Articles from Ruby Love

When I chose to move beyond candid snapshots of my friends and family and actually asked them to sit down for formal portraits, my approach to everyday photography changed. Candid moments are wonderful, but practicing your craft with the people around you both helps hone your skills as a photographer and leads to precious moments with the people you love. 

Documentary photographer Molly Choma began working for Virgin America fresh out of college. Working as a flight attendant, Choma got an inside perspective on the lives of those who work in the sky. Working for Virgin throughout her twenties, Choma began bringing a camera with her on her shifts, documenting the lives of her fellow flight attendants. In 2019, Virgin America will merge with Alaska and no longer exist as we know it. Now a professional documentary photographer, Choma is looking back at her work with Virgin's flight crews.

I'm sure by now everyone reading this is familiar with the work of photographer and interviewer Brandon Stanton and his long-running project Humans of New York. His crisp, shallow depth of field portraits and poignant interviews have gained international attention since the project's start in 2010. For the last four years, Stanton has quietly been filming his interviews, saving the footage for "something special." Now, that special something has arrived, in the form of a video series which will premiere next week on Facebook's Watch platform. 

If you’re like me, you spent yesterday evening flipping through dozens of eclipse photographs on social media. Whether you wanted to see them or not, there they were. All the blurry, grainy Instagram shots taken through cheap eclipse glasses got me thinking…how much did we actually experience this crazy, incredible, once-in-a-lifetime event, and how much of it was spent waiting for the perfect, “'gram-worthy” shot? Does photographing something take you out of the moment and prevent you from actually experiencing it? According to a study published in Psychological Science, it’s complicated.

Have you ever wanted to try your hand at dramatic macro shots of insects, but don’t have a studio setup or - let’s face it - the desire to cart strange insects back from your outdoor excursions? Entomologist Phil Torres has a neat solution. In this video, he takes us through his simple and elegant setup for shooting studio-quality macro photographs in the field.

Photographer Monica Jane Frisell has spent the last four months living out of a renovated 1988 Toyota Seabreeze, traveling across the United States with her scrappy terrier Lou and a Zone VI 4x5 camera for her project “Looking Forward/Portraits from an RV.” I caught up with her to talk about the project, life on the road, and the process of shooting large format film. 

Earlier this year, the Japanese Experiment Module (KIBO) on the International Space Station (ISS) installed Sony's a7S II mirrorless camera on its exterior. The a7S II is known for its gorgeous 4K video capabilities and wide dynamic range. Sony released video transmitted back from space as the module made its way up the east coast of the United States; The results are truly incredible. 

I first discovered the work of Cannabis Photographer Kristen Angelo when the Seattle Times did a profile of her for their series highlighting "cool jobs" in the region. Her work stood out as something fresh, new, and real. Unlike the high-contrast, psychedelic images I was used to seeing, Angelo's images showed different side of the culture of cannabis: sun-drenched, cultivated by passionate farmers in the rural Pacific Northwest. I caught up with Angelo to ask her about how she got into the field of cannabis photography, and how she developed her business as a freelance photographer.

“Through Darkness to Light” fully immerses its audience in the awe-inspiring history of the Underground Railroad through a series of breathtaking images. The series chronicles the perilous journey of those who sought freedom from slavery.

Senegal-based photographers Omar Victor Diop and Antoine Tempé are the co-creators of [re-]Mixing Hollywood / ONOMOllywood, a photographic series which re-imagines scenes from classic films, incorporating Senegalese landscapes, culture, and fashion.

Food and lifestyle photographer Annabelle Breakey has an envy-inducing portfolio that features sun-drenched tables crowded with elegantly displayed dishes and bright arrangements of produce against pristine backdrops. I had the chance to speak with Breakey about her work, managing creativity and business and staying creatively inspired.

Photographer Knut Egil Wang documents the annual migration of Norwegians to sunnier destinations, as they look to escape the darkness and cold of Norwegian winter. Wang captures the strangeness and bliss that comes with transplanting oneself for a few months each year in a series titled “Southbound” or “Syden.”

French photographer Antoine Bruy spent three years documenting the lives of men and women who have abandoned society for the wilderness of Europe for his fascinating “Scrublands” series. After photographing in five European countries, Bruy is turning his attention to the United States; specifically, remote settlements in the Appalachian Mountains.

Photographer Suzanne Heintz has spent the past fourteen years “playing house” with two mannequins-her fictitious husband “Chauncey” and their daughter "Mary Margaret". Her fantastically elaborate “Life Once Removed” series, featured previously on Fstoppers, stemmed from a frustration with the stigma she faced as a single adult woman. A continuation of Heintz’ series, “The Vows” was recently released, and features Heintz and Chauncey renewing their vows in a satirical-but very real- ceremony.

