Sam Rissetto

What's old is new again

2008-12-30T18:50:00.008-06:00

This is an old idea that I posted on here a long time ago, but I was never happy with the images I made. The idea is for a jewelry campaign that shows the jewelry as garnish on various cocktails. I like the idea so much that I want to get it right. Here's my first couple of attempts:

The first one is pretty straight forward but also pretty boring. Then I had the idea to put the fruit in like they were discarded and replaced with the jewelry. I think that look a little better. Then I just started playing with the angle. I'll be trying to work on different drinks/setups this week and hopefully get them up here. Let me know what you think.

Grapes

2008-09-01T15:12:00.002-05:00

I recently came across a thread on Flickr that was all photos of cherries. I wanted to contribute but all I had in the fridge was a bunch of grapes. The images I saw reminded me that a simple composition can look really nice too. This is what I came up with. Maybe I'll do a more elaborate setup soon.

4th of July

2008-07-05T15:55:00.007-05:00

Generally I think pictures of fireworks are kinda boring. Just like pictures of sunsets and stuff, it's a cool looking subject so you're bound to get some cool looking photos. It's really only cool if you were there and they're your pictures. So anyway this was my first attempt at fireworks pictures. I think they're pretty cool but maybe you think they're boring haha.

I'm a slacker

2008-05-27T23:50:00.012-05:00

I can't believe it's been over a year since I've posted anything here! Well I hope to start this up again. I'll start by posting some old stuff that never went up. These are some product shots I did when I was in school. The first two were taken at home so I was pretty proud of my resourcefulness in setting them up. I'm not crazy about the eyeliner but I still like the lipgloss.

These I took just for fun of the lunar eclipse

we had recently. It was pretty f-in cool.

A couple more

2007-05-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

I finally finished making my food portfolio! I bound my own book for it and I'm really happy with the result. I'd love to show it to anyone that's interested!

Workshops!

2007-05-07T16:30:00.000-05:00

I took two weekend workshops over the semester where we got to work with professional stylists. On the first day the stylist talked to us and explained what she did and how she got into the field. We got three or four layouts to work from and we planned out our shot. Then we went to a prop shop to rent our props. The second day we came back and photographed all day. The shooting days were about 10 or 11 hours long so it was pretty intense. We worked with view cameras and shot polaroids all day until we got the shot right. During the first workshop we worked on an ad for iPod. The second one focused on food styling and we worked on an Edy's ad.

I can't cook, but I can eat

2007-04-08T23:08:00.000-05:00

More food, and drinks this time too. I'm graduating in a little over a month and some of this stuff will be in a show of the seniors' work. That's pretty exciting. Not long before I have to enter the real world. Scary...

For those about to rock...

2007-04-08T21:37:00.000-05:00

I took these pics awhile ago at Subterranean for a band called The Ladies and Gentlemen. Check out their music. It'll get your booty shakin.

If any bands need some pics and you like what you see, drop me a line. I'd love to photograph them.

2007-03-08T13:36:00.000-06:00

This is more work I did for my food portfolio. I started out with the peppers, just using natural light. I played around with a lot of different compositions and these were my favorites.

With these I wanted to incorporate more of the environment. I need to do way more of that. So next time I shoot I'll probably pull back even more and give the pictures a sense of place. Now go get a snack because hopefully by now you're getting hungry!

Brownies!

2007-01-29T13:57:00.000-06:00

I'm starting to work on my food photography portfolio. I've seen a lot of great work out there from both professionals and my peers so it's a little intimidating. I finally just dove in and took some shots of these brownies. Now that I've gone digital, editing is my biggest problem. Let me know if you have a favorite!

Earrings

2006-12-18T12:00:00.000-06:00

One of my assignments for fashion was to photograph jewelry. Since I'm more of a studio/tabletop photographer I was challenged to come up with an intersting way to do this without using people. These were the first trials...pretty flat and boring but it was a start.

I kept working with the idea and these are the newest versions.

