Ari Denison Photography

Printed, Bound and Available

Ari — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:56:20 +0000

Well, it’s about time.

Time and time again I’ve read and been told that you have to show the kind of work that you want to do. The truth is that I love to do all types of dance photography. In the studio, out of the studio, on stage and behind the scenes. This project shows that precisely, and it helped me figure out that I don’t really care what kind of dance photography I do, only that I want to continue with dance photography. The next project will be more focused, it will be more directed, it may be more narrative and will dive deeper into one aspect of dance or another. For now it feels very nice to have this exploratory project finished.

It was difficult to keep it to 80 pages as I had a pool of many, many thousands of images to work with. For instance I eliminated any and all performance and rehearsal images. I didn’t include any candid or journalistic imagery. I didn’t include anything from social dance events. The images in Studio Sessions: Collaborations with Dancers are individual images that represent a meeting of the minds between me and the subjects. For me this is a new and liberating style of shooting that combines the most exciting parts of my creative education as a designer with the journalistic heritage in which I was raised. I was never as happy drawing, designing or shooting editorial work as I am creating something new using the tools of a photographer. Studio Sessions is my realization that I don’t have to act as an impartial observer when working as a photographer. I’m sure I’ll keep swinging between editorial, commercial and more creative projects. Balance is life. But I can see things are going to lead in interesting directions. I’m already outlining new projects. New, different, evolutionary projects. Stay tuned.

Perfect Summer

Ari — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:53:38 +0000

Oregon has some pretty amazing summers. I will miss this, sitting here in Dave’s front yard at 10pm in shorts and a t-shirt. Perfect temperature, crickets and grasshoppers, stars above me and the slightest hint of sweet fragrance from the various fruit-bearing trees and bushes that surround me. I feel lucky. I feel like I have missed out in a lot of summers lately. I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of life lately but I wasn’t really aware of it. It’s pretty funny because when I’m bummed out I work a lot but I’m not really all that productive. When I’m feeling better I get a lot more done in a lot less time. This last week was incredibly productive on every front. Socially, photographically, work-related and in all other ways. I’m feeling good. I’m happy. Tonight.

Blog Block

Ari — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:37:10 +0000

I’ve got writer’s block when it comes to this blog. A few years back I pumped out 1,000+ entries on a blog in a little over 18 months. I had a lot to say, too much really. Since then it’s been hard to write anything at all. Back then I was writing about the angst of losing my mom to cancer and the burden of grief that followed. When I write about photography it feels forced and all I can manage to talk about is equipment. It’s not because I have nothing to say about photography, it’s just that blogging is so self-centered. If I’m going to talk about photography I want it to be a conversation, preferably in person with another human being. I figure if I talk about gear someone might learn from my experience and insight. If I talk about the art of photography I’m pontificating, and if there’s anything I’m learning as I dive deeper and deeper into this world, is a greater and greater sense of exactly how much I don’t know. Photography is broad and huge and ever-changing. Photography isn’t even photography these days. Now it’s video. Or videography. I don’t know. Anyways… it’s a huge thing, bigger than I will ever understand or keep up with. I feel a bit weird blogging about it, as if I know anything, anything at all about it. I can blog about my subjects. I can blog about my assignments, my projects, my finished work. But when it comes to blogging about “photography”, I think it’s better with a friend.

Interestingly enough I had a marvelous conversation with Gillmer about intent in choreography and how I felt about my own intent in shooting. I’m also in the middle of a series of great emails with a good friend in New York City about process and how painters have it easy.

Ranger Days 2, 3, 4…

Ari — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:09:00 +0000

Demi Trezona. Just a kiss of complimentary light from camera left. Quadra probably would have worked here, but not from 20-30 feet back.

I’m wildly in love with the Elinchrom Ranger kit. I recently used it on three shoots, one with Alex, another with Amanda, and a third with Demi Trezona. I’ll readily admit that it’s really, really frickin’ heavy and the idea of hauling the beast more than half a mile on location is a bit burly. I think the Ranger Quadra kit with a few spare batteries would probably cover most of the locations I’ll be working in with about 1/2 the weight. But when I need three lights, or when the Quadra isn’t powerful enough I’ll either use both kits or I’ll need the bigger light.

