::observation and experimentation::

New work: The Chloe Grace Project, January 2012 edit.

Frank — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:56:58 +0000

Holy crap- year six. Where the eff did it go? It seems unbelievable; I started labeling these pictures ‘Year Five,’ and realized that that’s not right.

Four items in, four items out, all the dropped ones were new anyway. Year zero and one are finalized, I think, they will not change.

Please click any image to see the whole project, all images are © Frank Rapant. It’s not nice to steal.

Year six. (Thank you Mr. Archibald.)

Six years… it going to be over and gone before I know it. I didn’t realize when I started this project (I didn’t realize it until I started writing this sentence) that I was numbering my daughter’s childhood with it, and today both the realization that I did that, and that I didn’t know what I was doing both make me a little nervous. Maybe I shouldn’t continue? Maybe I should just make pictures? I always knew that this would document her childhood, but not that it would also time it out. 28 more edits to go… shit, I feel like crying now.

Year six.

The CGR Project

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Bear Danger

Frank — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:09:04 +0000

Thank you for your submissions to the PhotoCenter’s Annual Best of 2011 exhibition. We’ve received over 200 fantastic images from 60 photographers. We wish we could show them all, but have limited wall space that can accommodate only about 75 prints.

We would like to include the following of your photographs in our exhibition:

Bear Danger

Thanks very much and we look forward to hanging your work in our gallery!

New work: Sarah McCormick in Center Square

Frank — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:33:13 +0000

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All images are © Frank Rapant, 2011. It’s not nice to steal.

Please click here or on any image to see all my work with Sarah, please click here to see her model’s portfolio.

No major changes in workflow yet, but they are coming.

Sarah McCormick, 2011.

I don’t have a lot to say about these, I think they can speak for themselves. Sarah is, as always, absolutely amazing to work with. You all should be emptying your pockets and standing in line to get her in front of your lens.

Sarah McCormick, 2011.

These images are Sunday morning, November 27, just before the church rush in Center Square, and Empire State Plaza, Albany. A cold post for a cold day (actually I wrote this four days in advance, I just think December 1 sounds like it will be a cold day).

Sarah McCormick, 2011.

What I really need is an underwear model to just travel along with me everywhere I go so I can stick them in front of things when I want to make a picture.

Sarah McCormick, 2011.

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New work: People Looking at Horses, 2011

Frank — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:40:26 +0000

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All content is © Frank Rapant, 2011. It’s not nice to steal.

People Looking at Horses: Portraits of Chincoteague and Assateague Island.

Chincoteague Island, 2011

So this continues, still without a home, but I haven’t had much time to look this year. I guess I got too discouraged trying to contact people on the Island to show it that I really don’t want to keep trying. I was shut out by like five or six sources last year, and so I guess it will sit in my archive and rot. I don’t think I am going to shoot it next year. For an explaination of what these portraits are and why I am doing them please see this link, a previous blog entry.

Please click any image to see the entire portfolio.

Chincoteague Island, 2011

This year we were only on the island for a day and a half, just long enough for me to shoot one pony event and spend some time on the beach. I made about 1,200 individual portraits over the course of the 6- hour pony swim event. The top 28 were included in the (way too big now) series. No, I still have not made that edit I should have last year.

Chincoteague Island, 2011

See the entire portfolio here.

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New work: Mia Simone in leather

Frank — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:48:24 +0000

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All images © Frank Rapant. It’s not nice to steal.

Mia Simone, 2011.

This is my second time working with Mia as a model. Love the hair. Pink next? I had a spiked leather collar in a box behind me while I was shooting, and completely forgot about it. Can’t win them all, I guess, not that I am complaining, because these still came out pretty nice.

Mia Simone, 2011.

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New work: Sara Johnson, first time photographed

Frank — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:08:18 +0000

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All images are © Frank Rapant, 2011. It’s not nice to steal.

You can see more of Sara here. You can see Sara’s website/ blog here. You can see my edit of our shoot by clicking on any picture.

