Published in "Photos Idea Design Magazine"

Unfortunately I have no idea if they quoted me correctly since it's from Asia and I don't speak Mandarin. When the magazine arrived in the mail I was pleasantly surprised at what a beautiful publication it is! Thanks to all the beautiful models and talented hair and make-up artists that helped make the photos!

How to Photograph a Girl in an Aquarium

First, you need to develop an interest in tropical fish whilst in Junior High, after much cajoling convince your parents to let you procure a fish tank.

Enjoy the fish for a long time, but eventually start to neglect them until the tank is only half full (thanks to evaporation) and your starving fish are nourished mostly by the grime inside the tank.

One day, during your sporadic weekly feeding, you will notice that all of the fish have perished. The sense of loss is enhanced by the sad realization that you are horribly unqualified to ever have children.

Eventually the fish aquarium will be cleaned and years later a family member (in my case a brother) will desire to care for fish of their own, you willingly lend them the fish tank with a knowing grin silently predicting how their experience with the aquarium will end.

Two years later the fish aquarium is returned, now you can both reminisce on the fate of the poor fish under your respective care. After spending about 30 minutes too long trying to wedge the wooden fish aquarium stand out of the back seat of their car, the aquarium finds a resting place in the garage next to the lawn mower (which reminds me, when is my cousin going to come mow?)

One bored saturday afternoon while your wife is napping you may be tempted to find a model willing to shoot with you, she says she has a couple hours to spare and is "On her way," but asks, "What do you have in mind?"

Good question...

For some reason you notice the aquarium. Sitting there, a lonely tombstone to many loved, then neglected fish. You think to yourself, that would be a great idea, but there is no way a girl could fit in there.

You ask your wife, she agrees, a 29-gallon aquarium is not meant for a human body. So you move on and shoot another idea, and towards the end of the shoot you mention that you had once thought of shooting in the aquarium but abandoned the idea due to physics.

She claims she can fit in there, she is offended that you thought otherwise. Which is ridiculous because the aquarium is really not that big. She proves you wrong and before you know it you are hauling buckets filled with warm water out to the garage to fill the aquarium as your wife watches, shaking her head in amazement. Aren't we all.

Indoor Flea Market

It almost takes the fun out of things when you actually have PERMISSION to shoot in a building facing an imminent demise. This long abandoned building seemed to have quite a history - home to a meat locker in the basement (sounds sketchy I know), a mexican restaurant and a strip club turned sports bar and then indoor flea market, and the history shows in the decor.

I received a phone call late last week from a city employee that had been using the building for some training and as a viewer of my blog he wanted to see if I'd be interested in shooting there so I called Carli and we headed over to meet him there and see what we could come up with.

This is the result.

Digital Makeup -- Before and After

Here are a small sampling of portraits showing the different types of retouching I do in Photoshop. Many times if I do not have a makeup artist scheduled I will simply ask the girl to come with no makeup on and plan to do it later. Other times, as is the case with Cassie in the green tube top, a very talented makeup artist named Kristian did a fantastic job, but we wanted to shoot several concepts and it was simply quicker to change the color in Photoshop. And sometimes, in the case of the image with the thistle weeds - even the plants need a little makeup. :-)

Click the photos for a larger version.

Ruinous Decay

Inorganic Decay is very interesting to me. I love the evidence of a bustling past, the idea of complete abandonment and the extreme toll that seems to occur when a place is simply... left. Which is what makes the discovery of this location an absolute gold mine in my book!

Located about 1.5 miles from my front door it's an abandoned school of some sort, since it's probably trespassing I won't mention any more about the location so don't ask, but lets just say we found a way into this completely boarded up building and discovered that what appeared to be a small brick structure is absolutely giant! Two floors of long hallways and dozens and dozens of rooms in various levels of muck and grime. Some are pitch dark and some are lit by broken sky lights. Some rooms smell like 'yard sale' and some smell like 'hillbilly farmer's market'. Some rooms are beautiful with vintage wallpaper and some are absolutely creepy, like the one with a whole bunch of baby dresses strewn about with the words, "Satan was here" scrawled across the wall in thick yellow paint.

