Kevin Warnock

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

On August 21, 2011 I wrote about Naked Suits, an apparel manufacturer started by my friends Albert Shyy and Ming Chang. The company has since been renamed AlbertMing, combining the first names of the two founders. AlbertMing has a Facebook page where you can ‘Like’ the brand and keep up with news.

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

AlbertMing started by making luxury men’s suits that strongly resist stains. I personally poured a full glass of red wine on a fabric sample for one of the AlbertMing suits, and none of the wine soaked in. I was able to brush off all the wine, in beads, like you can brush off water from the paint on a new car. Impressive.

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

AlbertMing is expanding into men’s dress shirts and blazers.

Last week AlbertMing set up a page on the crowd funding website KickStarter to raise money to fund a production run of its cool Arctic Shirts. They are called Arctic because the 100% cotton fabric contains hundreds of perforations to let air circulate over the skin of the wearer. I have never seen a dress shirt made from such fabric. It’s a conversation starter.

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

How do I know its a conversation starter? Because when I asked a female model I photographed yesterday to wear an Arctic Shirt that Shyy and Chang sent me to review, the model’s friend wanted to know all about it. He quizzed me on the material. He asked where he could buy one. He tried the shirt on to gauge what size to order. He was sold, and told me he would be ordering a shirt for himself.

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

Annika, the model, liked the shirt as well, even though the extra large sized men’s shirt was far too big for her. She enthusiastically modeled the shirt in several locations on Haight Street in San Francisco, California, USA. After Haight Street, we walked to Golden Gate Park for some more shots.

I present my favorites of Annika wearing the Arctic Shirt here. Normally I present my photographs of women on my photography blog, but I am making an exception with these pictures since they are to illustrate this review.

John Lee Hudson of Hudson & Hudson Private Investment Bankers just happened to be parking his Excaliber motor car as I was photographing Annika. I asked Hudson if it would be alright with him if Annika sat on the fender of his car. He gave us permission, and he handed me his business card as he departed from his car. I presume Hudson wanted me to send him pictures of Annika gracing his car.

I only looked at Hudson for a second, as I was focusing on my work, but he looked like an original, just like the two articles on him I linked to in the last paragraph say.

The San Francisco Examiner article on Hudson specifically states Hudson drives an Excaliber, so I don’t think I will upset Hudson by my divulging his car and its impressive custom license plate that reads AQCUIRE. He must have gotten that plate a long time ago. I hope he has ordered a spare plate to keep at home in case his car is ever stolen. The California Department of Motor Vehicles will replace a single lost plate, but if you lose both of them, you lose your custom word forever.

Mr. Hudson sounds like somebody I should interview and photograph. At the very least, I hope he’ll let me use his car as a prop for future photoshoots with lovely models.

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

Here’s what the AlbertMing website says about the Arctic Shirt:

“Walking down the muggy streets of Singapore in the heat of summer gave us all the motivation we needed to create the Arctic shirt – a one-of-a-kind breathable dress shirt with small perforated holes to provide maximum breathability in a unique, uncompromising style.

Made of 100% cotton, our Arctic shirts can stand-alone or function brilliantly when coupled with one of our suits. In this arrangement, our water-resistant suit shields you from the elements, while the dress shirt provides breathable comfort to ensure you won’t be too hot whether you’re in Vegas or Sao Paolo. We guarantee you’ve never worn anything like this.”

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

I am wearing an Arctic Shirt as I type this post. It’s an uncanny feeling — when you wave your arms, you feel cool air on your arms. When you walk briskly, you feel cool air on your body. It’s a subtle improvement, so don’t expect to feel as if you’re wearing nothing. The ventilation holes are tiny, about a millimeter in diameter I would say.

Annika wearing the AlbertMing Arctic Shirt. Photograph by Kevin Warnock, April 22, 2012 in San Francisco.

I am wearing a prototype version of the shirt.

There are sleeve button holes on both sides of the cuff, which would allow one to wear cuff links, even though this is not a French cuff shirt.

I was surprised that there is a breast pocket on this shirt — it’s so fashion forward that I would have thought the pocket would be omitted. My vote is to drop the pocket.

The Arctic Shirt appears to be a quality product. The regular price is USD $99.00. It’s difficult for me to know how well it will wear over hundreds of washings, so I recommend you start with one shirt to see how the perforations look over time. When new the shirt looks great, as you can see in the accompanying photographs.

As usual, I uploaded the photographs at full camera resolution of 21 megapixels. Click on the photographs and then allow them to load in your browser. Then click on the picture a second time to see the image at full size, which is larger than your screen. You will be able to see the ventilation holes in detail.

If you want to help fund the production run of this shirt, you have until May 12, 2012 to participate in the current KickStarter fundraiser, here. If you help them out, you’ll get an Arctic Shirt at a steep discount to the normal price.

I think AlbertMing is newsworthy. I think they make good products. I like the founders. But I did not embellish this piece because of my slight connection to the company. I did not get any free product, and I am returning the review shirt, which I requested so I could write a credible review.

AlbertMing is based in Berkeley, California.

A special thank you to Annika, the lovely and talented model you see wearing the Arctic Shirt here. This was Annika’s first photoshoot — not just her first shoot with me, but her first photoshoot.

I added some pictures I took of the beautiful model Aleksandra Boboshina to my photography portfolio.

I also have a portfolio on Model Mayhem.

I just posted to my photography blog a set of photographs I created with the beautiful blond 21 year old model Aleksa.

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.