Hello everyone, this month has been about avoiding the cold temperatures and re visiting my old portraits. Some I’ve been re editing just to practice with some color grades that I don’t often use, and some are just a nice stroll down memory lane.
I thought I would take a crazy left turn off that lane and show some of my favorite people photos done with the unique, special, and underrated Sigma SD14 X3 Foveon sensor DSLR. I was gifted this camera back in 2009 and it’s very meaningful to me because it used to belong to the Merrill’s, who are no longer with us on this shared journey. Thank you again for your generosity and belief.
This series of images is also unique in that out of the 80+ images, only about 4 are full color photos. The rest are from my early days of basically just messing around and experimenting with the creative potential of the Sigma Foveon sensor and its wild near Infrared dual ability. I’ve always said that the images from day one look like the cover of mystery novels, with a bizarre and creepy quality that also recalls old tv shows like “Tales from the Darkside.” And yes this post also exists to show that I am quite capable of taking portraits with deep depth of field and without the “crutch” of bokeh. 😉 (…Says the fellow that just got a 200mm f/2…)
You’ll find a lot of dutch angles and a blatant disregard for the normal photo guidelines that I would have used with my main Nikons and Canons that I would have been shooting with at the same time too. I was definitely a lot more experimental back in 2009-2013, and it seemed like we hung out at graveyards a lot too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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This is still probably my most favorite photo that I’ve shot with the Sigma SD14 in IR, and the image I used for the cover of my personal Foveon photo book.
Just walking around Augusta with Pauline with no real objective except seeing new spots to photograph.
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Though not a portrait, this photo does have a person in it, and I consider it an important image. This might have been when I “cracked the code” on editing the Sigma .X3F’s in IR mode. I was walking around New Orleans with my various hand held colored filters and randomly photographed things in Manual mode, not knowing if I would get anything good to edit with.
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These photos were from our Halloween meetups in Oakland Cemetery. Bringing the IR Sigma was always a good choice.
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I can’t recall if I got any decent normal photos for Monique on this road trip adventure, but I do remember dinner was great with friends. Thanks for letting me goof off and tinker with an alternative camera. These days I’m definitely worried more about getting usable images that people can use.
The Sigma raws back in the day had a bad habit of getting corrupt for me, and sometimes if you were lucky you might get usable glitchy images like this one.
I think this photo could be about our adventures solving ghost mysteries in small towns.
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What was it with me and graveyards back in the day? Thanks to Lai-Ling for braving the cold and being a great model.
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Now this trip back to the cemetery was definitely to capture an image that could be a cover of a YA mystery novel at the book fair.
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This is one of my favorite shoots as well, and the IR Sigma really saw reality and Rachel’s hair in a different amazing way. Looking back at these photos from 2010, it’s crazy how there’s hardly anyone at Piedmont park on a weekend taking photos with the cherry blossoms.
These different edits show the cool randomness of what you can do with the IR Sigma files. Especially when it comes to fabric and hair. I haven’t tried any other IR modified cameras, only these Sigmas, but I’m sure the editing potential is there with all of them.
It has taken me this long to realize that these Sigma files shot without a care to proper exposure is similar to the wacky results on the Lomography home page and their experimental 35mm film they send off to everyone to get content with.
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I’ve been known to use the IR Sigmas at our Lao New Years as well. So slow and unreliable, but I usually get a unique shot or two.
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This shoot with Britney and Courtney have always given me Camp Crystal Lake vibes.
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Besides excelling at the creepy, emo, horror vibe, the Sigma SD14 is not a bad studio camera. Sure the resolution is small compared to even 6MP D40’s, but that detail is pixel sharp.
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Some from the early days of Momocon in Atlanta
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These following photos are about 10+ years from the above ones.
I know there are a ton I forgot about, but these are from the top of my head, and only about one day spent pulling and prepping the images for this post. There’s random Sigma related posts floating around here on my now ancient blog via the tags below. These pictures are a good reminder that I need to bring them out more often, even if the job is a serious work one. I would say a lot of the look is the wide angle lens choice, and another portion due to the rendering of the Foveon sensor, but probably the most is the free spirit of just getting out there with gear you don’t know too much and see what you can get. Compared to my normal friendly+fun event photography style and pretty portraits around town, these Sigma photos look like they aren’t even shot by me. 🙂
