Nevada Rose Inside the American Brothel: A LF Project by Marc McAndrews

[Steve M Hostetter]

I wish I could help out for the cause but unfortunatly I'm in a bad finacial state...

You really do these subjects justice with masterful taste and vision.

regards
steve

[Marc McAndrews]

In terms of shooting, my opinion is 2 frames for an inanimate object. For people, I try to put the idea of it being 4x5 out of mind. If you spend the time to set up, lighting, etc, you might as well make sure you get the shot. How you accomplish that is something you'll have to figure out for yourself. If you can do it in 2 frames then thats all you need and you don't need to blow a box of film. On the other hand, if you don't have the shot then keep working on it till you feel confident you have it - to a point, like you said, it does get expensive quickly.
I travel with a range of lenses - 90mm to 210mm.
I use(d) NPS overexposed a stop and developed normal.
While tricks are good and I definitely use them when shooting, I think trust is the most important thing for making people look comfortable. I always try to show them polaroids (I almost never show the 1st one cause it very rarely looks good, I tell them this before so they don't think I'm hiding anything from them.) I also act out whatever I ask them to do, if I want them to be animated and laughing, I do the same thing so they don't feel so awkward faking it.
I assisted for some really great people and picked up little tricks. That definitely gave me a solid base. The trick is to just keep shooting. It's one thing to have someone there for backup or direction, its a whole different story when its you on your own trying to figure out if you want sharp or soft or contrasty and what looks real and what looks fake. Then figuring technical stuff while entertaining them and holding their attention. Those are the real hard parts. You just have to keep shooting and make mistakes. So in that sense I figured it out for myself but relied on the technical tricks I picked up assisting.

No worries Steve. I'm glad you liked the work. t means alot to me when other photographers like and respect the work. If you can, pass around the link - facebook, twitter, blog or even email some people who may like the work. Kickstarter's great for raising money, but t's an all or nothing thing so it's a little nerve-racking.....every $5 helps

You can see some more of the work on my website:
http://www.marcmcandrews.com/work/nevadarose.html

[El Topo]

Ok Marc, I was the first one to react to this thread and said the work is so good that I was surprised no one had commented on it yet. I started a similar project in Spain a few years ago in medium format and left it for its complexity.....so congratulations man!

Anyway, to back my words I just pledged USD 125, so you better raise those bucks cause I want my 1st edition copy!!!

Good luck and remember impossible is nothing

Ramon

[Marc McAndrews]

Thanks for your donation Ramon! The book is looking amazing, I'm really excited about it. Please keep passing the link around, every bit helps.
http://kck.st/dvAYTQ