be my inspiration, composition my eloquence.”
Mustafah Abdulaziz | mustafah@wearemjr.com
Julius Metoyer | julius@wearemjr.com
“Workflow” and me do not mix. My relationship with computers and technology is poor and every year or so people scoff at me when they say “YOU ARE USING WHAT!?” The process from the initial shot to the final edit ends at the computer, which is kind of a problem for me. I have an interesting relationship with computers, i just dont really like them but i need them so we are at a standstill. 99% of my work is shot on film which is funny because my workflow isn’t much of a “flow” at all, its more backwards than that. All the other cats at MJR are way more savvy about what they use and why they use it. Alot of the things I use only because one of them told me to! My workflow revolves around one word…easy.
My shooting style reflects my workflow. I do not shoot quickly and am never really in a rush when it comes to making exposures. i will wait and wait and wait. Having the quickest and fastest camera and processing equipment doesn’t really get me excited. For me, the more buttons the more headache and the more shit to break. I’m more about comfortability and being deliberate and precise from shooting to editing.
I shoot slide film that is thrown into a computerized machine at A&I Photographic where the images are then scanned at 25megs a piece, then cut and mounted. I get home… place the transparencies on the shelf where i know they will be safe from water damage and earthquakes and insert the disc of scans into my computer. All work is then dropped into Lightroom Beta 1. I back up the stuff on a 500g G-Drive whenever I get paranoid which ends up being about every 2-3 months or so. But since my work is all film, backing up has become a little less mandatory for me. Hell, a crash may even jump start me to be more organized about everything.
I shoot a leica m6 with motordrive with a 28mm summicron and a Mamiya 7II (6×7cm) with the 80mm lens. thats basically it. I rarely use a camera bag because by the time you get the camera out the damn bag the moment is gone. I also have a canon 20D with a 17-40 but that hasn’t been used in eons. I have access to tons of digital equipment but i never use it. i like shooting slides, i like the rangefinder system.
Well since im shooting film and since the Mamiya only carries 10 shots per roll, my workflow is a lot less intense compared to Sean, Matt and Mustafa and probably a little less intense than Rob’s.
Since i have never been good with computers i have never delved into the depths of photoshop or aperture or lightroom. For the guys who are coming home from a shoot with 5,000 RAW images, these softwares are a way of life. For me they are just things to use sparingly.
My editing is minimal, with slides there is no latitude in the film and when you shot it, you either got it or you didn’t. With the tools i have you see what you get and nothing more. if i choose to shoot at 50 ISO i may have that roll of film in my camera for 5 days until it is used. My brian doesn’t think about what I can do in post and i dont shoot anything to fix it later. 90% of everything seen in my images is done in camera with exposure and shutter speed combinations and a decent knowledge of the way my film stock will react. Here is everything in a short list from beginning to end
1. see/feel the opportunity for an image
2. frame up and expose
3. wind the advance and forget about the frame i just shot
4. Repeat steps 1 through 3….36 times on 35mm and 10 times on 6X7
5. drop 4-5 rolls off at the lab
6. wait 24-48 hours
7. pick up film and insert disc of scans into computer
8. minimal edit in lightroom blacks, and saturation tabs.
9. Wrestle with wordpress in sizing and uploading.
Thank you, ill be around for questions or comments
- j
When you are walking down the street minding your own photographic business do people ever walk up to you and look over your shoulder and say “what are you taking a picture of ?”
That happens to me all the time. And I don’t really know what to tell them so I end up saying something completely obvious like “this wall” or “this transvestite” or “that ray of light”. I used to be annoyed by it but now its just interesting to note that as photographers, those around you have no idea what you are doing, often times the same goes for the people in front of your lens. Yes, sure they know that they are being photographed but they don’t really know why and definitely have no idea when you are going to click the shutter. Hell, 90% of the time I don’t know when to click it…when it feels good I guess.
I will shoot anything, People, dead rats, empty bottles, umbrellas, flowers, sunsets, skylines, light patterns on the street, ankles, bowls of cereal, fire, water, and anything else you can see. But I shoot in my style and give it my flavor which is definitely going to be different from your zest. So just because you saw that shot before, or your homie did that last week or thats old or it’s been done and featured in Flaunt May 1997 don’t be afraid to shoot it again because you will indubitably do it differently if you embrace the way you shoot, because remember nobody can shoot it like you.
Here are some images…
Los Angeles, Velvia 50
Driving….Velvia 100
I make a point to look for texture in all things, texture in the way light hits a subject, texture in the paint on a wall or in any material. Things can really turn interesting when you juxtapose textures within the frame so you can actually make a scene with all things considered.
Velvia 50
You will see a lot of this little guy… He is my little brother, Kio and we mess around in the yard all the time. I always have my camera ready because you never know what this cat’s gonna do. Here he is during the last moments of light. I’m putting together a couple more images that I made from this day that I’ll post later in the week.
Velvia 50
Candy… I never posted this series on MJR, but I had to just put one shot up because people ask me about this all the time. This is a good example of how different textures can come together to really evoke a mood. The blue stucco, red shirt, black fur, and whimsy blond hair are all distinctly different materials but when thrown together they definitely work.
Velvia 100F
-J