Country Road

Shady country road in Simi Valley, California. Used a Nikon D100 and a 300mm lens and converted to black and white using the “channel mixer” in Photoshop.

Photo © Craig Brewer

Jail Time

Photograph was taken for a sheriffs election ad to illustrate incarceration of inmates. Got access to a cell and the art director put on the prison uniform and posed for the photograph. The original shot showed more of the room but I cropped in for this version. Another thing I did for this version was to bend the bars in Photoshop with the “lens correction” tool to give it a sense of tension and frustration. Was shot with a Bronica ETRS and Kodak black and white film and scanned with a Nikon Coolscan 9000. Used two Speedotron strobe heads, one to light the bars and hands and another overhead and behind to backlight the head and shoulders.

Photo © Craig Brewer

Vasquez Rocks

This is a photograph of Vasquez Rocks in Agua Dulce, Califonia about an hour north of Los Angeles. If you have never been there but somehow it looks vaguely familiar it is because you have probably seen it in countless movies, TV shows, or music videos. The center rock formation in the distance is quite high and you can frequently see people standing on the very top of it. Because of the way the rocks are formed you can walk easily up most of the way because it slopes up gently on the back side. I’ve been a good ways up but never to the top because of my fear of heights. 

Used a Nikon D100 and 12-24mm lens and converted to black and white with Photoshop.

Photo © Craig Brewer

Communion Elements

Photograph of communion elements for a church. The traditional grape juice and matzo was placed in very shiny and reflective serving trays so I used a very large softbox to get a nice sheen across all of the metal. Photographed with a Cambo view camera with 6×9cm roll film back and Fuji transparency film and was converted to black and white with the “channel mixer” in Photoshop.

 

Photo © Craig Brewer

Huntington Beach Pier

Huntington Beach Pier at sunset. Photographed with a Bronica ETRS using Fuji transparency film and scanned with a Nikon Coolscan 9000.

Photo © Craig Brewer

Fierce Dove

This is a cropped version of a picture of a dove in flight that was shot for a magazine cover. An assistant stood in front of a red seamless background holding the dove at around camera level. He would let the dove go and it would start to flap its wings to stay in the air. I used a combination of strobe and modeling lights to take the picture. The strobes to stop the action and the modeling lights with gels combined with a longer than normal shutter speed on a Hasselblad to give it some blur. After scanning I added a textured watercolor paper pattern in Photoshop to give the image some texture.

Photo © Craig Brewer

Walking Away

This couple is standing on an overhead walkway on the Santa Monica Pier. Saw them from a distance and thought it might make an interesting picture because they seemed to be arguing about something. Took a few shots and then noticed the man walking away in a huff and snapped the last one. Used a Nikon D2x and 80-200mm lens and converted to a quadtone image in Photoshop. You can pick any four colors you want with a quadtone to tint the picture but I chose black and 3 different levels of a warm gray to give it an extended tonal range.

Photo © Craig Brewer

American Flag

Small American flag on table photographed with a Bronica ETRS and 150mm lens. Used two Arri fresnel lights, one with a snoot to light the flag and another shooting through black board and yellow gel with slits cut in it to give the pattern on the back wall.

Photo © Craig Brewer

Pacific Grove

This photograph was taken in Pacific Grove, California which is adjacent to Monterey. You really can’t see it here because the picture is reproduced so small here but in the rock formation in the back left there are hundreds of cormorants standing about.

Used a Nikon D2x and 80-200mm lens at 200mm to take the picture. Since it was backlight against really dark rocks there wasn’t a whole lot of color so I went for something a little different when processing it in Adobe Lightroom. Started of with one of the presets and worked with it a bit to get the light into a nearly monochromatic cool color temperature.

 

Photo © Craig Brewer

Aloha Shirts

A retail store rack of Hawaiian shirts. Photographed with a Nikon D2x and 85mm f/1.4 lens.

Photo © Craig Brewer