Creating the Photograph: Ronen Goldman’s “Danger Close”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they conceived an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Ronen Goldman is a surrealist who finds a way to channel feelings into images. We’ve featured him and his work on the website before but nothing could prepare us for this story. To preface this, it’s the story of an agonizing wait to hear about whether the life of someone very close to you will be in jeopardy. Those feelings were channeled by Ronen into a photo shot on film. And by all means, it is fantastic.

Here’s Ronen’s story.

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Creating the Photograph: Chris Gampat’s “The Underground Club”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they concepted an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

I’ve done a number of posts for our Creating the Photograph series partially because they help me to show off a different way or thinking about a problem that needs to be solved on a set. So recently when working with the Fujifilm GFX 50s on a shoot, I tried to find a way to deliver that “club” type of look that’s becoming so popular again in photography. I’ve written about it before, but not a whole lot and not in terms of practical application.

So here’s my story.

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Creating the Photograph: Travis Singleton’s “There’s light in the dark side”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they concepted an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

In the early 90’s, photographer Travis Singleton got his hands on a Minolta XD-5 35mm film camera. then he took a break from photographer and went digital. Born on a small farm in rural Nova Scotia, he grew up on the east coast of Canada. Even during his younger days, he had an interest in photography. “As I didn’t have the money, I would buy the rolls of film to take pictures but often didn’t get them developed.” he tells us in an email. “Or I would put the roll aside to get developed later, only to forget.”

Fast forward way ahead to 2015, and his company, 20two19 Photography, started to get noticed through social media by local businesses, and has now worked with a number of businesses and professionals in town including the Shawn & Ed Brewing Company, Dundas Museum, Dundas, WIllow Salon, The Red Door Cucina, the Dundas Farmers’ Market, Jax Sweet Shoppe and others.

Besides all of Travis’ commercial work though, he still manages to get creativity; and sometimes he finds the inspiration in his adorable daughter. When the family went to go see Star Wars Rogue One recently, he was inspired by the film to create this pretty awesome photo.

Here’s his story. Be sure to follow Travis on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Website.

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Creating the Photograph: Tomasz Kedzierski’s “Tribute to Krzysztof Kieślowski”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they concepted an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Tomasz Kędzierski has been a pretty fantastic and creative analog film photographer for a while. We’ve featured his work a number of times on this website. Besides the Square Lips project, his homemade pinholes and his solarigraphy, he’s done some higher end work too. Most recently, he was working on a shoot where he was shooting with Provia 100, and to ensure that he got the shot right, he used a Leica Sofort first before switching back to his Hasselblad 501C.

Here’s his story.

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Creating the Photograph: Rob Lee’s “The Ice Queen”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they concepted an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Rob Lee describes himself as a Massachusetts based portrait photographer. Rob got into photography when his son was much younger, and that grew and evolved into his interest in live concert photography. Then it evolved into portraiture which he describes as trying to balance both beauty and darkness. Indeed, he’s a man that likes the darker side of culture–as do many others. So a part of that was the inspiration behind his photo, “The Ice Queen.”

Despite its simple look, this image is a very clever use of light, reflectors and colors to make this scene effective. Here’s Rob’s story.

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Creating the Photograph: Jason Lanier’s “Snow Queen”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they conceived an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Jason Lanier has worked on a number of really, really super cool concepts in the past; and his recent Snow Queen project continues to show off that sometimes not everything needs to be created in the camera. On his YouTube channel, he uploaded a video taking us behind the scenes on the shoot where you begin to see a lot of what went into the image. Indeed, Jason uses lighting to create enough separation between the subject and the background but also to draw emphasis on key areas of the scene.

Over on his website and his blog, he shows even more photos from the shoot. But here’s what was going through his mind.

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Creating the Photograph: Dan Bannister’s “The Boxer”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they concepted an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Dan Bannister has been featured on this site a number of times but most notably with the Blacksmiths. His work has evolved and more clients ask him to shoot video in addition to stills. And so the idea behind “the boxer” is an interesting one. “Walking into a set and shooting stills of what you see when it’s been lit for motion can be a real challenge, especially when the client needs the stills at F11,” says Dan.

And so Dan tells us about how he tackled the challenge.

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Creating the Photograph: Trupal Pandya’s “Heads were to us what Money is to you!”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they conceived an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Trupal Pandya is quite the photographer. He’s documented head hunters in Nagaland, and soon plans to go back to continue documenting these people in an attempt to keep a working record of their culture. But he’s also got room to bring other people, and those that wish to go with Trupal can sign up for his workshop at his website.

In this piece, he talks to us about how he shoots some of the subjects.

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