Sara Johnson, 2011.

Sara is a runway model who had never been photographed professionally. She has a great look, and for all the brunette & brown eyes, and a distinct, sort of different face. Once she got motivated she was great.

Sara Johnson, 2011.

Of course its difficult to walk cold into a studio for a first shoot with a total stranger and perform, so I suspect that her next shoot will be a lot easier for everyone, whether its me or somebody else photographing her.

Sara Johnson, 2011.

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New work: Alexa Hayner & flag

Frank — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:19:19 +0000

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This is my third shoot with Alexa. She keeps getting better. Enough said.

Some wardrobe design, and some art direction by Sophia Tamura.

Click here to see more of Alexa, click any image to see more of her by me.

Alexa Hayner, 2011.

Fred and I dragged the flag out of the Irene storm debris near my mother’s house, it is badly damaged, and legally, should probably be destroyed, but its way too cool for that. Burtonsville didn’t get the storm as bad as Schoharie, but hers was the only house on the island without significant damage. Sometimes its easy to get confused and think that this world was made for us or something. Obviously not.

Alexa Hayner, 2011.

Erik was Alexa’s escort to the shoot, and I invited him into a couple pictures as a model/ prop. The tension between them was palpable to the point where Sophia, my assistant for the shoot and I were uncomfortable in the room. She and I discussed it after and both decided we didn’t belong there- it was great.

Alexa Hayner and Erik Klapp, 2011.

Alexa Hayner, 2011.

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Wedding portfolio

Frank — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:38:58 +0000

Please check out my 2012 portfolio: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2065741/b8d5536b900b974665922c8486a3bdf9cd2805b1

This is something I give to potential clients as a sort of extended business card.

www.frankrapant.net for weddings.

New work: Wilkins- Kostyk wedding

Frank — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:58:14 +0000

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Well, I have lasted longer doing this blog than I ever thought I would. This is the longest run of this type of thing I have ever done, but I am afraid it has run its course. I have almost come to dread writing these entries. Could you tell? I’ve done about three in the past three months. I have about 5 more shoots to go in my backlog, and then I am going to reevaluate this whole site. Whatever I decide six weeks from now there will be a change in how I do things. I am not stopping making pictures, just planning to rethink how and where I present them. I need something more passive or something.

So anyway, Wilkins & Kostyk was my final wedding for the 2011 season, and I am just posting a few. Please click any image to see my wedding portfolio.

And of course, I couldn’t have gotten far without my amazing assistant, Amanda Purner (who I just realized I still owe some pictures). She was totally great. Here she is helping me balance the strobes on the dance floor.

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www.frankrapant.net for weddings

The man in the picture

Frank — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:26:56 +0000

This is probably in bad taste somehow, to write about things so far in the past they hardly had a chance to affect me, but what am I, if not crass and thoughtless? Just the same, I apologize to Tim, and to Mom if you see these and they bother you. Any family, if you want the files, let me know. There are 16 scans total, including a couple real nice ones of Grandma and Grandpa Reed.

I don’t know who made these pictures, maybe Aunt Mary? Regardless, it’s not nice to steal.

Fred and I, while cleaning Mom’s outbuilding after Irene made a mockery of it, discovered my parent’s wedding album. I have never seen these pictures, and I am having trouble identifying these people. They are, of course, my parents, my brother, my grandparents, and great aunt, but to see them happy together, and smiling at each other is so foreign an idea to me, I don’t know them like this, and I don’t understand how (why) I could have missed out on this relationship.

My parents split up when I was about four, and still hate each other 30 years later, yet here they are, obviously very happy. This is a part of them I never got to see, maybe I feel a little bit robbed, after seeing these pictures, but I never had previously. I never imagined that they ever had a life like this, and I don’t think I have ever sen my father laugh like in the first picture. It breaks my heart a little.

Are these photographs a lie? Probably. Do I believe them anyway? Absolutely. Does that prove me more than a little naive? I don’t care.

Who is this man in the picture? If anybody figures it out, please let me know.

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