Beauty Project

The second shoot of the weekend was for the “Beauty Project”.  The woman who posed for me wasn’t a model, but she could have been.  We mostly shot with trees although we did do a few shots around a stream.  The previous shot had wore me out as far as water was concerned.  It was on this shoot that my camera started acting funny and I thought my camera was going to die.  It didn’t and it’s ok now.  But I did manage to lose about 75 shots because of the weird camera behaviour that came about that day.  But again.. the camera is ok.  I’d rather lose a few shots than a camera any day of the week.

So this weekend I’ll be shooting again for my “Beauty Project”.  Shooting with non-models to create images that focus on the fact that we are all beautiful regardless of how we look.  The project itself is going fairly well although I still need lots of people to get involved.  If you’d like more information on it, give me a call at (213) 254-5824 or email me at jasontag@jasontagphoto.com

This one is called Histamatic and bring an even cooler retro look to iPhone photography.  It imitates the look and feel of the toy cameras.  The weird color aberations, unpredictable focus, and strange color casts.  Hipstamtic does it in a fun and exciting way.  I know what you’re thinking… I’m a pro photographer with big cameras and able to shoot really high res images and I’m getting excited about low res cameras?  weird!

I really love playing with toy cameras and I love the unpredictability of it.  not knowing what I’m going to get is part of the magic of film photography that digital just doesn’t recreate.  I can get great shots with my digital cameras and I’m able to edit the images to look any way I want which is great but sometimes you just want a camera to have fun with!  all in all I love the app and having lots of fun with it!

Nude, shot with a Nikon 50mm ƒ1.8D

I found out this week that one of my favorite collaborators and muse Sera will be moving back to the contiguous 48 states!  We had lots of fun together and she helped me learn some pretty cool things during the two years her and I have been working together.  I will certainly miss her talent and skill as a model as well as her personality.  It’s a bummer for me for sure.   Although there is some sadness associated with this news I wish all the best in her endeavours and I hope that one day our paths cross again.

At the moment I’m looking for a new muse and collaborator.  I know that Sera won’t be replaced but maybe I can find another muse who can inspire new art. if you’d like to give it a whirl send me a message.

The reason is that I love film.  I love the way it looks and feels.  I like my digital cameras because of the convenience but they seem to lack something that film seems to have in abundance.  I don’t know what “it” is, but I do know that I really like “it”…  whatever it is.  hopefully someday I’ll be able to say precisely what “it” is.  It’s like a warmth or a character perhaps that film has.  It’s imperfections give it a character that digital just can’t match.  I can add it in processing after I’ve shot the image but even then it’s a still a little too uniform for me.

We’ll see what happens…. =)