Photographer shout-out: John Lok
Despite my feelings about the Seattle Times' editorial quality, they're lucky enough to have several terrific photographers on their staff.
This morning, one of them knocked it out of the park with two very different photo essays. John Lok has a great series of photos about people living the Iraq war here in the US:
And in the "Gender: F" insert, he has a very different series of photos of women finding the perfect bridal gown:
It's always great to see photographers getting more interesting photos into a daily paper. In the first image, he's using a Holga "toy camera" with a crappy lens and light leaks to beautiful effect. In the second image, he's at the other end of technique, with a tricky-to-do-well combination of flash on the bride (to keep her sharp) plus a slow shutter speed and a bit of camera pan to add some motion to the background and a little glow to the bride.
Nice work, John.
For more on either technique: Michelle Bates has a new book out on toy camera photography which I've heard is very good. I'd be remiss if I didn't also include a link to the Strobist site here — if you want to learn more about the kind of technique John's using in the second photo, I can't think of a better place to start.
(Both photos copyright John Lok and the Seattle Times, of course)