Kevin Warnock

Cayleigh photographed by Kevin Warnock, January 14, 2012, San Francisco, California USA

Starting today, Sunday, January 15, 2011, I am going to be posting my photographs of models at:

photography.KevinWarnock.com

Up until today I have been weaving my photographs of models in with my other blog posts at this site.

I have received feedback that ‘I am knocking people over the head with these pictures of women’ and distracting visitors from reading the words on my blog.

Let me know what you think of this change.

So that you know what kind of pictures I am referring to, I’m publishing one last model picture to this, my primary blog. I photographed Cayleigh yesterday. This was her first photoshoot ever. She’s a 23 year old university student, and I took this photo at her friend’s apartment, not at my studio/house. Click on the photograph to see it at full size. There are more pictures of Cayleigh over on my new photography subdomain.

Kevin Warnock photographed by Kevin Warnock, September 18, 2011

Kevin Warnock photographed by Kevin Warnock, September 18, 2011

I took some self portraits of myself today. This is the same location where I photograph the models I usually photograph.

I used my Canon 5D Mark II camera with a Canon 135mm soft focus lens that was not set to soft focus.

Click these pictures once to see them on a page alone, and then click them again to see them full size.

I placed the camera on a tripod and used the self timer to give myself time to jump into the picture. This was a tricky shoot since I shot these pictures at F2.8 for the shallow depth of field.

Kristela Benedicto photographed by Kevin Warnock, June 30, 2011

Kristela Benedicto photographed by Kevin Warnock, June 30, 2011

Kristela Benedicto photographed by Kevin Warnock, June 30, 2011

Kristela Benedicto photographed by Kevin Warnock, June 30, 2011

Kristela Benedicto photographed by Kevin Warnock, June 30, 2011

I photographed model Kristela Benedicto on June 30, 2011 at my home in San Francisco, California USA.

I used my Canon 5D Mark II DSLR digital camera. I used Canon lenses, including at 135mm soft focus lens and a 50mm macro lens. I used Einstein E640 flash units.

Click on a picture to see it on its own page, and then click it again to see it full size on that page. These are large and detailed images.

Heidi Long photographed by Kevin Warnock, September 9, 2011

Heidi Long photographed by Kevin Warnock, September 9, 2011

Heidi Long photographed by Kevin Warnock, September 9, 2011

Heidi Long photographed by Kevin Warnock, September 9, 2011

I photographed Heidi Long yesterday, September 9, 2011.

She had never modeled before, which I didn’t know when I agreed to set up this trade photo shoot. I like working with first time models — I would even go so far as to say I prefer to work with first time models. I enjoy teaching new models how to pose and how to look natural. I think brand new models try harder than full time models.

In the first picture above, I think Long looks a bit like Kristen Stewart, the actress who plays Bella Swan in the Twilight movie franchise. The Twilight movies are exceptionally popular.

Here’s a picture of Kristen Stewart for comparison to the photo of Long, at the top of this page:

Kristen Stewart (photo from http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2010/04/21/kristen-stewart/)

What do you think? Is there a resemblance to the top picture?

The only makeup Heidi Long is wearing is lipstick, to give you a further sense of how naturally beautiful she is. I predict Long will do many more photo shoots for other photographers over the coming years.

I photographed Long with a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera. I used the following lenses throughout the shoot: Canon 135mm soft focus lens, Canon 50mm macro lens, Canon 16-35mm L zoom lens. I used two Einstein E640 studio flash systems from Paul C. Buff, Inc. These units are the best flash systems I’ve ever used — they make my 1992 vintage Elenchrom units look bad. I can see Paul C. Buff taking over a large part of the studio flash market over the next twenty years, as their products are so good yet so affordable. Once the rental houses start renting Buff hardware, the pros will see what a dream this equipment is to use. Being able to adjust the output over 9 f-stops is so wonderful. My Elinchrom units only had a 2 f-stop range.

Crystal Hoshaw photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Crystal Hoshaw photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Crystal Hoshaw photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Crystal Hoshaw photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Crystal Hoshaw photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

I photographed Crystal Hoshaw in 2010. The picture immediately above is printed on the back of my photographer card. I’ve gotten many compliments on this picture, and Hoshaw has received many compliments for being so attractive.

I painted the red painting behind Hoshaw in the second and third pictures above.

I shot these pictures with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera and my Canon 135mm soft focus lens.

Click twice with a pause in between to see these pictures at full size.

Leah V. Jones photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Leah V. Jones photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Leah V. Jones photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Leah V. Jones photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

Leah V. Jones photographed by Kevin Warnock, 2010

I photographed Leah Vandenberg Jones in 2010. She had never modeled before.

I took these pictures with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR camera. I used a Canon 50mm macro lens and a Canon 135mm soft focus lens.

Click on the pictures twice to see them at full resolution.

