Monkeying Around

I took a trip to the Philadelphia Zoo last week with the intention of seeing how I could photograph the animals in their exhibit areas. I wasn't sure of what I would come away with and I didn't think of putting the two subjects together until later. The way that the light played on the zoo's environs was pretty consistent and the background was from the Philadelphia Art Museum area that I did last fall. I didn't know if it would work, but I think it turned out well not having any set expectations before hand.

Outside of my commission work, I am really trying to push the boundaries here and see where it takes the work. With a color palette that has so many dark tones, it's important for me to have some level of humor, playfulness in each new piece.

Where are the animals?

It's a tough time of year for them to be outside so I've been concentrating on buildings for last couple of weeks. But fear not animal lovers, Spring is around the corner and there is lot that I've got planned.

When I do building illustrations, I think about the power and working spirit that  these places embody. The power plants themselves have a personality of their own, they exemplify the word "work" in it's purest form. I hope that this part of history repeats itself again and again. Soon.

The way I see it.

Outside of my regular portrait work, I've been working on a series of architectural images. The collection of images has been growing steadily since last year. My reference to "seeing it" comes from me picking my subjects merely by how the light plays upon them. This creates a new dynamic because it forces me to search for a mood or feeling first. Then, judge if the subject fits with what I'm trying to capture at that moment. You can view more in the "illustration" section of my site at www.andrewpinkham.com

Location, Location, Location

 

So it's been a while but I've been working on building a library of backgrounds and these are three of my most recent. They are places that I have found and then re-engineered to make them my own.  These will hopefully be used with future dog portraits. The circus tent would be perfect for a small breed like a french bull dog.

19th century, all over again.

This is Dani, the newest installation of my painterly portrait series. It has that same dusk light quality that I always am such a big fan of. What makes this different from the others is that the background minus the drapes, is dropped in later.

Easy Rider

In my last post, I was threatening the use of a tricycle in my next portrait. I'm always trying to push the boundaries of what I'm doing and this the latest effort. We had no idea if our subject, Maya would cooperate for this or not. We posed her on the seat and gradually moved her paws on to the handle bars. She stayed for approximately 10 seconds at a time. We were all very surprised at how long she actually held the pose.

Next up, another 19th century style portrait, stay tuned.

Oh Henry!

Here we have Henry and this portrait is the most biblical looking that I've done so far. Using Architecture can be tricky because I don't want date this work too much. I'd rather leave the time period up to the viewer to determine for themselves.

The next animal portrait will involve a tricycle of all things, yikes!

Horsing Around

In keeping with same look and feel of the dogs, we have Rugby our first horse. There is so much going on here with body language alone. I am learning a lot along the way and what to look for. Like what the different body parts and angles are communicating. All of these elements must be in place and how the photo equipment works has be second nature with so much of the attention on the subject.

New Comissions from "Best in Show"

The first two commissions were of Ollie and Tina. Done on a cloudy day with a threat of rain and it was thundering in the distance. At this point I've got the lighting down to where I can replicate that magic hour light that I get on those sunny days. This is critical because I used to call shoots off if the weather was bad.




Next up was Chloe, Madison & Griffin. Again, the weather was just gray and very plain. This opens up possibilities though. They can be photographed in any direction without the sun coming from behind or unwanted angle.


The most recent are of Gus & Poe. The weather conditions are the same as the others. I'm getting much better in working in just about any situation.



Next up, Horsing Around

Best in Show exhibition

It's been a while since I've updated anything but here a couple of happenings

My Best in Show exhibition at Silicon Gallery in Phila. in April/ May '09. It was written about on Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof's ART Blog. My segment starts at the 2 minute mark. It was also written about at Moira McLaughlin's Dog Art Today blog.

Things are beginning to happen.

Bark!

I have had a couple of images published in The Bark Magazine's Sept./Oct. '08 edition.
Needless to say, I'm really happy that they picked the images up.

The full page image is of "Dog" (his real name) a friend of ours Rick, had commissioned this session a while back in May of this year. The second image is of our Greyhound, Nomy. Her's was the second dog portrait the we had ever done and my wife and I thought that we were truly on to something at that point.

I had read an article about The Bark's creative director in How magazine. I liked his point of view in the article and I liked the look of The Bark and the other artists that they were using. So with only 4 dog images, I sent him an email with a web site invite and he picked up one image and came back for the second about 3 weeks later.