In shooting I found the Ranger to produce very beautiful light. By that I mean consistent. Frame to frame it was incredibly consistent with almost no variance in the output strength or color temperature. Recycle times were quick, quicker than I needed them to be in fact. On Demi’s shoot I had to deal with natural light moving in and out of clouds and fog while dropping quickly towards the horizon. That slowed me down a bit. In fact, it changed my tactic from using the ranger as primary light to using it a supportive role about a quarter of the way through the shoot. Had I left it as the primary I would have spent a lot of effort compensating for the changing sunlight and would have certainly missed a lot of shots. In this case it was perfectly ok to let the supporting light vary a little bit.

Tiffany Alexandra Taylor. Used the Ranger as a primary, allowing me to drop the ambient light 2+ stops.

It’s interesting how this piece of equipment is already effecting how I’m planning shoots in my head. It opens up possibilities and locations that weren’t available before, but it increases logistical considerations and will demand me to hire more assistants more often.

I like the results and I think having a strong light while on location is worth both the physical effort and adaptation in my planning. Without a doubt though, it’s very different than working with SBs or in only natural light. It probably won’t be something I use on every shoot, well, not after I get fully comfortable with it, but it’s a dang nice tool to have at my disposal.

Amanda Coleman. This is a situation when the smaller Quadra would have worked just fine.

Anyway… here are a few sample images.

Ranger Day 1

Ari — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:40:12 +0000

Grumpy Man in the Sun. I'm practicing for when I'm an old guy yelling Get off my damn lawn! at the neighborhood kids

I’m moving to Memphis at the end of the summer. I don’t know if I’ll have an in-home studio or not, so I’ve been taking a good long look at my studio equipment. All in all I have not been happy with my lights or my stands. I like my giant octobox, medium softbox, umbrellas, and all the little DIY cardboard snoots and grid spots I’ve made over time. The manfrotto boom and micro stands have been stellar as well. I even managed to find one gem in a large universe of horrible no-name generic stands. All of my other stands and AC lights, for lack of a more fitting expression, suck.

But then that’s the purpose of buying inexpensive gear when you’re moving in to something new; discover what you do and don’t like. When I bought that first set of lights and stands I had no idea how much I would fall in love with studio work. No idea at all. At the time I was mostly thinking about food photography to dovetail with my year-long visual food diary. I give the same advice to new photographers. Buy a cheap DSLR and figure out what you do and don’t need. Upgrade only when you have a specific reason and need to do so. Everything else is a gamble. I was surprised again and again by how my expectations were crushed as I played with my first set of lights. Don’t buy gear because you might use it or you’re in love with the idea of what some feature’s possibilities might be. Purchase with experience. Know what you don’t want, and why. /end soapbox… moving on.

Ranger RX Speed AS

Moving across the country seems like a good time to swap out some gear, right? I sold my monoblock lights with terrible recycle time, horrendous color changing strobe tubes, and 1/15 sec. burst duration, and bought myself a single Elincrhom Ranger RX Speed AS unit and a single Ranger A (for action!) Speed head. The Ranger RX Speed AS is one of Elinchrom’s battery-powered units. The beast weighs about, oh… 17.6 pounds (not including spare battery (4.8 lbs), head and power cable (5.8 lbs) and carries well only when loaded into an army surplus tactical backpack designed to carry loads of guns and bullets and MRE’s and Claymores and stuff. I’ll digress for a moment and say that, as a complete bag-whore, I was unable to resist a pack with nary a single square inch of fabric that wasn’t covered in loops of tubular webbing and is ornamented with all manner of pockets and secret holes for antennas and cords and water tubes and straps. In my opinion everything should have more pockets. Shirts, pants, jackets, socks, everything. Pockets! Yes, the bag is a hideous (an hideous?) color of green, and really, no matter how nice the bag, it’s not possible to comfortably carry a 28-30 lb. metal and lead acid brick on your back. Alas, I already love the bag for the way it perfectly cradles the Ranger, spare battery, sync cords, head, charger, speed ring and instruction manual. It’s not about my comfort level, the gear is safe, right? Er… right.

Ranger Quadra

Elincrhom has a smaller and far less powerful version of the Ranger called the Quadra. I believe that unit weighs 6.6 lbs, with each strobe head weighing about the same as an SB-600. I believe one of the quadra kits may very well be in my future, but I wanted to start out with the Ranger. That way everything after this is less expensive, relatively speaking. For now, I’ll tough it out with the 30 lb. monster and smile because I can use the Ranger as the primary light source even in direct mid-day summer sunlight. Not only that, but even at full power it only takes a few seconds to recycle. At lower power settings the thing is dang near instantaneous. It will work solidly both in and out of the studio. Oh, and did I mention the thing can work in 5 centimeters of standing water?

