Julie is an internationally recognized, award winning photographer who’s unique style is highly prized. She is also a great teacher and mentor, always encouraging others to learn and grow. She is one of the reasons I am in the Florida top ten professional photographers this year. I was #10, she was of course #7.

I was very excited to include her in the series, not only because she is a great artist, but also because it would be a personal challenge to photograph a great photographer. I knew the session would push me to create something we would both love, despite my internal apprehension. My challenge was to make the portrait completely my style without the influence of her studio.

Julie let me completely take over her studio.It was nice to work in a space designed for the task at hand. I usually work in environments friendly to my subjects, not to me and all my “stuff”.

I boxed her into one of her sets using a few of her favorite backgrounds, and arragned some of her lights in the background as props. I wanted her completely within her environment. The environmental portrait of the photographer was my goal.

The resulting image from the set is our favorite, very much expressing Julie’s personality.

After finishing inside, I knew I wanted to do something more edgy, so I created an outside set behind her space in one of the mall alleys. This is usually more my style anyway.

Peter Hughes is standing on the right for this production shot, notice the different light sources…

I shot many images we liked, with the favorite below. The attitude, lighting, and the negative spaces came together to give this image the edge I had envisioned. 

Julie was very gracious to allow me into her space and our resulting collaboration made some great portraits. 

Julies work is amazing, her award winning images are very inspiring and can be seen on her website which I will post below.

If you have interest in viewing more of my enviromental portraits, follow the link: http://www.thomaswinter.com/#/portfolio/portraiture/

Abbey Portrait Studios: http://www.abbeyoflondon.com/

Also, to see the award winning images from the Fl Professional Photographers competition follow:

http://fpponline.org/members/?page_id=2137

Hope you like the new blog format!

-tw

A big thank you to East Coast Aviation Services for allowing us to use their hanger.

Executive portraits are always a challenge because I am usually working in an environment that is foreign, but yet familiar to the subject. This was a pre-production image of the set I had in mind….

By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, I am usually better able to bring out the essence of their personality. People also tend to be a little bit more relaxed as opposed to in a studio, which can be a bit sterile.  

Creating the set on location is a process of trial and error of mixing props and lights into a pleasing composition.  Here you can see one of the early test images checking basic composition and lighting. The final lighting arrangement consisteted of 4 seperate strobes illuminating everything from the tail to the cockpit.

PJ was a very relaxed subject, his easy going style, and enthusiasm for photography made this shoot go very smoothly.

Reviewing the images with PJ…( image courtesy of friend and fellow photog Steve Martine who was my right arm this shoot)

These last 2 images are the finals for the job, a great environmental executive portrait of PJ Anson.

-tw

The prints in the competition are judged on 12 primary elements, some of which are: Impact, Creativity, Technical Excellence, Composition, Lighting, Style, Print Presentation, Subject Matter, and Story Telling.

There are a number of categories, and awards are available for 1st -3rd place, and best in show. Overall scores contribute to a ranking that this year placed me in the FPP top ten which was the most exciting award of the week.

All six of the submitted images are posted below. The big winner was the “sunrise sculler”, that earned a score of 95, 1st place, and Best In Show. This was the second year in a row I took 1st place in the landscape category and that 95 is an extremely difficult score to achieve.

Sunrise Sculler

Board Meeting

Central Park

St Mary’s

The Smoking Man

Sunrise on the St Lucie

Some of these images will now compete internationally at the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) competition. ”The Sandbar” and “St Lucie Blvd” are currently on the national PPA exhibit.  These competitions are really a great way to hone my skills as a photographer and fine art printer.

My thanks to Master Photographer Julie Hughes of Abbey of London for her inspiration and encouragement to compete.

..tw

..courtesy of leader Christopher Arnold. 

The event is an international, 33,000 participants in 1113 locations. There were about 50 this morning on the streets of our humble town.  It’s nice to actually go out and shoot without restrictions of an assignment.

The City Dock….

I was photographing this corner where Mulligans now sits…

…when this guy thought he could do it better and jumped into the frame…

..he refused to move until the light came up and my opportunity would be gone…

..so I waited …

..the obstructionist turns out to be the one and only Steve Martine.  So I cut him some slack, and offered to buy him breakfast if he would move. I think he actually got a better shot then mine, btw…

Lady Abundance @ Haney Circle…

We saw a few familar faces on the street, chatted it up, then headed for the Oceola Street Cafe…

To see all of my favorite image from this morning, hit the jump:

http://www.thomaswinter.com/events/photowalk/

To learn more about the photowalk event:

http://worldwidephotowalk.com/

- tw

My friend and fellow photog Steve Martine joined me on the shoot. Steve always adds an extra dimension of fun and creativity to the set. It’s always good to work with him…

It was amazing how good some of the skaters are, especially for their age.  Josh Forsberg, 9 years old…

Some of the others really put a show on for us. Here is CJ catching some air…

CJ and Mason..

Tyler catching the light!

Pat Mark is one of the founders of the skate park in Rio, here she is with some of her skaters…

The rest of the images from the shoot can be found at the following link:

http://www.thomaswinter.com/jobs/skate

..tw

That morning I walked inside to discover a single bare bulb glowing in the center of the stage….

