friend

click to enlarge

oh film. your latitude. i love love.

found some good light pockets. i like them. totally diggin' xp2. favorite.

happy happy with the results of this little ten minute naptime shoot with my friend, Christopher. I will remember how his glasses kept getting darker because it was sunny outside. I will remember how strange it was to try to photograph someone taller than me with Mami. 

I have been wanting to create something real of him for years. Its ridiculous how backburner things can become. 

Take something off the backburner this month, ok, peeps? Get something photographed that matters to you.

instants

personally, i love this. 

such a great face.

T at a BBQ

this was the only picture i could snap of him. stains? oh yeah, those are from sharing bratwurst with E. I love this picture. So much. My american-man husband, doing the man thing at a BBQ. Can't describe it more than that.

MATTER: Tyler

For real conversations

fun play with your cousins

and a heartfelt welcome to me

as family.

We spent last weekend up in Rexburg, ID where T's nephew is attending BYU-I. I hadn't met Tyler before, so it was pretty cool to spend time with him. He is great to talk to, and it made me nostalgic for college days, walking around the campus, talking about his classes, and seeing how excited he was to go out with a good girl. Also, this is great because I used a different camera this time, and I am really happy with the results. The camera was a gift from T's father before we got married. I find such value and USE out of older 35mm cameras. Readers, I bet your parents have one. Ask them for it. Contact me and let's have lunch. I'll explain the basics. Things that matter deserve a closer look.

can't believe i'm complaining

i know every other artist who is married will want to kick me in the face in about two seconds, but...

whoa!mygosh. lately everytime I talk about wanting to try new projects, etc, T asks if he can model for it for me. the problem of course is that I photograph women. and I'm obviously not married to one, hence the problem about him modeling for my projects.

I'm grateful he is so willing to support me in creating art. I'm so grateful I can talk to him about my art and my desires to show people something new. I'm so grateful he cares. (p.s. he isn't cutting his hair until we're pregnant again, did you know? its a bet with a friend. The thing is, we're not really planning on thinking about that until the end of the summer. eeeeek!)

why can i not get enough of blur lately? so intentional. i love it most with manipulated focal planes with large format, but there is something pleasing, in a way about those circly blurred feet.

MATTER: jacob

For ready laughs, being a fabulous actor, for looking forward and up towards your siblings. For striving for educational heights.

MATTER: Spencer

for being present. for becoming the glitter in the eyes of both of my kids, but especially E. For being my partner in adventures more than a decade ago. For coming back to the family.

MATTER: grandpa

For teaching me through knocks on the table instead of frustrated explanations. For fluid love that made me not know "solitaire" is a one person game until later in life. For singing. For never scolding. For shooting BBguns with us rascally kids. For Escobar, for funny stories, and for NEVER bringing reality into the silly dreams all of us had as children. For the men you raised my father and uncle to be. For marrying my grandmother. For being present.

The Takahashis

This image pretty much sums up this session. Arm-pumping fun.


What do you get when you mix a GORGEOUS mama and a asian (best genes ever!) papa? BEAUTIFUL GIRLS. This sessions marks a new point for me. I did some natural light of these clients. I'm very pleased with the image of the dad. VERY. So much that this is the 2nd time its graced the blog.






More images available at the proofing site . However, its password protected, so sorry, folks!

comissioned: chuck

Photographing Chuck was eerily like photographing my own father. Chuck is incredibly kind, articulate and thought-provoking. Kinda want to talk to him about life regularly. A wizened man, and why not? Look at the RAD salt and pepper hair he's got! ;) He also had fabulous hands. Well-manicured fingers are a sign of a worthwhile individual, I'd say. You can view more of my session with Chuck here.

Realizing you're green with envy? I accept commissions for portraits. You can contact me directly at alisha@alishastamper.com for pricing/availability.

a little sneak peek

yay yay!

MATTER: Nick

for loving my sister so obviously that an observer once said, "I just want, one day, for the man I marry to love me as much as he loves Linda." and for playing with W without tire, for continuing silly nicknames to the next generation, and for treating me like the big sister you didn't have... but maybe always wanted....? :) Truly Truly part of the family, Nick-Nack.


As an aside, when I was scanning this image, a cute girl in the room asked me, "oh my, who is that man?" I asked her why... then pre-empted it with, "Because he's attractive, right?" She could only respond with a shy nod. I personally LOVE this image. I am so glad I'm doing this project so that I am getting images like this, ones that I am happy to show and promote, that are of people I respect and admire and love. Wahoo for MATTER.

the five minute portrait

this is a less-than-5-minute portrait of my dad. while they were in town this weekend i had thought getting into the studio would be a piece of cake... well, previous to having a 6 week old baby, it might have been, but when exhaustion sets in, there is nothing to be done.

so begins a musing on photographs. this wasn't taken with my nicest camera, or even in the greatest location. its my parking garage. however, it is still *not* a snapshot-- and here is why:

no on-camera flash in use, design elements (rule of thirds, leading lines, etc) are in use, even the color scheme is pleasing, the balance of light and dark is not extreme.

