Great news to kick off this miserably cold and grey day. My photography has been featured on French blog “Whitezine” which has been around since 2009. Props to Joseph Ayoub, the site’s founder on both the feature, and on keeping his blog running strong all this time.
Visit: http://www.whitezine.com/en/photography/justin-fox.html
A couple of weeks ago I put a call out to get Automotive Photographers to submit their images for a feature on Zen in an aim to get more traffic to their web sites and Instagram followers.
I’ve always been a massive supporter of the little guy. Most if not all of the creative projects I’ve birthed have been about encouraging young people to create, and giving them a platform to get their work published, sometimes literally on the very same page as some of the world’s best. That goes a long way, seeing your work published right next to your heroes work.
In regards to photography I’ve seen first hand what a little encouragement can do, some of my fave photographers out there right now weren’t great at all when I first started promoting their work, now they’re fucking amazing.
So I knew there would be some great entries! BEST OF AUTO – Best of Automotive Photography Volume #01 is now live! Thanks and congrats to all photographers who submitted a photo!
Visit: http://www.zengarage.com.au/2014/08/best-of-auto-volume-001/
Forgot to mention, a photo of mine has been spotted on theCHIVE, a site I’d heard of before but never visited. I just took a look, it’s one of those ‘funny images’ sites, probably most popular with young guys. They’ve got over a million facebook fans, which is pretty impressive, what isn’t quite impressive though is they didn’t credit me for using my shot of Jasmine snacking on Nutella in my kitchen! Not exactly upset about it, but would have loved the spike in traffic!
View the original feature here: http://thechive.com/2014/08/08/hungry-yet-58-photos-2
Another Day Another Shoot! Quite a while back Dale from DM Motorsport (who worked the wheel alignment on my MX5) asked me if I’d be keen to shoot his girlfriend Elissa. We never managed to hook it up until today.
Turns out Elissa’s studying graphic design, she also work part time as a Hooters Girl! Surprisingly it was a really tough shoot. Low light which I’m still not 100% comfortable in, and Elissa was super nervous (despite us both sharing an interest in graphic design and me talking my head off as usual!!!). I do pride myself on making my models feel comfortable, and have had such great feedback from the girls I’ve shot with in regards to this, but Elissa’s not a model and I’m not that great with direction, that and the low light made for a lot of shots I just couldn’t use.
In the end I’m glad we moved from the bedroom into the lounge room where I got Elissa to just sit, chill and play with her phone. I took myself out of her face, whacked the 25mm lens on and stood quite far back to capture some of the shots above, which I’m really happy with actually. Little lesson in persistence for me!
A little while back Flickr changed their entire interface, and it shat me to tears, lots of people moved over to 500px but I didn’t bother, mainly because I’ve been with Flickr since the very start and I’m lazy like that.
Jess was talking about 500px the other day and I thought I might as well look into it now that I’ve got a newfound hobby for photography. I posted up a status on my facebook asking the photographers out there about which is better, Flickr or 500px, in the end I was convinced to give it a go and I’m glad I have.
Creating an account was as easy as signing in through facebook. I could then import my images directly from Flickr. I had Florida based Photographer Jordan Donnelly on messenger chat and he guided me through what I should and shouldn’t do. Basically he suggested a few people for me to follow, and most importantly he suggested that I only upload my best work (as opposed to anything and everything on Flickr).
I didn’t bother too much with adding descriptions and tags etc. and I didn’t bother promoting my new 500px page either. Within 24hrs I’ve had quite a lot of reach on some of my photographs. 255 faves on my shots, 3,035 views and 32 followers. 500px also promoted 2 of my photos in their DISCOVER section. That’s pretty awesome. So far, so good!
Visit: http://500px.com/justinfoxau
Had an awesome shoot with Britta yesterday. It always helps when you’re shooting someone who’s genuinely interesting (and she’s a mad cat lover too!). I first met Britta a year ago when Hot4’s Magazine shot my MKVR32 Golf, she’s transformed herself so much since then! Both Britta and I were a little hung over, good thing then that we had planned to do a “Lazy Sunday” style shoot. I’ve got a lot more images to come, but for now please enjoy these bedroom shots.
As usual, you can view the high res images on my tumblr: http://justinfox.tumblr.com
Some of my photos have been featured on This isn’t Happiness, a visually beautiful and at times depressing blog which has been running since I first heard about Tumblr and often voted as one of the best Tumblrs of all time. This isn’t Happiness? Oh but it is!!!
Visit: http://thisisnthappiness.com/post/92854873384/send-no-flowers-justin-fox
Click pic to enlarge.
In a comment on my last blog entry Charlie asked for a rundown of all the gear I pack for shoots. I’ve always loved checking out “what’s in the bag?” style features so I thought why the hell not!
This bag is what I carry daily (to work at Zen Garage). I always carry my laptop and 2 cameras (I’ve been on shoots with other shooters who have come across trouble and had to cancel shoots on the spot, lesson learnt, always pack another camera! If I’m shooting off location I’ll always bring along the Bose Speaker. It’s a bluetooth speaker so sometimes I’ll let the model stream her music onto it if I think it’ll make her feel more comfortable. PS: I do always carry the kit lens that came with the GF6 (I used it to take this shot), it’s useful only for when there’s not enough space for me to fit a girl into frame but I rarely use it at all.
Here’s the packing list:
1. Chrome Niko Pack.
2. Bottled Water.
3. Samyang 7.5mm Fisheye Lens.
4. Battery chargers for both the GF1 & GF6.
5. Panasonic Lumix GF6 with Leica DG Summilux 25mm F1.4 and DSPTCH Straps.
6. Panasonic Lumix GF1 with 20mm Pancake Lens and Panasonic Viewfinder.
7. iblazr LED Flash, Memory Card and USB Stick.
8. Joyetech eVic.
9. The Essentials – Keys, wallet, iPhone.
10. Bose SoundLink III Bluetooth Speaker.
11. Zen Sunnies.
12. Macbook Pro.
In 2012 I bought myself a DSPTCH camera strap for my GF1. It’s a little faded now from all the sun and salt it’s seen over the years but it’s still going strong and has proven to be super reliable so I’ve bought another one for my GF6. They’ve upped their packaging game, but it’s pretty much the exact same product. The quick release buckles on both ends makes it a breeze to remove the strap (which I find gets in the way during photoshoots).
Shot with Jasmine again today. I’m going to lose the keys to this amazing beach house soon so this might be the last shoot I manage to squeeze in!