Kim St. Dennis Photography

Digital Photography School.com is an interesting site. Darren Rowse, the editor and founder is Austrian based and post about all things for the digital photographer.
 
The tips and tutorial entries sometimes center around creative inspiration and theory which is why I like them so. Today's post centers around being a curious photographer and Rowse has some helpful tips to check out.


How to Be a Curious Photographer

So I ran across this over at Darren Rouse's Digital Photography School but dont know who the origional author is to give credit to.
At any rate its a fantastic graph of the life of a photographer. Where do you land on it?


Edit: So, my buddy Mike Kang noticed that I hadnt placed myself on the graph. Well, I've been shooting with an old Hasselblad film camera for about 7 months now and recently decided I didnt really care about gear anymore and that the image itself held the only importance. So, I guess that leaves me between, "one exposure per motive" and "Death." Ha!

Los Angeles is a used tissue for aspiring professional photograhers. I paint that picture only becuase in order to shoot at a lot of our lovely locations around the county, you need to caugh up some dough. This is a side effect of LA being the home of the US film industry for the past 100 years or so. Essentially, unless you "run and gun," every Tom, Dick, and Harry has their hand out to get paid if a tripod or lightstand hit the ground. What can one do?

Well, one can take a class at a local college and use the studio, parking garage, and out door locations there! This maximizes the econmics of paying for shooting space and also gets me out of the house every thursday night (as if someone had to pull my arm to get me out).

So, my buddy James Stiles (www.jamesstilesphoto.com) grabs about 8-10 of us a handful of models each week, we set up some lighting to our desired look, we get the use of a free MUA, and get to shoot away. The studio is about 2.5k sqft. equiped with 6-8 Norman packs and 16 or so heads, super big softboxes, gels, grids, etc. Considering the cheaperst studio Ive found to rent is $25.00 per hour, the cost of the class is not bad at all.

So I was looking over Craigslist for Hasselblad gear to add a brighter focusing screen to my 503CX. The one I currently have is very fuzzy and not very bright, but new screens cost 200-300 US and that can cover the cost of a lens, so its a tough call. Finding something on CL as we know it, would be nice. Used works great for me.

As I was looking I came across a recent listing for Hasselblad and Profoto gear. Well the Hassy gear was a bit high priced for my taste, but the profoto gear was an amazing deal. So, I communicated with the seller, a nice gentleman who owns a design firm, Ron Taft.
 
Photos from Profoto.com
I ended up with 2 compact plus 600 monoblocks, an accute2 1200R generator, a D4 ringlight , and tons of accessories. All this for not much more than my aliens bee investment. Well, maybe a little more. But, Ive got some stuff Im getting rid of that should more than cover the cost. Needless to say, the light is beautiful. Ive got a few shoots this weekend (3/21/10) that should see some use of the new gear. This effectively puts an end to my medium format budget for now, but oh what wonderful light!

Well. Its been a few months, the holidays are over, and things are slowly getting back to normal. Essentially life gets put on hold in the month of December for me. Family fills my time and a form of hybernation seems to set in. Not that I sleep a lot (4-5 hours a night), but it seems things around me just kind of slow down.

So late January is here and Im thinking things will be back to normal soon. Ive started to work on post again. Had a very unorganized shoot last weekend. Didnt turn out well due to time constraints. I suppose the sun has to light the rest of the world as well. There was lots of discussion about where to go with your shooting, how I should learn from other photographers, and what not. It all made for an interesting day.

On the other side of things, for Christmas Santa brought me a new (20 year old) Hasselblad 503cx. Its my jump into medium format film photography. I grew up shooting 35mm slide film and this is just a larger version of it. All manual focus with a 1/500th sync speed. Its been a joy so far. I barrowed a medium format film scanner from this guy and have started to scan the developed film. I get a 30+ MP image with a wide dynamic range. I would imagine though that affordable digital backs will be on the way in the future as well. So all is moving forward again.

This post I began on Sept 29,2009 -
I belong to the Strobist Los Angeles group. Stobists are all about off camera flash and usually are aspiring Pros or Pros allready. They are all DIYers and enjoy sharing their methods whenever possible. They also take some damn good photos.

I suppose you would say that I am community oriented and I like to be a contributor to the functions of the organizations Im belong to. So I took it upon myself with Michael Kang's help to put on a strobist meet. Ive been to many of their socials and a few meets for shooting. But I figured it would be fun to do and I like putting things together like this.

Well its been an interesting ride. I find that lots of people show interest, but not as many sign up...

A week later...

Well, it happened, I learned lessons, and met some nice folks. I personally wouldn't call it a success. Why? Out of our 6 models only 3 showed. One additionall model came as a curtisy to one of the photogs. Oh, there were to many shooters for the space. Just slightly. 10 came, 8 would have been much better. On the other side, the place was nice and the MUAs great as well as the stylist. So I can say it was a good learning experience.

Andreas of ANM Photography
I personally didnt shoot much. Too many people with the same shot. My buddy Gerald set up his lights on one set and got them perfect to his and my specifications. We walked away for a moment, came back, and they were changed. Made for a different shot all together. Live and lern right?

So, I go biweekly to a bar in Hollywood called Birds Cafe just east of Gower on Franklin. An art photographer friend and I sit and chat about the goings on in life. Inevitably, we always meet someone of interest, be it a make up artist, stylist, potential model, adult performer, etc. (great crowd there!) Its a good time and is filled with immersive conversation and lots of Hollywood's finest eye candy.

However, when we meet these people there, I am at a loss as I dont have printed business cards for my photography work. So, that being a small part of the driving force, I ran out and had some moo cards printed up. Only a test pack of 50, as another friend pointed out, they are quite pricey. A set of 500 cards can be had for 50.00 or less depending on your needs. Plus, I know a printer (I know a guy, who knows a guy, who...). In the mean time though these moo.com cards will work wonderfully. I get them in a week or so. Just in time for my next trip to Birds.

About a year and a half ago when I start to put my lighting kit together, I came across a hidden gem. photocamel.com. Oddly enough, I rarely see it in google searches and frankly dont recall how I came across the site. With that said, its a massive wealth of information that has assisted me on more than one occasion.

 At photocamel youll find some knowledgeable and helpful folks like Benji www.sonshinestudios.com, who has laid out the basics for posing the family of four as well as the basic posing techniques. Another great resource from photocamel is Frank Doorhof, www.frankdoorhof.com. His work is an inspiration for me. His blog (although really more of a forum than a blog) is another worthwhile read. Frank's tips and thoughts are are a good tool to have in any photographer's arsenal. So hit the links above and have a good look through all the info photocamel and its users have to offer.

Wow that was filled with links!

Well, I have another blog I work on. Although lately Ive been way to busy to post to it. Lets hope I can get to this one more.

 I was able to finally decide on a domain name after registering 10 or so. It eventaually came down to photographysd.com . My last name being St. Dennis makes for trouble with both memories and association. For instance, at the grocery store, I am almost never refered to as Mr. St. Dennis when they look to tell me about the wonderful savings the store has given me. Its always Mr. Denis or Mr. Kim. Its a pain. Additionally, people who are familiar with the name refer to it as St. Denis which is the origional French spelling.

 Just a side note, Im not French. As the story goes, I inherited the name from a man who adopted my father years ago, Jim St. Dennis. It was his ancestor who to escape a debt, added an extra "n" in the 18th century or so. As a kid I was always told it was english. 

So, photographysd.com it is. now that the domain has been chosen I can move on with things. Thank god. Incidentally, as far as Im told, most browsers default to ".com" when a url is entered into the address bar. Thus making the best domains those that end with ".com".