I haven’t had much of an opportunity to play with it yet, just a few test shots late this afternoon, but already I like what I see. It’s got that I’m in a studio, wait… no, I’m not, sort of feeling. I like it. Not quite a full day-to-night effect, but dropping the ambient down a couple of stops and focusing the Ranger on the subject helps with separation from the background in a big way. I was able to take the opening shot above at ASA 200, F/14 at 1/250 sec (2 stops below incident meter reading). Late afternoon direct sunlight coming from the left, Ranger from about 10 feet off right through a white shoot-through umbrella/box thing. The ranger easily blew away the sun, even at F14. Pretty amazing. I tried a variety of higher shutter speeds and found that things failed gracefully, adding something of a bottom-edge-vignette to the image that isn’t entirely unappealing. I could see it being useful to tone down a white wedding dress in the sun. I’ll try and get some more test shots in tomorrow, see how well the battery holds up and decide if I want to use it for a wedding I’m shooting on Sunday.

1/500 second bottom vignette effect. This exposure has the same flash power setting and aperture as the shot above but the ambient light has dropped due to a faster shutter speed. The lower portion of the image is also darker due to the shutter either missing or clipping a portion of the strobe's duration.

My other lights (the ones I really do like) are Nikon SB units and I actually considered buying a few more of those, some radio poppers or pocket wizards, and a bunch of grip equipment. What stopped me was how much of a pain in the butt it is to get SB units into standard light modifiers. I’ll be honest, I prefer a softbox and speed ring on a stand over a bed sheet, speed rail, clamps, gaffer’s tape, safety pins, bailing wire, twine, duct tape, wood shims, velcro straps and putty any day of the week. It takes a pile of SB’s to properly fill a 7 foot octodome. Too much hassle. I’ll still be using my SB’s both in and out of the studio, but I’m just not up to the DIY ultra-elite level just yet. Perhaps I’m lazy.

Stay tuned… more test images to come.

Oh, and on another note… I had a great and interesting conversation with a photography educator earlier this week and have come to understand something that I’ve been avoiding for about a year now. I’m going to have to learn how to do video. Can’t get around it anymore, it’s part of the program and we’ll be hitting the ground running and are expected to arrive with footage ready to edit. Eeek. Should be an interesting year trying to figure out how to shoot video.

Who wants to buy a house in Eugene?

Ari — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:39:31 +0000

First thing first…

Betty Carlson of John L. Scott Realty.
(cell) 541.521.4311
(office) 541.687.1415
Listing Details

After posting images of my newly remodeled living room people have been asking me about the rest of the house. Well, in all honestly not a lot has been upgraded beyond the bamboo floors in the living room, stairs, hallway and master bedroom. I’ve done my best to maintain the place but I have had neither the time of the budget to tackle other major projects. I wanted to add a bathroom to the master bedroom. I wanted to redo the cabinetry in the kitchen and upgrade the range to gas. Yeah, hasn’t happened. One thing I can say about the place is that it’s cleaner, tidier, more well-maintained and infinitely more organized that it has ever been since my mom and dad bought the place in ’87.

As anyone who has done this knows, maintaining a 4 bedroom house properly is quite a bit of work. I’d like to stay here and keep working on it, but it’s unreasonable for a single guy to tackle so much and hold on to a place this big. I’m either 100% dedicated to working on it, or I’m being a flake. I refuse to be a flake. For the last 5 years this house has consumed all of my time, energy and money. I love being a part of the transformation of this space but it’s time to move on.

The house is located on the eastern slope of Hendricks Park hill. It’s in the South Eugene High / Roosevelt / Edison school district. Moments away from the U of O campus with easy access to I-5 and LCC. My realtor says it is in the “University Area”.

This 4 bedroom house was designed and built by a visiting architecture professor at the U of O. He and his family lived in the house while in Eugene.

Distinct features of the house include tall vaulted ceilings, lofts in two bedrooms, hardwood, stone, brick and bamboo floors throughout (no carpets) and gas central heating.

