Way back in the day when I first started getting into photography I used to frequent a message board (this was before blogs) called Paper Brigade. The message board was run by a couple of dudes that went to the New England School of Photography and usually was filled with band photography. This was where I found out about the Day 19 duo and where I found out about Dennis Ho. Dennis was a dude that lived in Jacksonville while I did and was a bit of an inspiration to me when I was first getting into photography. He was always going on tour with crazy bands like Weezer or The Get Up Kids for weeks at a time and that was what I really wanted to do for a while. Needless to say I never got into the whole band photography thing but I was really excited to meet someone who was. Dennis is a super cool dude and has been a friend of mind for a good while now. Although he hasn’t been shooting as much recently as he did when I first meet him its always fun to look back at some of his work and reminisce on days past. If you want to check out more of Dennis’ work you can check out his website here or after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week I was fortunate enough to work with celebrity photographer Lionel Deluy. I worked on a job for an upcoming hip hop star and it was a fun filled day of Lambos, crack houses and getting yelled at by neighborhood vigilantes. Lionel is the first big LA celebrity photographer that I have worked for and it was a really interesting experience. After watching videos on YouTube of Lionel as a guest star on America’s Next Top Model a couple of years ago and shooting for Kat Von D’s new book I was expecting the worst. Much to my surprise Lionel and his assistant Odyssey turned out to be really awesome dudes, making our 12 hour day a breeze. It seems like Lionel has shot just about everyone there is to shoot as far as celebrities and musicians are concerned so this is only a small portion of his work. Check out more work after the jump or on his website here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday marked a pretty major moment in world history with the 10th Iranian presidential election. While Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reported as winning the election supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi believed there was foul play. Thousands of Mousavi supporters began protesting thru-out the country with massive demonstrations taking place in Tehran.

The images that have come out have been incredible but since the first batch of pictures came out the Iranian government has banned all foreign media.

The most interesting part of all of it is how the U.S. State Department is using Twitter as a means to keep in touch with what is going on. The State Department asked Twitter to delay their scheduled maintenance so that people in Iran could still update their accounts while protesting continued to go on. I’ve never heard of a country blocking off all foreign media while such major demonstrations are going on but Im really glad that these images made it out before that.

Check out more photos that struck me after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

What up world? This is Joe, filling in for Ross for this week’s Photo Friday. I came across this article a while back analyzing a photograph taken by Madonna’s publicity team as she goes through the process of adopting yet another Malawian baby. In a bid to make her attempted adoption look more romanticized, Madonna has created a bit of propaganda with the above photo. Martin Parr explains the motives behind converting the photo to sepia after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

This week I worked for a very talented product photographer here in town by the name of Greg Slater. Slater specializes in product photography and is one talented dude when it comes to lighting. I mean, look at how interesting he can make a cup of coffee look! When I was back at Portfolio Center we had a still life class where we had to bring in images from photographers that we liked. I found a really interesting image of a wrench that I wanted to try and copy in my own special way. What I didn’t realize when I picked that image was that it was from Greg and that he was based here in Atlanta. Needless to say I was surprised when I checked his website after getting a call for work and realizing that he shot the wrench that I loved so much. Greg is a cool dude and has an amazing eye for lighting. I decided to share with everyone my version of the wrench still life. Its not nearly as good as Greg’s but I will admit it is cool to see the two side by side. If you’re looking for more of Greg’s work you can find more at his website .

On a small non-photo related note, LET’S GO MAGIC!

Read the rest of this entry »

So this week I decided to do something a little lighter considering last week was kind of gloomy. You might have read the title and thought to yourself, “Oh great, Ross is doing another post about himself. Awesome.” But thats where you’re wrong! This weeks photographer might have the same name as me but its not me! After some google searching I found Ross’ work and was kind of surprised that there was another photographer out there with the same name as me. But not only does he have the same name but he’s also based in the Pacific Northwest which is where I was born! Martin used to be a staff photographer for a newspaper in Oregon before changing his focus to fine art landscape photography and moving to Seattle. Martin uses a 4×5 camera to make his photographs which I have to applaud. 4×5 cameras are a totally different beast and to be able to use one to make landscape images like this is a hard thing to do. Either way its kind of cool to find someone else out there with the same name doing the same thing that you do!

Read the rest of this entry »

This weeks Photo Friday brings you the work of Boogie. Boogie is a street photographer living in NYC and has made a real name for himself over the past couple of years. Putting out 5 books and shooting an ad campaign for Nike over the past 3 years, he’s been a busy dude. Born and raised in Serbia he was a first hand witness to the civil war and began documenting there before coming to the US in 1998. His work is gritty and raw which might sound cliche but its probably the best way to describe it. I came across his book Its all Good a few years ago and was blown away. Not only at the images them selves but that someone was actually able to get in that deep with gangsters, skinheads and some of the craziest slums in the world. For me his work is good in small doses but if you’re looking for some more you can check out more at his website here

Also as a little self promotion I have started a tumblr blog of my own which I will be updating daily with things that inspire and make me laugh. If you’re interested you can check it out here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Awhile back, we gave you a look in a studio session involving Demun Jones and our in-house photographer, Ross Martin. The reason for that session was the creation for an album cover for his first iTunes single (coming out soon). Our goal was to portray “The Man in Black” with a “Cali” vibe.