The REASON i bring any of this up is that sometimes you need to just TAKE the picture, right? Even though I'm happily studio-based with large format, that just WASN'T going to happen this weekend. But having something other than a *snapshot* of my father DID need to happen for me.

I fully admit some of the pleasure of this image is because of the sentiment for me.

birthday portrait

i've been trying to make it a point to get a "good" photograph of each member of my little family on their respective birthdays. Last year was the first try, and the one I got of T was, how do I say... awful.... This year's was a less than 5 minute shoot before (and then while) my model for the night was there (this was post birthday-- I wasn't working ON his birthday!). I like his slight smile. I wish it was his BIG, happy smile, but I think he looks handsome! I'm going to print this for our house for sure.

more COLORADO

He's a doctor. He watched over me and gave me loving lectures about taking care of myself and the baby, the whole time we were there.

Smart as a whip and quick as one, too. Their love story will be in the ones I tell my children of REAL love stories (not the fake-y ones in current movies). Her hair is amazing.

Kindness has two faces. One is male, one is female. Both are shown above.
click on images to see larger

MATTER: Ben

meet my nephew. Winner of the best "osstreeech" ever prize.
Willing to do anything and has the best comedic endurance I've ever seen.

This was shot with a large format camera and film.

what i'm working on

this is a large format image (meaning, shot with film and a large format camera) of one my nephews. I shot it with Delta 100 (an ilford film). To get images like these onto the computer, I use a scanner, like an Imacon (which merged with Hasselblad in 2004), which scans the film at a high-resolution rate. Shooting with a large format camera is the rough equivalent of a 150 megapixel camera. However, because of the beauty film gives in its output, even if there were a large format equivalent in the digital world (there is, digital backs for these types, etc etc), I still love the film. It gives me the look I want EVERY TIME. I love his skin tone in this image and the sheen of his hair. He actually reminds me a lot of my brother when he was the same age.

oh, but I digress.

Because I scan the film, dust is introduced into the file as white spots. Fingerprints, etc, are a common ailment of large format photographers, and by scanning the film I am able to remove the dust, scratches, and processing issues from the file SO when I print, I get a gorgeous image every time. The above image has no touch-ups yet, its just what I'll be cleaning up this week.

Colorado

I went to Colorado at the end of September to see a Steve McCurry show (If you don't recognize the name, I bet you recognize one of his photographs. It is one of the most famous in the world). My friend Marti and I also headed to a few small towns and she was more impulsive about me photographing that I am (which is a true testament to a friend who WILLINGLY travels with a photographers. We're HORRENDOUS travel companions). I shot almost the entire trip on film. The almost is because I unwittingly left my mamiya at home. Not the film for it, no, I brought that, but the actual camera was left. I did have my trusty Canon AE-1, a 35mm, with which all these were shot. I LOVE film.

And so, without further ado:

This first image was shot on the side of the road. That little white house took my breath away. We were in between Durango and Silverton (a wicked little train goes from one to the other, any little boy or girl's fantasy trip. Take it with your kids!). Marti pulled off the road, I ran across the road (hope my husband isn't reading this, he'd freak!), and walked along to frame my shot... If my memory serves me correctly, I was not wearing my shoes at this point. I'd had them off in the car, they hurt my feet, so I just went bare. I love how the tree in the foreground is so imposing, and the house is quite nestled.


I wish I could share this image larger, because it is GORGEOUS. The deer are fully in their element and it just makes me happy... makes me remember allllll the deer I saw growing up in northern virginia.

hehe. this bike looks like a person. pleased to meet you, sir!


AND my absolute favorite from the trip. He was busy. I just kept waiting. They brought me out a stool to photograph some taxidermy mounted on the wall of this hunting shop (with some KILLER siggs if I do say so. Should have bought another). He was perfectly nice, but is the owner, I guess, and was only there because the computers were down that day.... so he was needed. His misfortune was my fortune. This is probably one of my favorite images I have EVER taken of a man. He has a fantastic face and I wish I could have photographed him more. I'm glad they all thought I was a nobody (maybe I am a little?) because he, and the other workers there, were so willing to engage me and help me with my photographic obsession.... maybe it was just that, I was so eager to photograph... but maybe it was that I'm pregnant. Either way, FAVORITE of the trip!

There's much more to come, still have film to pick up from the lab, but had to share a few!

Todd's Parents

I was so happy to photograph them when they were in town last month.

and then there were 3

here's the 3rd for my men's project. i am really enjoying putting these together. i won't be shooting for it again until the middle of june... so there is LOTS of time for you to talk to your male friends about sitting for me....he he he.

you can see the 1st one HERE

and the 2nd one HERE