The Re-Edit (May), Stephanie

Yeah I know… “What happened to April?”

I have no idea… but its May, and it would be silly to do a re-edit and title it April now wouldn’t it?

This time around I am fortunate to have some old school stuff I thought was lost forever!
You know how hard drive crashes go…
But recently a buddy of mine hooked me up and got one of my trashed HDD’s working again, so I chose an old New York shoot for this months Re-Edit Project.

Stephanie

Stephanie was awesome! She was one cool chick, laid back, and up for virtually anything.
Unfortunately she hadn’t done a whole lot of “Testing”, for all tense and purposes she was a new model. You see she was on a TV show called Make Me a Supermodel and hadn’t done much modeling before the show (they had just wrapped the last show a week before this shoot). She didn’t win, but ended up signing with New York Models anyway.
So she comes out to our test with nothing really. No “model bag” of clothes, makeup, nothing, just strolls in with her purse. It was funny because I remember saying to her…”well, I don’t think I would change what you are wearing anyway!”. In her defense tho, she did have a paid gig scheduled after our test, which didn’t require her to bring anything.

We shot for an hour or so in the stairwell of a friend’s apartment building. We got some amazing stuff…simple…yet amazing.
Original Edit

Once again I recommend clicking the “Vimeo” button and viewing the full screen HD version.

Looking back at these images, I once again found more that I liked the second time around. Obviously my tastes are changing somewhat, but one thing stands out to me. I was consciously or unconsciously composing my images in these weird ways, and throwing the focus off here and there (ok.. the focus thing is bullshit), but what I found was images I had marked as throwaways are now grabbing my attention as visually pleasing pieces.

I think of all the little projects I do, the Re-Edits are the most fun, because I am able to simultaneously see my past “vision” and also see what I captured…but didn’t SEE the first time!

The Re-Edit, March.

Time for another “Re-Edit”.
This month I chose a shoot I did back in June ’07, just before my graduation from AIA. At the time I was interning for Liz Von Hoene. Being the sweet person Liz is, she offered to let me use her studio (BIG Studio) for a day of shooting.

I took full advantage!

I booked 2 shoots that day, the first was with Hannah. It was short notice when I was told the studio would be available, so getting a stylist didn’t happen, but I managed to book 2 makeup artists, one of which happened to have a few garments with her. I stayed late the day before to paint the prop boxes after my usual painting of the Cyc wall. Everything was as ready as it was going to get. I began shooting, trying out different things, and realizing how much a location (in this case the studio cyc), and equipment, can influence the look of the photography. I achieved a quality of light that I had never produced before. Everything seemed to just click. The makeup was fantastic, Hannah was exceptional, and I was literally jumping up and down with excitement over the images popping up on the screen!
I didn’t shoot a lot, because it seemed that EVERYTHING was awesome. See the original edit here.

So when it came to re-working this shoot, I didn’t have a lot of images to choose from, but at the same time, it was still very hard to pick favorites, they still strike me as great images. A couple times during this process, I thought about doing a different shoot, just because I kept wanting to go back to some of the original picks. But in the end, I resolved that I didn’t have to make an entirely different editorial out of this shoot. So as it stands, it’s really more of a slide show of “outtakes” rather than a full on edit. There are a couple of images that I will probably change out in the original edit after going back and doing this.  I think it will reflect a little more of my changing sensibilities.

Anyway, here it is, straight from the camera, no touchups, no nothin’, here is March’s Re-Edit, Hannah.

more about “The Re-Imagining of Rich Meade, Hanna…“, posted with vodpod

Again, the compression applied to get it on Vimeo has messed with the quality, the HD version (fullscreen) looks better. But let me know how it looks to you guys… (still learning this video mumbo jumbo)

February’s Re-Edit. Shaun and Sara

Cutting it close I know.  But here is the re-edit for February.

For those who don’t know… one of the goals I set out for myself in this whole “re-imagining” process was to “re-edit” one shoot every month.  Purely to see where I’ve been, and where I am now.

