Jake Rohde | Valo Photography

As a thank you gift for shooting his wedding (coming up real soon) my friend, and partner in crime, Simon McConico and his fiance, got me a Fujifilm Instax Mini 7S Instant Film Camera. I took a week off with my wife and headed down to Mexico, and they thought I might be able to use it down there, so they gave it to me a little early. It was also my birthday on the 26th of Feb, so this was a very pleasant surprise. I took a lot of instant images while in Mexico, and learned a lot about the camera, as this was my first time using one. The main thing I learned was similar to the lessons learned while shooting with a Holga: Let go, loosen up, and don’t take things to seriously.

So here are some of my favorite images from the trip:

And since I am feeling good from the vacation I am going to give away 10 prints of these scanned images. So these won’t be the original instant film, but they are the next best thing. They will be printed on a 5×5 archival photo paper, signed by me. All you have to do is leave a comment below with the image you would like, and I will get it printed and mailed out to you. I will take the first 10 comments here on the blog. Make sure to leave your email when commenting (you dont have to leave it in the comment area, but there should be a spot to enter it so only I can see it). I will then email you to follow up, and get your shipping address. So here we go… first 10 people.

Jake Rohde
Valo Photography

11 Comments | In: Fine Art, Lomo, Travel | tags: 7S, Camera, film, Fuji, Fuji Instax Mini 7S, Fujifilm, Fujifilm Instax Mini 7S Instant Film Camera, Instant, Instax, Jake, Jake Rohde, Mexico, Mini, Playa Del Carmen, Vacation. | #

I had a bunch of Holga films that I have been trying to get to scanning… I finally did…

Jake Rohde
Valo Photography
Milwaukee WI

No Comments | In: Fine Art, Photography | tags: film, Fine Art, Holga, Jake, Jake Rohde, Lomo, Photography, Travel, Urban, Valo, Valo Photography. | #

I am having a selection of some of my “void” work on display at the BYOstudio this gallery night and day. The show runs for 2 weeks: July 24 – Aug 2. Stop by, I will be hanging out Friday night, and most likely Saturday as well.

Part of a group show including photography, painting and sculpture called “Reflection on Recession”

Join BYOstudio for the Exhibit Opening Event
Milwaukee Gallery Night:  Friday, July 24, 2009 – 6pm to 9pm
Milwaukee Gallery Day:   Saturday, July 25, 2009 – 1pm to 5pm

BYOstudio
2246 South Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View
414-699-7033
info@byostudio.com

http://www.byostudio.com/Home

2 Comments | In: Fine Art | tags: art, City, Cream, Cream City, film, fine, Fine Art, Jake, Jake Rohde, Photography, Valo, Valo Photography, WI, Wisconsin. | #

The photo of the week this week is of a man reading his newspaper. Nothing special, nothing groundbreaking… I just like this image. Sometimes as I am walking around I wonder why I take certain photos… Sometimes it is just a reaction, you see something, somewhere the brain says, hey snap a picture NOW, and before you can even think about it, there is a new photo captured in your camera. It is usually these types of photos that I love best. The moments where you don’t even have a second to think about it, you just make the picture…

“Man Reading”
Jake Rohde
Valo Photography

No Comments | In: Fine Art, Photo of the Week, Photography, Travel | tags: 5D, Canon, Canon 5D, City, digital, Jake, Jake Rohde, Mexico, Photography, Playa Del Carmen, Travel, Urban, Valo, Valo Photography. | #

This weeks photo of the week, “Drops with Night Lights”. This photo was taken late at night as I was sitting in my car. It was raining outside, it was peaceful and there were city lights in the background. It was one of those moments when everything seemed peaceful, just for a couple of seconds… So in that moment I took out my camera, quietly as to not disturb the moment, and snapped a few photographs of raindrops collecting on the windshield of my car.

“Drops with Night Lights”
Milwaukee, WI
Canon EOS 3
Arista Premium 400 @ 400

Jake Rohde
Valo Photography

No Comments | In: Fine Art, Photo of the Week, Photography | tags: Abstract, Arista, Arista Premium 400, Canon, Canon EOS 3, City, Cream, Cream City, EOS 3, film, Jake, Jake Rohde, Milwaukee, Photography, Valo, Valo Photography, WI, Wisconsin. | #

I missed last weeks Photo of the Week due to the fact that I was in Mexico on vacation celebrating my one year anniversary with my wife Catherine. We had a wonderful time. I did not however have a computer there, so I couldn’t do anything with the photos I was taking while there, including posting one here. Now that I am back I am slowly getting myself back into the fast pace of life.

