The Genius Awards

I was fortunate enough to be assigned shooting portraits of this years Stranger Genius Awards winners. These people are chosen as some of the best of the year in their field and are all creating inspiring, passionate work. The Stranger gives the winners financial assistance as well as exposing them to a larger audience for their achievements.

Jeffry Mitchell for Visual Arts. Jeffry was super fun to shoot and such a cool talented guy. Its fun shooting other artists who are excited about watching you work/set up lighting and hear about your ideas. Getting to meet people like him is what I enjoy most about editorial shooting

Cody Rivers Show for Theater His parter in the show was unavailable for the shoot so we improvised haha We got some strange looks from the surrounding people walking around Pioneer Square but it was fun to walk around trying crazy "theatrics" for the shoot

Pacific Northwest Ballet for Arts Organization. This shot was particularly challenging. Sometimes with editorial portraits, you go in with a clear idea of the shot you want to achieve and have to improvise when it just cannot happen that way.
They refused to let me light the dancers so i was forced to use a really long exposure in order to let the small hot lamp they were using to practice be noticed and show enough of Mckaw Hall as the background. Im pretty happy with how the revised shot came out

Stacey Levinefor Writing. Stacey was a little under the weather and nervous about shooting but we got coffee at her favorite cafe where she often writes and made use of the nice sunny fall afternoon. I loved this nearby bench in capital hill and she informed me it was constructed of pieces from an old demolished theater that used to be in Seattle.

Last nights Awards Celebration was a ton of fun. The Moore is one of the best classic Seattle Venus and the Cupcakes, Tom Douglas food were a perfect way to start the night. Go check out the paper this week and check out the excellent articles on each Genius.