This week I helped out Morel Studio Support for a couple of days and got to work with my friend Bobby. He was telling me about how he got to assist for Peter Yang on the last cover of Rolling Stone with Lil Wayne. I remember seeing that particular image for the first time and how impressed I was with it. Really there isn’t anything to the image that blows me away as far as lighting and concept is concerned and I think thats why I love it. Everyone knows who Lil Wayne is but to see such a simple picture of him I think is such a great contrast to what we’re used to seeing on his album covers or hearing in his lyrics. Just another fine example of simplistic lightinig and how effective it can be and even an awesome success story. Yang is about 30 years old and started shooting for a newspaper in Austin, TX about 10 years ago and now he’s shooting covers for Rolling Stone. I wonder what he’s gonna end up shooting another 10 years from now? If you want to read more about his approach to another assignment you can check out an awesome article here (its kind of photo nerdish but still an awesome read).

Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m going to hate myself for writing this next line because of how cliché it sounds, but here it goes. I really like Tim Barber’s work because it leaves you asking questions. Okay, now that you’re done laughing, seriously take a second and look at the pictures. To me it seems like there is an open-ended question about something related to the narrative of the image, which makes me enjoy this work even more. Barber approaches photography in one of my favorite ways: simple, natural lighting, with a shoot-from-the-hip mentality; capturing everything and anything that comes his way. It makes for some beautiful images and this proved to be a good approach considering he is now shooting for the Urban Outfitters catalogs. Not only is he working on making photographs for himself but he’s also working on a really great magazine called The Journal which has some really great work. I have a feeling that we will be seeing a lot more of Tim Barber in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »

While perusing the world wide web this week I came across something that made me stop in my tracks and sucked me in for quite some time. The work of Peter Funch is something that engaged me in the imagery, which is something that I could only say about a handful of photographers before I found his work. This isn’t to say that while looking at photography I am not totally engaged, but this work in particular is something that really drew me in. His concept is simple enough, take a series of images from a specific spot and then take sections that match and turn them into a single image. For example take everyone from one scene that walked through the frame that was wearing the color white and make a single photograph out of those people. Sounds simple enough but when you see the images it really takes you back. I’m a huge fan of images that suck you in like Funch’s work does and if you like what you see you can check out some more of his work after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

So as I have written on here before, I work primarily as a photo assistant for the majority of my income. What this basically means is that I carry around all the gear and put up the lights where the photographer wants them and then make sure everything runs smoothly so that the photographer has nothing to worry about except making sure they get the right picture. So yesterday I was fortunate to work with a really awesome photographer out of New York by the name of Ben Baker. One of the most refreshing things to see while working with someone is their total control with lighting. What I mean by this is that no matter what the image or situation the lighting is spot on and Ben is one of these people. Even while inside the Georgia World Congress Center with a million kids around he still was able to keep his cool and know exactly what he wanted his lighting to look like. I went through his website and tried to find the images that best showed this. Check out the rest of his work on his website, you might see some images you have seen before.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to my lackluster work schedule lately, I have been fortunate to catch up on a lot of daytime television and one of my new favorite shows is Deadliest Catch on Discovery. I know that I am a few years behind on this one but over the past couple of days I have been glued to my screen biting my nails and freaking out over all the crazy stuff that happens over a single episode of this show. Now you might be trying to figure out what Deadliest Catch has to do with Photo Fridayz and here is the link. This weeks photographer made a name for himself by getting onto an Alaskan King Crab fishing vessel and creating a body of work from his time there. The images are like stills straight from the Deadliest Catch and are pretty incredible to look at. There are tons more images at his website and even an interview of how he got his start here.

See more of Corey’s work after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

This week I bring to you Jerry Hsu. He’s not only an awesome photographer but an amazing skateboarder as well. I guess its a common thing these days for skateboarders to be photographers as well considering all the crazy/awesome things they get to see. Either way, Jerry has been around for a while and I’ve been a huge fan of his even before I knew that he was a popular photographer. After the jump not only can you check out some of his awesome black and white work but you can also see one of his best video parts from Enjoi’s last video, Bag of Suck.

Read the rest of this entry »

So this week I am going to introduce you to one of my favorite photographers of all time. His name is Gregory Crewdson. Crewdson is a photographer unlike most others in that his productions for his images are probably the most elaborate I have ever seen. His images are narratives in themselves which leave the viewer with numerous story possibilities. Its pretty amazing when you look at these images in person and can see all the details up close and tell all of the time and effort that is put into making a single image. I once saw a lighting diagram for his images and its incredible all the lights that are used to make a single image, but I guess that is what you get when you hire a Director of Photography to light your images for you. Either way I hope you enjoy the images and if you’re interested in hearing a better explanation of the process involved in the making of his images you can see an interesting interview here and there is a really awesome interactive article with production photos here.

