April has proven to be a month of change for me, but despite the constant push forward it’s important to stop and pay attention to the details sometimes.
In this case, the light on the quilt-covered bed in the pink bedroom you slept in for a week.
Thoughts on Stuff
Michael J. Champlin's weblog
Archive for the ‘My Work’ Category
New Theme
A long time coming, but finally here: the ump-teenth redesign of this blog, featuring a few firsts for me. Notable points include:
- html5 & css3
- responsive, mobile first design
- Elegant balance of typography with imagery
- No images for the design (lightweight)
- No small photos on the site (thumbnail-free)
- Custom post types (standard, aside, image; video coming soon)
- Bite-sized content on the home page (custom post excerpts and large images)
Essentially I designed this theme from the ground up with my own work in mind. I produce media in a variety of formats, and often the strict bloggy nature of my previous themes kept me from displaying my work in a way that did it justice. In short, I’m utilizing post types to achieve this: “aside” posts feature primarily text, rendered large and legible; “standard” posts balance text and images and are suited to longer format posts; “image” posts display my photographs and graphics the way I want them: large, “full-bleed”, and perhaps most importantly without thumbnails or lightboxes.
I’ve read a lot of angry / heated language about the use of larger fonts as body text on the web recently, but I don’t buy it. I’ve designed the text on this site to be both legible and elegant; I have balanced longer line widths with wider line spacing and used media queries to adjust text for various screen sizes. Modern displays provide an ever-decreasing pixel size and an ever-growing resolution, which results in more screen real estate; for Thoughts on Stuff I’ve chosen to dedicate that real estate to big images and legible type that’s allowed to breathe.
The studio
For a few months last year I rented studio space downtown. It didn’t end up being cost-effective for me, being that I’m a sort of anti-commercial photographer*, but it did give me the chance to coerce more of my favorite people in front of the camera.
I swear, these people make my job way too easy.
I have beautiful friends. Pictured: Katie Cunningham and Jillian Summar at Loose Leaf Co. Fall 2011, Grace Grothaus in her Tulsa studio, Summer 2011.
*not entirely true. I just tend to offset the paid photography I do with expensive stuff like “still shooting film” and “buying more old cameras”.
Breakfast
This morning I took a picture of my breakfast. It occurs to me that maybe I should get out of the house more.
But can you blame me? Look how pretty it looks. And yes, in case you were wondering, it was delicious.
Did I pick that bowl out specifically because I planned to photograph my breakfast? Yes. I have priorities. And cereal is one of them. It is, though I’m a little ashamed to admit it, one of my absolute favorite foods. I’ve been known to skip dinner and eat a bowl before bed. I’d say it would be my “desert island” food but inevitably the milk would curdle in the hot tropical sun and then I’d be screwed.
What’s your favorite kind of cereal? Answer carefully — I’m judging you.
Winter Part 2
Here’s more wintry coldness, because I’m finding it hard to think about anything else right now. On a positive note, the 24-hour video race is tomorrow night and I’m totally stoked. Here’s my team’s winning entry from last year and a write-up I did for Tasha Does Tulsa about my experience. But more on that later; grab some hot tea because it’s time for more cold photos.
This one’s actually from last year. I was shooting long exposures out my back window while firing a giant manual speedlight from the side through a garden window. Apparently when I get cabin fever this is what happens. I’ve actually used this photo as the background on my phone all winter, because apparently the feet (plural) of snow outside isn’t enough of a reminder.
And another from last year, though not so snowy. Fog is one of my favorite photographic subjects, as well as one of my favorite things about winter and the cooler parts of the year in Oklahoma.
Also I apparently have a thing for the lines in the middle of roads or something. I’ve always liked this shot though, because if it weren’t for that bright yellow line this photo could pass for a black and white. Again, I dig that monochromatic quality that winter brings into our lives; having said that, I’ve had enough of it this year. Spring, we await you with open arms and short-sleeved t-shirts.
Winter
It’s always seemed like I get most inspired to take photographs in the winter, which most people would probably call the least photogenic of all the seasons. The truth is I never saw it that way; I think one of the reasons I was always interested in photography was that it allowed you to capture the beautiful in the mundane, the everyday. I also think there’s a sort of minimalist beauty in the sparseness of winter.
There’s just something about it.
Unnatural Light
From the beginnings of my aspirations to be a “photographer”, I always considered low-light and night photography to be sort of my go-to genre. The very first photograph I took that I really felt was “good”, the first one that made me feel like maybe I was getting a hang of what I was doing, was a long-exposure shot I took in Arkansas outside my tent in the middle of the night (it’s on flickr here, if you’re interested). Though I’ve branched out a lot since then, available-light photography is still very near and dear to my heart. So recently as I’ve been thinking a lot about the “professional” or “commercial” work I do it starts to occur to me that I do very little photography these days just for the sheer enjoyment of it, which is a real shame. So I decided to get back to my roots and head out after dark with my friend Matt, a camera and a tripod. Here are some of the results.
Abandoned drive-in movie theater on old Route 66 west of Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
Abandoned building, Bartlesville, Oklahoma
That last one came out looking like something from a horror movie or something, which was totally unintentional, but I like it.
I was inspired to write one blog entry every day in February by my friend Erin — you should check out her blog (and amazing photography) here.
Bridal Session: Natalie
Brides are quite possibly the portraitist’s dream.
When you shoot a wedding, it’s all about capturing moments in time: memories, details, cross-sections of day where a million tiny (and some not-so-tiny) things happen almost all at once. As a photographer you’ve got to be on top of the situation; you’ve got to get good shots, and you only get one chance. This is the rush of wedding photography: you’re part portrait photographer, part event coordinator and part photojournalist. It’s great fun, but there’s also something to be said for taking things a bit more…slowly.
The Power of Visual Communication
This is my presentation from IgniteOKC last week. Enjoy!
Award-winning Filmmaker? Apparently.
This was my second annual submission to Living Arts Tulsa’s 24-hour Video Race back in February. We took the prize in the Experimental category.
Mostly did this one with Shane Hood of Tepera|Hood design (with additional help from a couple of Matts who don’t have websites) using a combination of Legos, Playskool people, found objects, fishing line, electric motors and stop-motion animation.
Check out my other video work here. Enjoy!