This weeks Photo of the Week comes from Mexico. I am not very good at Tourist type photographs of people standing in front of what they did or saw, etc. I spent most of our time in Playa outside the Tourist area, photographing what I would consider possibly more of the real Mexico. This weeks photo is from one of those adventures, check it out.

“Mini Super”
Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
Jake Rohde
Valo Photography

3 Comments | In: Fine Art, Photo of the Week, Photography, Travel | tags: 5D, Canon, Canon 5D, City, digital, Jake, Jake Rohde, Mexico, Photography, Playa Del Carmen, Travel, Urban, Vacation, Valo, Valo Photography. | #

This weeks photo of the week comes from a disposable camera. I have been having a lot of fun using low-fi camera such as disposables, Holgas, Dianas, Pinholes, and others. It is a lot of fun. What I think it does for me is lets me focus more on content and really push myself to try and make a good image with not much to work with. Sometimes it is very frustrating, because there is that lack of control, since there really is not a lot you can control… Pop some film in, you are stuck to that speed, there is no exposure control, so you kind of have to look for light that will fit with what you have… etc… It is a challenge and it is a lot of fun. I think it also shows that you can make nice and unique images with not a lot of equipment. Nice equipment is nice, and I love all the gear that I have, but sometimes it is so nice to reject it all, grab a lo-fi camera and go for a walk and just have fun…

This photo is from Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin. My wife took me there last weekend for a little birthday getaway. I brought a couple disposable cameras with me, and shot through two of them. This was one of my favorite images from the walk. The camera I used I received free from a friend, who had a bunch of leftovers from her company, so really it cost me next to nothing, since I didn’t even have to pay for the camera…

More images from disposable cameras can be found in my Flickr set Disposable.

“Bob 35″
Stugeon Bay, Door County, Wisconsin
Jake Rohde
Valo Photography

No Comments | In: Fine Art, Lomo, Photo of the Week, Photography | tags: City, disposable, disposable camera, film, Jake, Jake Rohde, lo-fi, Lomo, Photography, Urban, Valo, Valo Photography, WI, Wisconsin. | #

This weeks photo is a simple photo taken when I noticed some gorgeous light falling on these roses. The light hit the roses and the shadow created this nice separation between the red of the roses and the red wall. It was just 3 minutes of nice light, and then it was gone. This is one good example of BYCE (bring your camera everywhere), because you never know when mother nature is going to give you some nice light to work with…

“Red on Red”
West Bend, Wisconsin
Jake Rohde
Valo Photography

No Comments | In: Fine Art, Photo of the Week, Photography | tags: 5D, Canon, Canon 5D, City, Cream, Cream City, digital, Jake, Jake Rohde, Milwaukee, Photography, Valo, Valo Photography, West Bend, WI, Wisconsin. | #

This is my favorite tree. I have taken many photographs of this tree and they are all very different. My most popular is probably “Tree with Yellow Line” which was lucky enough to grace the cover of the “Cue” section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This photo is another version of my favorite tree. Enjoy.

“Northpoint Tree”
Milwaukee Wisconsin

No Comments | In: Fine Art, Photo of the Week, Photography | tags: film, Jake, Jake Rohde, Mamiya, Mamiya 645, Milwaukee, Northpoint, Photography, Rohde, Valo, Valo Photography, WI, Wisconsin. | #

“Power Lines Sunset”
From the series “Atmosphere”
Milwaukee, WI

I have decided that each week I will pick my favorite photo from the week and post it along with a brief description of the photo. I once tried a photo blog where I would post a photo per day, but in the end it seemed as though I was posting for the sake of posting, and not posting work I liked at all. After thinking about it a bit more, I think I can handle posting one photo per week that I really like.  This week the photo comes from a series I am currently obsessing over which I like to call “Atmosphere”. I commented a little bit on this series in a past posting about experimentation, and I think it is still in it’s infancy. But I really do like the images I am making in this series. I have always been one to lean towards an image that says something, or an image that pops, more so than a technically perfect image. I think some of my favorite images are not technically “correct” at all, and for that matter they are not always compositionally “correct” either. To me a good image is more than a compositionally “correct”, sharp, grainless, noiseless pictures. To me a good image is something you feel when you look at it. I guess maybe that is what I am trying to do with this series of photographs. Escape the technical and concentrate on a feeling.

So I hope you enjoy this image of the week, and I hope you will continue to enjoy the images I post here.

As always I would love to hear what you think.

2 Comments | In: Fine Art, Photo of the Week, Photography | tags: Abstract, Canon 5D, City, Cream, Cream City, digital, Experiment, Experimentation, Jake, Jake Rohde, Milwaukee, Photography, Urban, Valo, Valo Photography, WI, Wisconsin. | #