What better place to bring a couple of models, a talented wardrobe designer and a half dozen gorgeous hand-made dresses! A big giant thank you goes out to everyone for having the absolute worst cell phone rings in the history of creepy cell phone rings. As you are wandering long, pitch black hallways with two weak flashlights there is no better sound to hear than a slow melodic whistling eight rooms over when your party of six is all a short arms length away... that split second it takes to realize it's a phone in someone's bag is not a pleasant split second to say the least.

I'd say the creepiest experience occurred shortly after the shoot in the purple dress and pearls, we had found our next room (the white insane asylum type room) and I went back to collect all the lights to re-set them up. (PHOTO TIP! I used a Lumedyne 1,000WS strobe with battery pack for this entire shoot) I walked back, by myself, and collected the light stand, battery, camera, and then I noticed an almost new bright yellow backpack sitting next to my camera. I was positive that it wasn't there when I set up everything so I figured it belonged to one of the girls so I picked that up too and made my way back down the long hallway. When I arrived back to the group I set everything down and held out the bag expecting its' owner to thankfully take it from me, instead I got a bunch of odd looks. The bag belonged to no one. In a house of ruinous decay somehow the one pristine object found it's way next to my camera...

Models: Kenzie and Cassie, Wardrobe by: McKell Maddox

Updated Website!

Sorry for the lack of posts, I swear I'm trying to make time for them. In the meantime, take a gander at my brand new website with completely updated galleries!

www.jakegarn.com

Delicious Times Two.

My series of models with food continues to grow, here are some highlights from last month.

-Jake

Evolution of a Photo

One subject I haven't touched much on is the advantages of shooting in RAW format as opposed to JPG and using a RAW editor (like Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Bridge) to make exposure and white-balance corrections before doing the final retouches in Adobe Photoshop.

I have included five images that show the RAW image, then with corrections applied in Adobe Lightroom, and finally the finished image after Photoshop. I'll be talking more about this process in a future post. For now, notice sometimes there is a major change and sometimes it's just a subtle change, depending on the photo.

As always, click on the thumbnails for a larger version.

"Reflections of Christ" - A traveling exhibit.

I know it's probably odd for a Fashion Photography Blog to mention a photography exhibit depicting the life of Jesus, but someone sent me a link to this slide show of fine art images and I was absolutely floored.

You know how sometimes while looking at a painting you just can't believe it's not a photograph? Well, for the first time ever I'm staring at these photographs and I can't believe they're not paintings. The control of light, the emotion, the narratives are all absolutely compelling. Kudos to the actors, photographers, stylists, musicians... everyone that was involved. My hat is off.

So for the first time on my blog I'm linking to another photographer's work, I hope you enjoy.

See the slideshow here - Reflections Slideshow

Modest is the Hottest.

Nicole is one of my new favorites, not only is she gorgeous but she's a lot of fun to shoot and is getting better at it with every new project. One of my favorite things about Nicole is her absolute insistence on complete modesty in every single shoot. As an artist sometimes I am guilty of bending the rules of modesty that I maintain in my life outside of photography. I am a church going, active practicer of the Mormon religion - and for those that don't know modesty in dress is part of our lifestyle.

In Nicole's very own words, "Modest is the hottest." Of course that can be argued by some but with these photos she definitely makes a strong case!

That being said, enjoy these new examples showcasing the technique of "faking an HDR image" that I demonstrated in my last video tutorial.

Tutorial on Faking an HDR Image

The readers have spoken, after much anticipation here is a tutorial on my image titled Farm Supply. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer** In the video I do start with an image that has been color corrected, it did not come out of my camera that way (even though that's what I said). I will do a future video tutorial on basic color correction!

My Next Video Tutorial

All right, so I'm giving the power to you, my loyal viewers! Take a look at my images and tell me what you'd like to see explained in my next video tutorial. No secrets, no limits. The image with the most votes gets a tutorial, pure and simple! Though I do reserve the right to show you the same techniques with a different image, but never-the-less, you'll learn something!

How to Vote
Take a look at my images - the most complete library is available at My DeviantART Gallery and leave the name of the image you'd like to see explained in the comment section. Pure and simple!

