April Shoot - Ben

Ben is a friend from back in my teenage days going to music camp (NOoooo NOT American Pie "Band Camp"...yeah definitely not) and about a month ago he sent me a note saying he'd been thinking about asking me to take pictures of himself but he was kinda nervous about the whole picture taking deal.

So I asked what his ideas were and what he wanted them for and I think the response was something along the lines of "I have many geeky passions and I want to document me enjoying them." From there the conversation turned to where we'd shoot them and the idea of shooting in a comicbook store that he used to work at came up. Loved it instantly and had just finished reading McNally's Hot Shoe Diaries and noticed a lot of use of coloured gels...I wanted to try adding that in to my mix. Bought some coloured acetate about a year ago and so trimmed some of these down and velcroed them up.... I'll share more about those in another post though.

Ben's comicbook store pictures worked JUST as I had envisioned:


I surprised myself! I got the shots I wanted in about 10 frames! It was a little unnerving. I would've stayed longer to push things and test out different lighting scenarios, but I already had what I wanted and what Ben loved. So off to the beaches to take some more pics:





I asked Ben after these if there was a specific place or activity that meant a great deal to him and was really important for him to be caught on camera. He thought about it and after a few minutes said "I have a key to my church! Lets head over there and do some of me playing piano!" Sure thing I said!: