Photographers tend to look out for one another, helping as we can. Last night, I provided photography services for the attedees at Strict Machine, a monthly dance event at the Mercury as a favor to the folks at Distinct Glimpse Photography. You should go check out their work as it's amazing!

Over all, the night was rather light on account of Mother's Day but that did not stop the amazing people who showed up last night. One of the people I photographed last night is a local performance artist, Indiyana Rae Von.

During one of the slower moments of the evening, I poited the SpeedLight out on the dance floor and began watching her dance. We exchanged cards and she's eager to see what we can build together.

My work takes me on some incredible journeys working with lovely and talented people. I have long enjoyed working with performers, whether they are actors on the stage and screen or dancers who create art through motion. This last Monday, I was fortunate enough to work with a rising starlet of the Seattle burlesque scene, Miss Candy Apples on a flyer for an upcoming show in Belltown. Here are some photos from that shoot to whet your apetite.

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This weekend is going to be fun. I'll be spending time out in the field creating some test images for the project I'm working on with author Jennifer Brozek and her label, Apocalypse Ink Productions. In technical terms, it's a fumetti*, or photo graphic novel. In the more abstract, it's awesome, a tale of deceit, power grabs, and dead people.

You may be asking yourself, "So what, Amber? That's exciting and all but what does that have to do with taking test photos?"

I'll be playing with a new technique and a new type of lens I've never used before; a LensBaby Composer. I've never played with one so it's good that these are only test photographs. I've taken a few pictures already and fiddled with it some more but we'll see how it goes.

Yeah, I'm going to have fun with it.

* I have to thank Donna Barr for pointing me in this direction.

Kyle watched his hand reach out to her face.  Just as he was about to touch her, she shrieked through her stitched jaw and wiggled on her pedestal.  Kyle backed away, and she yelled louder.  He whispered to her to be quiet, but she wouldn't stop squirming. -- Squirm by Doug Goodman

A Moment Of Hope. Originally published on April 14th, 2008, for the short story SQUIRM by Doug Goodman on the Edge of Propinquity.

I am very pleased that I was awarded the People's Choice Award for Best Horror in the Norwescon 35 Art Show. I am very gratefull to everyone who voted for my work and I'm sure it wasn't an easy decission as there was some wonderful horror pieces in the show this year.

I had so much fun shooting Whisper De Corvo, a rising star in the Seattle burlesque scene, and Miss Velvet Ice, a living legend of burlesque. We were shooting poster photos for an upcoming burlesque down in the alleys of Pioneer Square, an section of town with amazing architecture.

Here's a tease from the shoot.

2606 photos.

That's the number of photos I have shot for the Edge of Propinquity in the six years since Jennifer asked me to help. Most of those photos have never seen the light of day. I still remember the day when ideas started coming together ver clearly. Jennifer and I used to work at the same software shop in Kirkland, Washington, building software for attorneys. Over lunch we would often take walks together as means of simply getting out of the office. Frequently during these walks we would bat ideas around like kittens with a favorite toy. As is the nature of ideas, some of them soared, some of them floundered, and others really weren't that air worthy to begin with. But one of the ideas that did soar started off humbly enough.

It was during one such walk up Lake Washington Boulevard when Jennifer said to me, and I'm para-phrasing pretty liberally here, "I want to turn the web site into a webzine for short stories." As someone who loves the short story format, this was golden as far as I could tell. "I want to illustrate it with black and white photos. Would you help me with that?" I'm sure you could guess what my response was and if you said the response was enthusiastic, you'd be on the right track.