I inquired… “It’s the ghost lamp”, replied Bert, as he pulled back one of the large curtains. Well I love ghost stories, so I inquired further. According the executive director of the Lyric, John Loesser, it is old “theatre lore”.  A lamp burns through the night inside all old theatres and is standard practice on Broadway.

According to a Playbill Magazine story published 2005, many of Broadway’s busiest theatres continue to be busily haunted by spirits, some with well-known names and histories.

“Each night after the applause dies, the curtain falls, the audience vanishes, the cleaners dust and the lights are killed, great theatres become dark and silent places. This is when the theatre ghosts make their entrance and strut and fret their hour upon the shadowed stage, illuminated only by the ghost light, the solitary lamp that is required to burn through the night on every Broadway stage.”

Well, ghosts or no ghosts, the light, and the lore are so cool to me I was determined to use it in a photograph.

The opportunity came Thursday in the form of the Lyric staff portrait…. 

I hauled in a bunch of my gear to light 15 people on the dark stage. After a bunch of light adjustments, tweaks and tests, here we go, a nice portrait of some nice people…

…but I needed something more interesting…

“The Ghost Lamp!!” I thought, or perhaps it was whispered to me while I was atop the ladder.

I pushed all the gear aside, and moved the lamp to center stage. It was going to come together, with only this simple light I thought.

I gathered everyone around the light, climbed back up the ladder, held it steady, and….

there it was..the shot, courtesy of the ghost lamp.

-tw

Link to the full playbill.com story:

http://www.playbill.com/features/article/93486-The-Ghosts-of-Broadway

The exhibit will be at the Court House Cultural Center Gallerys (Arts Council 80 E Ocean, Stuart)  June 25 – September 24th 2010.

Robert Holland is a commercial and portrait photographer based in Stuart FL. He has a very clean and distinctive style.  There is a link to his website below.

I will have a diverse collection of favorites and images not widely seen before.

Please mark your calendars and join us for this exciting exhibition. I hope to see you on the 25th.

-tw

http://robertholland.com

http://thomaswinter.com

http://www.martinarts.org/

The Miami River is a river that drains out of the Everglades and runs through the City of Miami. This 6 mile river river flows from the terminus of the Miami Canal by the Airport into Biscayne Bay. It was originally a natural river inhabited at its mouth by the Tequesta Indians. The Port of Miami is located at the mouth of the river where we began our trip.

Martin County artist Kevin Hutchinson invited me to accompany him on a tour of the river hosted by 3 Miami-Dade firefighters who know the waterway well. We wanted to explore the river’s connection to Martin County.

The Martin County connection to the river goes back artists Jim Hutchinson and Howard Schafer who used Miami River scenes as inspiration for their paintings. They traveled down there often.  It was exciting to recognize this boat from a painting done years ago.

The river is divided into 3 distinct areas. The mouth of the river flowed right through downtown Miami, it was right there, we could have stepped out onto the street.

As we made our way inland a bit, we passed through Little Havana where the cuban fishing boats lined the docks.

The 3rd and most interesting part of the river was the western most part, the shipyards….

There were many cargo ships back here, and this is also has been the landing place for all types of contraband. However, government crackdown has greatly reduced that activity.

As we moved slowly past the ships and deeper into the river, I felt the gaze of workers upon us..

 Finally, we reached the end of the river, the place where the Miami Canal (C-6) begins its 77 mi  journey up to Lake Okeechobee.

Before the rocky ledge was broken up to allow the water to flow freely, there where actually rapids here. All of this was done in the early part of the 20th century to drain the Everglades Agricultural Area. 

-tw

To view all of the images: http://www.thomaswinter.com/places/miamiriver/

More information from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_River_(Florida)

Map of the Miami River area: http://www.miamirivercommission.org/PDF/24x18MRC09MapFinalWeb.pdf

We visited patients at Martin Memorial Hospital.

They call themselves “Sunshine on a Leash”, because everytime they make a visit, it’s like a ray of sunshine comes shining down…

..and that’s exactly what I saw happen.

They visit hospitals, cancer centers, adult day care centers, at various locations throughout Palm Beach and Martin Counties.

It was very moving to see the interactions and the joy the dogs brought with them.

To view all the images from the series:

 http://www.thomaswinter.com/clients/sunshine/

To view the audio slideshow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xth03XGutk8

To find out more information on the organization,  please visit their website at:

http://www.sunshineonaleash.org/

They really need additional volunteers.

-tw

Represented were approximately 200 area high school students, teachers, parents, and school officials.

This exhibition recognizes the talents of students from Martin County, South Fork and Jensen Beach HIgh Schools, the Pine School and Clark Advanced Learning Center.

Artist Stephen Stone kept a watchful eye on the crowd….

The complete list of awards can be found here: http://www.martinarts.org/includes/downloads/prhsjasawardslist2010.pdf

More pictures: http://www.thomaswinter.com/events/hsartshow/

The exhibit runs through June 9th.

Come by the Arts Council and see the wonderful work of these students.

-tw