Anecdotal notes. The house seems to stay cool in summer. People often talk about how it’s considerably cooler on my side of the hill and the overhanging trees provide excellent shade. It’s an excellent house for entertaining and throwing events. (See image at the bottom of this page). Also, the living room has doubled as my photo studio for a few years now. A good number of the images on this site were made in that living room. The light in the house is good. When it’s daylight there’s always a nice bit of light somewhere in the house.

Weaknesses. The weatherizing is circa 1970. The floors and walls are insulated well enough but the windows are single-pane. I had a bid on replacements and it was $5K+ without considering state/federal subsidies. Not sure why I didn’t jump on it at the time. I think I was debating between doing the floors and windows and my allergy doc sad get rid of the carpets. Window work is probably cheaper now that contractors are so eager for work. The range in the kitchen is old and no self-respecting cook will be happy with it without either putting some work in to it or replacing it outright. The decks need to be pressure washed yearly and the relatively mellow slope of the roof (and overhanging conifers) demand yearly, if not biannual, roof cleaning. Luckily both of those two tasks are pretty easy and quick if you don’t mind heights.

If you are interested in this property or know anyone who might be interested in this property, please get in touch with me at 541.513.1889.

View Larger Map

So, without further ado… more photos.

The Master Bedroom.

The master bedroom. Angle 1.

The master bedroom. Angle 2.

The loft over the kitchen and living room.

Loft over kitchen and living room.

The kitchen. Note the lack of giant hideous cabinets hanging over the range. Oh, the things I’d like to do in this space!

Kitchen.

The dining room. Pretty glossy bricks. Not much else has changed.

The dining room.

The middle bedroom. Please excuse the low quality of these images. I shot them quickly when I was looking for housemates.

Middle bedroom. Angle 1.

Middle Bedroom. Angle 2 (from loft).

Middle Bedroom. Angle 3.

The library. Please excuse the low quality of these images. I shot them quickly when I was looking for housemates.

Library. Angle 1.

Library. Angle 2.

Library. Angle 3.

Library. Angle 4 (from loft).

The front bedroom. My office. That hideous rack thing is about 7 feet tall by 8 wide by 2.5 deep. This is the largest of the three non-master bedrooms.

Front Bedroom.

And, once again, the living room.

Oh, and the new tiles in the bathroom. Don’t look too closely, this image was taken mid-installation.

And a backlit exterior shot. I’ll be shooting again tomorrow to get something better.

A fun little halloween party.

The Living Room

Ari — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 08:48:43 +0000

This is what I inherited… And, believe it or not, this isn’t nearly as bad as it was. The windows were actually obscured by 6 foot stacks of dusty cardboard boxes full of 3 generations wort of miscellaneous family leftovers in every room of the house but the small middle bedroom when I bought the place from my dad. Note the heinous carpet and exposed and faded cedar walls and thick layer of dust on everything. No wonder a year later I was seeing an allergist for severe issues breathing.

This is how it looks today…

A Few For Alex

Ari — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:29:57 +0000

[View with PicLens]

Four Amanda

Ari — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:17:23 +0000

[View with PicLens]

Wrapped Up

Ari — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:48:44 +0000

My hands are shaking just a little bit. The kind of nervous energy that can only come at the end of an exhausting day quivers down the length of my tendons to their termination near the end of my fingers. I wish there were a song or poem to help ease the burden of finding the words for how I feel. I’m bouncing between playlists, genres, artists as I wait for the epson 4800 to finish printing the last image of the night. None of the songs fit my mood. They’re all too refined. I’m feeling very rough and raw. I’m inventing my life every day. I’m making choices that unquestionably guide me between two very distinct universes. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that every decision made actually splits worlds. The idea originated with quantum physics but it’s been popularized and used ad nauseam in books like the Hitchhiker’s Guide the the Galaxy and movies like Sliding Doors… and now that I think of it, I’ve never actually heard a physicist talk about the philosophical implications of quantum phenomenon. But I digress… I’m restless so I’m committing completely to something that, by it’s very nature, has a huge number of unanswerable questions. I do this because it feels better than a guaranteed life of boredom, stress and frustration. Hope is like that; the unknown probability of the unknown future going up against the known certainty of the known future. Even if my situation weren’t burdensome or stressed I think I’d rather wake up not knowing what the day will bring than to know today what my life will be in 12 months. Inaction serves only the satisfied or pacified. Right now I am neither.