Experienced Film shooter and new member from Florida saying "HI".

Hello everyone. I'm located in the cultural and artistic wasteland of southwest Florida and I'd like to expand my photographic conversations from the confines of this region. I've been shooting film since 1992 (horribly at first) but on a professional level since 1998. My "day job" is spent as a film Director and Cinematographer, with still photography filling in the gaps between shoots. Over the past few years I've been devoting an increasing amount of time toward my still work, and I exclusively shoot film.

I'm a somewhat atypical shooter, as I've hybridized my still photography with my cinematographic skillset. I primarily shoot 6x7 Medium Format and 4x5 Large Format, with a rare bit of 35mm. The majority of what I shoot is darker and more horror-oriented, with constructed sets, props, models, and scripted "scenes". While I primarily shoot standard stocks, I've tried to shoot as many oddball films as I can find, everything from microfilm to color infrared. I use a lot of different mechanical, optical, chemical, and lighting techniques, as I try to create a unique workflow for each series I produce.

It's difficult to discuss film and photography locally, I'm hoping to change that by posting here. Here's a link to my website, questions and critiques are welcome.

http://www.painterofdarkness.com

 

It took me a bit to replicate the problem that you are viewing. It sounds like you are either viewing my site on a mobile device or on a system without the current version of Flash. I've been trying to overcome scaling problems on the mobile version without much success lately, that's still a work in progress. I viewed the site on my secondary system and I immediately saw the problem that you describe. Not only was the image title and description over the actual image but it was formatted incorrectly. I did a quick Flash update and the problem vanished. Give that a shot and see if it clears up for you. If not I definitely want to know! I'm in the process of rebranding myself outside of my company and if people are having problems viewing the site then I need to fix that. Thank you for bringing it to my attention as I was not aware of it until then.

Yes, I (still) use film for the majority of my cinematic work. The majority of what I shoot is super-16mm, as I own an Arri SR2 system. For my 35mm work I always rent the camera packages and related gear. Motion picture film could very well be on its last legs, and if that's the case I'm going to ride it until the end. From a professional standpoint I've definitley shot more video than film in my freelance days, which was a big reason why I created my own production company. With the exception of a single shoot, every video project I've ever done would've been better on film. Period. I created my own company so that I could find clients that still cared about visual quality over saving 7% on a budget. I use that number since it's the mean average per shoot that I spend on film stock, processing, and transfer. I'll defintely go into more detail if you want.

The respirator mask is a prop piece I modified/built for my series "Difference Engine". I wanted a salvaged look to it so I tore it apart and rebuilt it with all sorts miscellaneous debris, including a Zeiss filter ring. I tried it on to gauge its comfort level and to see if it was still possible to breathe out of. It became one of those things that a lot of work went into and you can barely notice in the final product.

* * * *

And to everyone else, thank you for the kind reception!

 

I would call myself more of an anomaly than an example. Whenever I've been lucky enough to get a gallery show it's always come with a host of complaints from select portions of the local audience. Which is fine by me, a negative reaction is better than no reaction. But seriously, thank you for the compliment!

See my other post about that problem with my site. If this turns out to be a widespread problem I might have to do another redesign. The images are the sole purpose of the site, it does me no great favor to obscure them.

 

After a full day of trouble shooting, editing, and frustration, I found the culprit and it isn't Flash after all. It's apparently a responsive scaling failsafe that kicks in when the browser window gets too small. The gallery controls and image title conflicts with the fixed sidebar when the browser window is reduced too small. It actually interrupts the native formatting and shoves the text to the bottom right of the image area, when it should be located to the bottom left of the site, outside of the image area. I'm using a Squarespace template and apparently ALL of them have this default behavior. The only answer I've found, after a full day of editing with a 9-month old on my lap, is to just make your browser window bigger. Ugh. :-(

I've done what I can to mitigate and minimize this effect, hopefully it'll work better on more browsers now. At the very least posting on APUG has already paid off, it's made me aware of a significant problem to my site.