Muire Dougherty photographed in 1989 by Kevin Warnock

Yesterday I wrote about the 1948 movie The Red Shoes. This is a wonderful movie. The female lead actor is Moira Shearer. Writing yesterday’s post made me think of one of my first girlfriends, Moira Dougherty.

Since I’ve been posting a lot of examples of my photography here recently, I decided to post the one and only high resolution photograph I ever took of Dougherty. She wasn’t at my house to model. But I had the backdrop set up and needed to test the lighting. Back then I shot with an Omega 45F 4×5″ view camera, and I used large format Polaroid black and white film to test lighting and exposure. The photograph you see here is an 800 DPI scan of that sole Polaroid print I created in 1989. I cleaned it up a bit in Photoshop, but it didn’t need much work as it’s been sitting in a manilla folder for decades, in the dark. Dougherty used the first name Moira when we were dating, but now she uses her real first name Muire.

I regret I didn’t complete a real photo shoot with Dougherty, as she has her eyes closed in the picture above. I didn’t know that until today when I was able to enlarge the scan I made today. I still think the shot is worth publishing, because it captures her beauty. If Dougherty is ever in town, I’d be up for doing that photo shoot she suggested way back when. This time I would use my Canon 5D Mark II DSLR, which captures fine detail almost as well as my view camera did.

Dougherty is a graduate of the film school at San Francisco State University. Back in 1989 there were no affordable modern camcorders that could shoot in color, and I recall Dougherty wanted a camcorder anyway. Shooting on movie film was and remains very expensive. Dougherty was working at Peets Coffee at the time, so being able to record repeatedly on tape was very appealing.

Dougherty seriously considered getting a Fisher Price PXL-2000. This black and white camcorder recorded at low resolution in black and white on standard, still available audio cassettes at about 15 frames per second. Amazingly, this camera is highly coveted even today, with examples selling on EBay for more than they sold for new in the 1980s. The camera has an extensive WikiPedia entry which illustrates Dougherty’s good taste in cameras as a young university graduate.

I have nearly every photograph I’ve ever taken, and I plan to go back into my film archive and scan and publish the best of my early work. Today I scanned and published the first film based photograph from my past. Thanks Moira for the kick start I needed on this project.

Ariana L. photographed by Kevin Warnock, December 18, 2004

Ariana L. photographed by Kevin Warnock, December 18, 2004

Ariana L. photographed by Kevin Warnock, December 18, 2004

I photographed Ariana L. December 18, 2004. I think she’s a beautiful woman. She reminds me of Molly Ringwald back in her Breakfast Club days.

This was Ariana’s first photo shoot, and it was a surprise for her. She was at my studio with her friend who was the model for the afternoon. I persuaded Ariana to allow me to photograph her, with help from her friend.

Her friend told me later Ariana liked the pictures I took of her so much that she gave some of them to her parents as Christmas presents. Stories like this warm my heart.

I really like photographing first time models. I have been told many times that I am good at giving directions.

I am particularly enthusiastic about taking business portraits of professionals that really don’t want to be photographed. I once did a shoot in only five minutes. The subject gave the picture to her mother, who said it was the best picture ever taken of her daughter.

Ariana was fully clothed for all the photographs I took of her, even though it looks like she may have been topless for the first shot above.

I took these pictures with my Canon EOS 10D digital camera. Click the pictures twice to see them at full resolution.

Mya Smith photographed by Kevin Warnock

Mya Smith photographed by Kevin Warnock

Mya Smith photographed by Kevin Warnock

Mya Smith photographed by Kevin Warnock

Mya Smith photographed by Kevin Warnock

I photographed Mya Smith in late 2010 at my house in San Francisco, California USA.

Mya is a college student that plans to become a doctor.

I took these pictures with my Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera.

I used a Canon 135mm soft focus lens and a Canon 50mm macro lens.

Double click on the pictures to see them at full resolution.

Emily Dionne photographed by Kevin Warnock, May 1, 2005

Emily Dionne photographed by Kevin Warnock, May 1, 2005

Emily Dionne photographed by Kevin Warnock, May 1, 2005

Emily Dionne photographed by Kevin Warnock, May 1, 2005

Emily Dionne photographed by Kevin Warnock, May 1, 2005

I photographed Emily Dionne on May 1, 2005. Emily had never modeled before, and wasn’t hoping for a career in modeling like many of my subjects.

I photographed Emily at her request, which she made at the end of a photoshoot I had just completed with her friend. Emily had come along to the shoot to support her friend, and at the end Emily asked me how much I would charge to photograph her.

I explained that I am not a professional photographer, and I don’t charge my subjects. Of course I agreed to photograph her, and these pictures are the result.

Emily was an outstanding model, and we created dozens of publication quality pictures.

The second picture from the top was taken just one minute after the shoot began. It was the 18th photograph of the day.

I shot these pictures with my Canon EOS 10D digital camera in RAW format. Click on the pictures twice to see them at full resolution. These pictures were taken at my house in San Francisco, California USA.