This shoot originally happened in my heyday of traveling to New York.  At the time I had developed quite a few relationships with agencies in the city, and would travel there about once a month to do model testing and editorial shoots.  I didn’t like to waste time while in the city… for one its expensive… and secondly…I felt like a kid in a candy store.  This was one of four shoots I had scheduled during my visit, and the first of two that day!

The models, at the time, were represented by NY Models, Sara Dawson, and Shaun (sorry Shaun forgot your last name).  The original concept was to be a super sexy interaction between lovers, a cocky and stylish socialite, and his stunning and sultry companion.  As expected, complications arose…Sara was married and wasn’t comfortable interacting with Shaun (or any male model).  So I had to shoot them separately and finagle my narrative a bit to get something with a little story since I couldn’t get any literal interaction between the two.

Overall the original shoot came out spectacular.  The separation made for a nice back and forth, a kind of  “His side vs Her side” play.  In post I combined what was to be the opening image in the story from two shots, one of Sara in a chair, and Shaun mysterious in the foreground.  After an obvious switch to black and white, I pumped the contrast, cleaned up the bodies and skin, and gave it what I now call my “clean and concise” treatment.

You can see the original story in the “editorial” section of my website, HERE

While going through the images from that day, I noticed that I went for a more nonchalant pose and attitude with my picks.  The sexy sultry poses didn’t strike me as being as powerful or visually interesting as the lazy broken poses.  I also chose to leave the images virtually untouched, all that was done was the conversion black and white, which was done at baseline, so virtually these are straight from the camera images.  Not only did that give me (and you) some insight into what I was doing technically, but it gave a more weathered, ethereal quality to the image.  It’s a great departure from the original “Clean and Concise” processing of the first edit.

Along with breaking the shoot into two parts, His and Her’s, I’ve also set them up as video slide shows…No music, but a more structured presentation than what is available via the WordPress galleries.  You can also view them in HD by clicking on the “Vimeo” link in the bottom right corner of the video.

Without further a due… I give you February’s Re-Edit Project: Shaun and Sara

Part 1:  Shaun

Part 2:  Sara

The Re-Edit

One of the goals I have set for myself is to “Re-Edit” one shoot every month. In other words, go back, re-evaluate, and pick my favorites again. The idea being to see how my perception, style, and or tastes have changed over time.
The guinea pig for this experiment is a shoot I did while in grad school.
I had bought an old Olympus Pen FT on eBay, with the hopes of shooting with this unique camera (and film), it might lead to a more artistic output. If you aren’t familiar with the Pen F camera, you’ll find it’s quite unique. The camera itself is a compact 35mm film camera from the 60′s. Standard bayonet mount and manual focus lenses, along with manual film advancement. So far its just your basic compact camera right? Well wrong! The Pen F was unique in that it utilized only half of the 35mm frame! Effectively giving you 72 shots on a typical 36 exposure roll of film (give or take a couple). You can read more about it here.

My thinking was…”If I can shoot a super fast (grainy) film, of my typical subject matter, it has to come out as art!”
So I attached a cheap flash, hired a model (whom is a dear friend), and went to work.
The results…at the time, were the complete opposite of my normal style, and output. I thought I had finally produced something that would be “acceptable” to the artsy fartsy faculty and students of my school.
I was wrong.
Frustrated yet again…I archived the images, and forgot about them…that is until today.

I decided to take another look at them. Sure they are grainy as all hell, and scratched to shit (didn’t take the best care of the negatives when scanning them), but there was something I liked about them. They felt…honest, at least more honest than the usual fashion/nude work I have done in the past. It wasn’t for lack of makeup (or stylish shoes), but was the quality…rather lack thereof…that struck me as being more truthful. It was a half-assed effort, at the time of creation, which comes through even now, but that is what is endearing about the images.

A new perspective, and a little bit of editing, have made these images worth looking at…for me at least. The process of rehashing this shoot has also inspired me to break out the old Pen F, and do some more. If nothing else…that makes this exercise worth while.