Friday Night Videos

Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" is kind of an obvious choice for these times, but sometimes you just have to roll with it.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... John Prine.

Now Playing: Sting The Soul Cages
Chicken Ranch Central

Friday Night Videos

The kids and I have been watching more than our share of giant Kaiju films this week in preparation for seeing Pacific Rim this weekend. It's not fair, really, but the sheer number of rave reviews have spiked my cautious optimism for the movie and raised the bar for my expectations. Not sure if even a great movie can meet that challenge. But being a longtime Godzilla and Gamera fan, today's featured video can't be anything other than Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla." And for the record, yeah, I'd love for someone to throw money at me to write some Kaiju fiction.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Kim Carnes.

Now Playing: Clandestine Music from Home
Chicken Ranch Central

Photoshoot

Being married to a talented photographer (aka The Wife) has kept me busy trying to improve my photography skills, so that I can A) be a reliable assistant for her when needed, but mostly B) don't embarrass her. While I have fun with infrared, macro and astro photography, I occasionally do trade shoots with aspiring models from Model Mayhem, since photographing people is more relevant to what The Wife does. I received a request through a mutual friend from a guy who wanted a trade shoot. A college student, he has modeling aspirations and needed some basic, competent images for his portfolio. I've never shot a man before, and although I had no clear idea of what techniques to use or poses to try, I figured I'd shotgun it and see if anything stood out. Making it up as I go along is one of my specialties, it seems.



In an effort to craft a more masculine, testosterone-soaked image for him (as opposed to the more feminine styles I'm used to from working with female models) we headed to an alley in San Marcos. I forgot to splash him with water to create the illusion of a sweaty, grungy street fighter, but the final result didn't turn out half bad. This is one of the few shots I've done that matched up pretty closely with my original vision.



We were wrapping up a series of shots on a grassy lawn after a wardrobe change, and almost as an afterthought I told him "Hold up your hand toward the camera, like you're gripping something between your fingers and thumb." I didn't know if this would work out, but I'd seen Photoshopped images in this style before, and wanted to give it a shot. The project ended up consuming much more time than I expected and a greater number of different photos than planned, but damn, I have to admit the end result exceeded my expectations. The Wife's as well, as even she admitted she was impressed with the final product--so much so that she took my photo shoot and built a promo video for it. Too cool. Enjoy.


Blue Öyster CultNow Playing: Blue Öyster Cult Workshop of the Telescopes