Fashion Final

2006-12-18T11:40:00.000-06:00

Wow it's been awhile since I posted. Finals and all...you know how it goes. Well now that I'm on break I'm gonna be an updating fool. These are pics from my fashion final. The assignment was to make some photographs that would be part of an editorial in a magazine. I really like this idea and I hope to do more with it once the weather is nice again. Many thanks go out to Sam and Alex for putting up with the weather and the gawkers!

Yum

2006-10-11T12:42:00.000-05:00

So the assignment was to photograph liquids and the idea was to get enough light going through it to keep the color saturated. For example, to keep the root beer from going almost black I had to put a white card behind the glass and bounce light off the card and through the glass. And by the way this was the hardest thing I've had to shoot so far. It's been awhile since I've made a root beer float so in my head I just assumed that I could set up the shot without the ice cream and then add it right before the shot. I thought it would just sit on top of the root beer and everything would be fine. I kind of forgot about the violent reaction that takes place when you mix the two. So anyway it took quite a while to set up.

2006-09-29T22:43:00.000-05:00

The next assignment in Studio 3

Fashion!

2006-09-29T22:22:00.000-05:00

Well I had to fight for it but I finally got into the fashion photography class. It sounds like it's gonna be pretty cool. We started out pretty simple taking pictures of a model on a white sweep. Here's just a few of them.

Studio 3

2006-09-29T22:01:00.000-05:00

This semester I'm in Studio 3 where I'll hopefully perfect my lighting skills. This is definitely my favorite class so far. These shots were from our first assignment.

Solar Electric

2006-09-29T20:48:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I've updated. First I had to get a computer that wasn't slower than molasses. And then I had to revamp the blog template a little bit. So here it is let me know what you think.

So back to the blogging business at hand. Now I have to play catch up and post a bunch of older stuff. Here are some pictures I took of my friends' band called Solar Electric. I took these at the same time I was shooting the night and day series and I wanted to try adding people to my nightscapes. They wanted some shots for their website and so it was a match made in heaven.

Night and day...

2006-04-14T14:24:00.000-05:00

These photos are from a my final project for my advanced color class last semester. I wanted to show how different lighting completely changes an environment. Even the most boring place can look kind of creepy at night...

Kickin' it old school

2006-04-11T17:14:00.000-05:00

Oldies but goodies...

Here are some pictures from my final project when I was in Studio I. I just wanted to photograph instruments in the studio to play with my use of color and different compositions. Let me know what you think.

Final Project

2006-03-27T11:13:00.000-06:00

This is the first shot I took for my final project for view camera. The idea is to make portraits of people and incorporate a word that they think defines themselves. I'm only in the very first stages of developing this project so I'll take any feedback that I can get...

View Camera

2006-03-27T11:01:00.000-06:00

This is one of the few photographs I made for my view camera class that I actually like. So I got pretty excited about it and put it on my blog. There's only one huge problem with the picture. Can you find it?

Hooray for diptychs!

2006-03-15T11:16:00.000-06:00

I have recently become infatuated with diptychs. They're pretty much the coolest things ever. So this is the only one I've actually created myself, but I'm thinking of doing some for my final project in view camera. Hmmm....

jellies and turtles and frogs....oh my!

2006-03-02T18:48:00.000-06:00

I went to the Shedd Aquarium a few weeks ago with my brother and my mom. We had so much fun...except for the part when the power went out. Everyone at the aquarium had to cram into the lobby so that was pretty uncomfortable. But it only lasted about ten minutes and then we got to go back in. And we got three free tickets to come back whenever we want. I'll have to go back and visit these guys sometime soon....

Welcome to Blogville

2006-02-20T16:58:00.000-06:00

So I finally have my own blog and boy is it exciting! I'm starting out by posting some photographs from a series I did for my Studio I final project. The idea was to find out about people's dreams and aspirations. I asked them some questions and had them write their response down on paper. Then I photographed them. I combined their words and images to create this series. I really wanted to show how our hopes and dreams change as we grow up. I only have 4 of the images scanned into the computer but maybe someday I'll post the rest. Comment away....and tell your friends....