Read the rest of this entry »

So before everyone out there starts to freak out over the name of this weeks photo friday take a second a listen to the story behind the images. My little dead dick is the photo essay from Patrick Tsai and Madi Ju. The story goes that the two meet over the internet and after a bit of correspondence via the interweb the two finally meet in person in Macau, China. From there they quit their jobs and both moved to China to pursue their love. In the process they took some amazing images of each other and their daily activities. The two unfortunatly broke up two years after getting together. The images here come mostly from the beginning of their relationship and are a very small portion of the whole body of work. To me its a great story and the images are beautiful and totally set the mood for the entire story. As far as the name goes, I have no idea where they got that from but the images are still awesome.

Read the rest of this entry »

Laurin by Maury Gortemiller

While I was surfing the internet this weekend I came across a pretty interesting new photography project called The 50 States Project. The states project, run by UK photographer and art photography curator Stuart Pilkington, is comprised of 50 photographers, one from every state and a series of assignments given to the photographers. They are given 2 months to work on the images in whatever way they see fit and then the results are posted on the website. The list of photographers working on the project is a pretty interesting group of people with some of my favorites like Jeremy and Claire Weiss and Brian Ulrich submitting images. Its a pretty good start and should be an awesome project to keep checking up on throughout the rest of the year. Here are some of my favorite images from the first project entitled people.

Read the rest of this entry »

Before I go into this week’s Photo Friday I would like to send a friendly reminder to everyone out there to please make sure and go check out the launch of Process today at Standard Lenox, Standard 1841, and EL BAR later tonight! Its going to be awesome and guaranteed good times! 

So as everyone out there knows, it snowed on Sunday here in ATL. Me being from Florida, it’s once in a blue moon that I get to see snow fall and it has been an even longer time since I’ve actually able to see snow fall and stay on the ground. Last year when it snowed, I freaked out. And this year I did the exact same thing. I went to Piedmont Park with the other half of Ayy Gurl Studios, Joe Martinez and took pictures almost the entire day. Here are a few pictures from the both of us!

Read the rest of this entry »

Click to View Large. All photos by Ross Martin

So last week, as Larry reported, we went to the Nike Black History Month Poetry Contest and saw some really amazing kids. I shot the event and got some really great photographs and you got a bit of a sneak peek last week and this week I decided to share a few more of the images with you. Hope you enjoy them!

Read the rest of this entry »

In case some of you reading this right now didn’t know a very special guest is coming to EL BAR this upcoming Tuesday night, Ricky Powell aka The Rickster. He is based out of New York City and has taken some of the most famous images of people like The Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and LL Cool J. You’ve more than likely seen his work on albums like Paul’s Boutique and publications like Mass Appeal. His grainy black and white style has been an influence to many street photographers out there. He’s coming to town to kick off a new night at EL BAR called Waxchaotics this Tuesday the 24th. I’m not completely sure about the format just yet, but I believe people will be able to bring their own vinyl to play out at the event. For more information check out the EL BAR website and for a little more information on Ricky Powell check out his interview here.

More of my favorite Ricky Powell photos and the flyer for Waxchaotics after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

photo by Ross Martin

DJ Klever kept the crowd pumped for hours-on-end last night at El Bar. Afterwards, he was nice enough to let me catch-up with him for a portrait outside “Atlanta’s Best Kept Secret” despite his exhaustion from the evening’s events. Thanks Klever!

Here’s a glimpse of your boy, Ross Martin, working on a studio session in our downtown ATL digs with the one-and-only, Demun Jones. I’m not allowed to disclose what the project is about yet, but I thought it would be great for everyone to see “Mr. Photo Friday” in action. All I can say is that you best get ready! Stay tuned for more details…

So this week we’ll be taking a look at the photographer Patrick O’Dell. O’Dell made his way up as a skateboard photographer for Thrasher magazine, eventually working his way up to photo editor of Vice magazine for a brief moment, and has now moved on to be the mastermind behind one of the best online television series, Epicly Later’d. If anyone out there is a fan of skateboarding or looking for something good to watch go and check out his television show. You wont be disappointed.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week I bring you a pretty interesting photographer. His name is Todd Jordan and not only is he represented by Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art in New York but he is also a professional skateboarder for Nike SB. His photographs are simple and come mostly from his tours across the country. His part in the most recent Nike video, Nothing but the Truth, was one of the better parts of the entire video. Check it out after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week I’m going to take it back a little bit to one of my all time favorite photography pairs of all time. Jeremy and Claire Weiss are a husband a wife team of photographers that I have known about for quite some time now. I first found out about them from a old photo website called The Paper Brigade (R.I.P!) where I found some of their images they shot of one of my favorite bands, Piebald. They always have really interesting projects and outtakes on their blog over at DAY19. Definitely an inspiration of where I want to be a few years from now and the the type of work that I would like to be shooting.

Read the rest of this entry »