Evernote Widget

The new Evernote Widget is very cool!  A live contexual search for all your Evernotes is built right in.  FYI-Only your public, published notebooks are available in the widget.

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Seventies Jenny | St. Louis

With this shot, I attempted to replicate a sort of 70's look and feel.  The film images of that era had a real brown, gritty element about them.  Murky shadows and dingy whites were a common factor, as well as film grain.  I posted a higher res version of the same shot below to give a closer look at the grain and detail.

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Daisies | Autumn Street Festival

Holly and I took a drive on a fall afternoon and decided to head west.  We happened on several street festivals in some of the river towns along the way and stopped to take them in.  I particularly liked this image.

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Aperture Ad | Chicago

I shot this image in Chicago in 2008.

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Inspiration | Ben Button Poster

Holly and I were inspired by the posters advertising David Fincher's new film, so we shot each other and I tried to match the post-processing.  I'm also a Ridley Scott fan (hence the tribute at top).  Fun times!

Urban Field | St. Louis

Bella Cattura | Official Logo

Bella Cattura | New Project

Bella Cattura is a new project I'm currently collaborating on with my girlfriend.  We've been shooting weddings together for several years now, and were initially interested in branding our wedding photography separately from what we do independently.  Over the past three weeks, we've spent a lot of time designing logo concepts and discussing what the brand would consist of.  After much debate and reworking dozens of ideas, this is the logo we came to agree on. Holly designed the mark, and I did the type setting.  

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Engaged

Staircase | Chicago

Hard Rock Hotel | Chicago

Fan | St. Louis

The W | Chicago

Woods | Kirkwood, MO

Mohawk | Adam

Vintage | St. Louis

Vacant | St. Louis

Something about vacant buildings has always been interesting to me.  I always think about the life that happened in and around them, and how different they must have seemed then.  I barely notice buildings that are currently occupied, but once they're abandoned, they suddenly appear to me.

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Mad Adam | St. Louis

This is my bro.  He came home during a shoot and was chatting away on his iPhone.  I asked if I could grab a couple quick shots of him while I had lighting in place, and he staged this expression!  He's always a good sport when I ask to shoot him!  Thanks bro!

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Holly James | Digital Gallery Frame

With this shot, I wanted to produce a digital gallery frame.  My goal was to have it appear as real as I could, so I applied different bevels and shadows to the outer frame and matte to mimic a real framed print.  With this work, the success usually lies in attention to detail, so I tried to include all aspects of an actual framed image, including the bevelled cut produced by the matte cutter around the image.  

-ryan

create.inspire.live

Portrait Study | Painting with Light

This shot resulted from a shoot Holly and I collaborated on to create a movie poster similar to the new posters in theaters advertising "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", directed by David Fincher.  Holly snapped the shutter, and I processed it in post.  I threw a lot at this image to get it where I envisioned it being.  I started with the RAW file and went directly into Photoshop.  The workflow went like this:  Color-correction, retouching, removed the reflections in my glasses, LOTS of dodging and burning, painting with light, applied monochrome noise, overlayed a golden tone on a new layer, then a brown tone on another layer, then applied a deep yellow photo filter to a copy of the background layer.  Finally, I ran a smart sharpen command on the overall image, then did some selective sharpening to finish it out.  I really dig the results!

-ryan

create.inspire.live