Firefighter Portraits

Over the years, I've worked with and known a lot of firefighters.  I have a lot of respect for these guys.  They answer a lot of different calls (most of them are NOT fire-related) they see things that would turn most people's stomach inside out, get very little sleep, and not much paycheck.  I admire them a lot.  I wanted to do some portraits of firefighters. Here are two.

Joel Grimes is My Hero

Some of you in the non-Photography world have never heard of Joel Grimes.  Until about a year ago, neither had I.  He's a celebrity portrait photographer who does a lot of commercial work for athletic companies (Nike, Reebok, etc).  He does a lot of portraits for music artists too.  Check out his amazing website at www.joelgrimes.com and you'll see what I mean.  The first time I saw his work, I was just awestruck.  

So I started experimenting with pictures that were similar to his style... in similar lighting, and similar post processing with Photoshop.  I've also been studying a book on doing composites by Matt Kloskowski.  I've been having fun, and I love the images that I've been creating.  I think this is a path I want to stay on.    Here is the first composite I've done.  I'm pretty happy with it, and I'll be entering it in a portrait competition.  I'm putting together a series of portraits of people in uniform.  I hope you like it too.

HDR

This is an example of HDR (High Dynamic Range). The picture is St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Spring Branch. An HDR image is actually a composite of several images over a span of exposure values.