Happy Voting!
Jake

PS - I appreciate everyone's comments and subscriptions, please keep sharing this blog with your friends, family and even enemies. The more viewers and subscribers I get the more I'm inspired to continue adding content. Hint Hint. :-)

What I learned on the Red Carpet Part II

50 Cent has Nine Bodyguards, and a REALLY Nice Watch.
50 cent Performed at TAO Park City for MySpace Nights, presented by T-Mobile Sidekick LX



When people are about to walk down the red carpet we get notified by the Public Relations person in charge - sometimes the notification is who they are and how to spell their name, and other times it's a warning that we shouldn't crowd 50 Cent because he has 9 bodyguards and they WILL intervene if 50 Cent is crowded. Good to know, thanks for the heads up. Why anyone needs 9 bodyguards in Utah is beyond me, but I shot the image of 50 Cent and watched him get interviewed by E-TV right next me, and sure enough, a couple bodyguards were shoulder to shoulder with him during the whole interview. Even though we weren't warned about it I tried not to make eye contact with any of his security personnel, I just tried to act casual... but when you're trying to act casual you start feeling suspicious, at least I do, so then I started worrying that I looked suspicious. Then I thought to myself, "Why should I feel suspicious, it's not like I'm going to try and rob 50 Cent..." But then I noticed his watch and for a split second I thought to myself, "I wonder how much that watch would weigh me down if I started running with it." And then I realized that if I was wearing a watch like that around town I'd want some bodyguards too... and come to think of it, I'm pretty sick and tired of people crowding me.

What I learned on the Red Carpet - Part I

I don't know if I'm supposed to do this, but I'm doing it anyway. I shot at some of the hottest parties in town during Sundance in Park City over the last week and it was a blast! I met photographers from L.A., New York, the UK, Washington D.C. who all flew in to cover events in my very own back yard. They all do this for a living, for me, well it was my first time and when a celebrity comes down that red carpet you have to be ready because you only get one chance - and as you'll see, sometimes you don't even get that! There are lots of mini stories and lots more photos of celebrities, but I'll give you a couple highlights (with photos) and I apologize in advance for plastering my name all over them, but they're very expensive images and I don't want anyone using them for free! If you do want to purchase them, feel free to contact me and I'll refer you to the appropriate place.

Paris Hilton - Take One.
Paris Hilton at the Turning Leaf Lounge in Park City during Sundance.

Here's how it works - Paris Hilton was hosting a private dinner at the Turning Leaf Lounge on Saturday night, and on Friday I received a confirmation that I was on the list of photographers set to shoot her arrival. The dinner was set to start at 8:00, we were asked to check-in at 7:00, and as usual I was on-time. One and a half hours later after waiting outside in the 20 degree weather the PR person finally arrives and sets us up inside, but then the fire marshal shows up and he decides there are too many people inside (VIPs apparently inevitably bring more people than planned and you can't tell them no) so they decide to move the media line outside. There was about 8 photographers and 2 TV crews, and when we all spilled outside onto the sidewalk and set up in a line it started to attract quite a crowd and since a crowd wasn't necessarily expected security was VERY unprepared!

When Paris arrived sheer bedlam ensued. By bedlam I mean one photographer was knocked to the ground as the public surrounded Paris, all the while we were all trying to get the shot we needed. You can get an idea of how unsuccessful I was by the image on the left, some photographers had more luck though and got exactly what they needed - but I was on the wrong end of the line, way too close to her when she got out of her car so I was in the middle of the crowd. Security pulled her inside as fast as they could and that was that.

Well, our PR contact was working very hard on getting me back inside to get the shot I needed but Paris' manager didn't want to pull her away from the party just yet - so I, along with a couple other photographers, had to wait some more... did I mention how cold it was? Finally after about a half hour our PR contact came out to talk to give us a status update and suddenly one of the other photographers (the only girl) absolutely lays into her! I mean she was really letting her have it telling her how poorly run the event was, how there wasn't enough security, or enough barricades and how she was knocked down - when she was done berating our PR contact the photographer stormed off and our contact (now pissed) started going back inside. Me and another photographer stopped her and told her how retarded the other photographer was (which she was) and after a couple minutes our contact firmly stated that she was going to make SURE we got our shot. Minutes later a team of security is instructed to stand on either side of us a keep the crowd out of our view finders, Paris was leaving momentarily and they asked her to stop and make sure we could get a photo of her just outside the door... she exited, bedlam ensued, and security held everyone back - and I got my shot! Off to the next event (which I was now an hour late for)... to be continued.