Director, photographer, and aerial cinematographer Randy Scott Slavin has created the first-ever drone film festival. The New York City Drone Film Festival, which takes place in NYC on February 21, 2015 was created to “celebrate the art of drone cinematography.” I spoke with Slavin about the process of putting together the festival which is, as of today, taking submissions.

Photographer Brigette Bloom draws from her start in documentary photography to create mystical, story-driven work. A concept photographer, Bloom works with Impossible Project Polaroid and 35mm film, which she often alters to create interesting effects (you may recognize her as “the photographer who pees on her film.”) I spoke with Bloom about her captivating “Kaya” series, and her overall process as an artist.

Photographer Neave Bozorgi’s work captures the seemingly effortless beauty of his subjects, evoking a sense of undone glamour and sun-soaked easiness synonymous with the urban west coast. I talked with Bozorgi about the evolution of his work since his start in 2011, and where he’s headed next.

EyeEm, the community-focused photo sharing app, is now taking photographic submissions for its 2014 Awards contest. Users of the app (avilable on Android and iPhone) can upload their photographs for free in any one of ten categories reflecting aspects of modern photography to be eligible for a selection of prizes and publication opportunities.

Photographer Karen Glaser is best described as a photographer of water. Declining to be “pigeonholed,” Glaser pulls from the genres of landscape, underwater, fine art, street, and documentary photography in her approach to capturing the complicated, beautiful, and diverse aquatic landscapes of Florida.

In a short film created by media group Blue Chalk, photographer Cory Richards discusses his growth as a photographer and his experiences shooting in some of the most beautiful-and dangerous-places on earth. Essentially homeless after dropping out of high school at 14, Richards credits the observance of the "richness that comes with struggle" for his initial education as a visual storyteller.

For female photojournalists of all nationalities, The Canon Female Photojournalist Award has announced that it is open for entries until the 26th of this month. The €8000 (roughly $11,096) award is intended to help its recipient “produce an ongoing one year project which will lead to an exhibition or showing at the Festival in the 2015 edition.”

Effingham, Illinois-based photographer Tytia Habing’s ongoing series “This is Boy” beautifully captures the dichotomy of peace and wild energy inherent in its subject-her young son. The series, presented exclusively in black and white, features Habing’s son over a period of several years. Usually with her son as the sole subject, the series displays a remarkable range of emotion as he shifts from contemplative, to vivacious, to vulnerable.

While Minneapolis-based photographer Cameron Wittig is probably best known for his intriguing portraits of musicians like Haley Bonar and Andrew Bird, I discovered him through his humorous project, “Duluth Typologies”. The series features houses built on steep hills in the small town of Duluth, Minnesota. Using a simple adjustment of angle, the houses in “Duluth Typologies” appear to be sliding into the flat ground beneath them, creating a humorous commentary on the potential of imagery to lie.

When I first came across Guilherme Brasileiro’s series “Delicadezas” on Instagram, I was pulled in by a seemingly nonsensical, quirky theme: dozens of portraits, cropped close featuring men and women, each holding a hand under their chin. The energy of the series struck me as open and full of warmth; the subject’s reaction to the pose they had been asked to assume was usually very apparent (some looked amused, a good few looked self-conscious, and some had really obviously embraced the idea).

Conjuring memories of the now arguably-infamous decision by The Chicago Sun-Times to lay off its entire photography staff, The Orlando Sentinel has informed its staff photographers that, soon, their jobs will no longer exist. As part of a restructuring plan to attract increased readership, the paper is shifting to a more “videocentric” approach.

One does not often associate violent protests and the threat of sniper fire with portrait studios. However, photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s recent portraits of protestors and fighters in Kiev, Ukraine make us question this apparent disconnect. Taylor-Lind's stunning and revealing portraits were taken with a medium-format film camera between outbursts of violence, documenting the men and women fighting for their freedom in Kiev.

Thomy Keat is a photographer based in Paris. Although corporate photography makes up much of his job, Keat says street photography is “the thing that makes me want to keep doing what I do as a professional photographer.” Pulling strong stylistic influence from his commercial work, Keat’s street photography is full of contrast, bold lines and repeated colors.

Publications allowing individual photographers access to their Instagram accounts is an increasingly common practice, and helps to foster a more intimate look at a photographer’s process. For example, Time Magazine allowed several photographers access to its Instagram account after Hurricane Sandy, enabling the magazine to update its almost 600k followers in real time. 

Jeffrey Mckee is a Lawrence, KS-based photographer and a graphic designer for the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. His colorful portraits, created with Polaroid instant film, evoke a sense of dreamy playfulness.

Like so many 20th century processes, Polaroid photography is a format far less common than its digital counterparts. However, equipment and film for instant photography have been made more accessible in recent years.