We hashed out the important details for the photos like resolution and file formats and the next thing I knew, we were spending a cold, sunny, December Sunday in Seattle taking photographs. We walked along the path that says "MAZE", over the I-90 Mount Baker Tunnels; you can even see those painted letters, if only barely, on Google Maps. We even took photographs of the pedestrian tunnel as well. We wandered through downtown Seattle and took photos of roads and pedestrians and shot glasses. Overpasses and bridges filled my view finder as well. Even the University of Washington campus was our play ground that day. We were exploring the world around us to get a visual feel for the world Jennifer had created and figure out what was allowed and what wasn't. That day, I shot over 260 photos

Several of those initial photos became iconic components of the Edge of Propinquity. The Mount Baker Pedestrian Tunnel figures into at least three images put together for the webzine, including the banner image and one print advertisement. Those were just the beginning. I produced images for all 12 of Jennifer's Kendrick stories, three of Ivan's Vorare series, and the eight guest author stories for the first year and thing never really slowed down since then.

But the greatest treasure for me was getting to read all of the stories. Those stories all touched me in some fashion, whether they were urban fantasy, mystery, or even just good-old-fashion horror. Even the stories that didn't make into my mostest-favoritest list still had impact. My favorite stories were ones with interesting protagonists dealing with morally ambiguous issues, when the best choice still isn't a good way to go or the story where there's a monster in the darkness and the only thing that will keep it away is the charm of a child. Of course, that'll only work if you're lucky.

Looking over the edge like that was an honor and a privilege. While I am sad to see her go, TEOP had and amazing run and ended on solid ground.

Now through November 6th, if you schedule a portrait session for the month of November and pre pay for your session, get 50% off your total!

Photo Package A--a hour shoot that includes two 8x10's, four 5x7's, and a Photo Disc that contains all of the finished photos from the shoot in a high resolution formation. Buying these individually would cost you $275, but as a package it's only $234. Now if you order it the package and pay for it this week, it's only $117 plus tax.

The Student Headshot Package, a one hour session, two glossy 8x10's, and a Photo Disc with all of the finished photographs from your shoot. This pack is normally $113. This week, it's only $56.

For more information, send an email to info@stopped-motion.com and I will get back to you within 24 hours or less.

Ivan Ewert's "Idolwood" has been a mixed bag for me in terms of inspiration for the images that go with the story. Some times the image ideas come quickly like in a nightmare after reading the story right before bed. (Ivan cackled maniacly when I told him about that for the story.) Some times I have to really work the story over in my head to figure out what I'm going to do. This story, Abductions and Reflections, is an example of that. Don't get me wrong, the story is excellentm but coming up with the right image just left me perplexed. Late on the night of the 8th, inspiration finally hit. I give you, "Hostage Situation".

Sometimes a story yields only a single image concept. Some times there are a couple of idea. On the rare occassion, however, there is outright warfare as the image ideas fight their way to the top. After reading "Jim Towne Hollow and the Skinwitch" by Jennifer Adam in the latest issue of the Edge of Propinquity on the drive home from WesterCon, my mind was rife with ideas. Fortunately, a fourteen hour drive gives you plenty of time to evaluate your options.

It's not often a story like Seren Draig, by T.D Edge, comes along; a story with so many great mental images, how do I choose one? I knew I wanted the black Mercedes that's featured in the story, but what do with it?

I could put the main character in front of the grill back to the camera. No, that's been done before. Well, what about including the female antagonist? No, she's not in the same scene as the car. Since I wasn't really happy with the concepts I was coming up. I figured I would go shoot photos of the car, since I had a very small window to shoot it in, and look at the photos in post production and see if anything sparks an idea.

And idea was sparked.

 This photo is actually two photographs. The Mercedes was shot in a parking lot in South Seattle with the sun and a single strobe at 1/60th of a second at F/16. The SB-800 was running at 1/4th power to help overpower the sun. Very little modification to the car was done at this point.

The dragon was shot in my studio at 1/100th of a second and F/10 against a black background and used a SB-600 at 1/64th power as the sole light source. I wanted the the heavy shadows to help shroud the beast in mystery. After removing the black background the dragon was placed on the car and distorted like any reflection would be. I also cut out areas of non-reflective surfaces.