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Voyage Houston, an online magazine, has featured one of my Instagram posts in one of their compilations. The picture is from a portrait session with Julia Fox, a classical singer here in Houston.
I also had some work featured on the KEH blog earlier in the year. I appreciate that some of my images have been noticed this way.
As I meet more DeLorean owners around Houston, I find they all have a deep respect for the history of the car. From the literal trials and tribulations of John DeLorean, to its controversial funding and manufacture in Northern Ireland, and the car's placement in pop culture as it starred in the Back to the Future movies.
Dennis keeps Back to the Future props in the car for when he has it on display at movie showings and events like Houston's coffee and cars. There is a full-sized Flux Capacitor, a hover board and copies of Gray's Sports Almanac and Oh La La.
The car is meticulously maintained and, like a lot of the cars I have seen, has some modern upgrades such as LED door lights and steering wheel.
If you would like a portrait session with your DeLorean or other classic vehicle, shoot me an email at fil@filnenna.com.
With the gull-wing door suspended in the air, I met Shannon. He is a long-time DeLorean owner with a well-kept 1983 model. These cars had a short production run but the cars seem to be standing the test of time.
In my journey of capturing the character of Houston on film, I thought it would be great to take portraits of DeLorean owners. The DeLoreans were built in Northern Ireland, but after the company went bust, the remaining parts were eventually brought to Humble, near Houston where the central DMC (unaffiliated to the original company) repair facility is located. Houston is the new home of the DeLorean.
Because of this, there is a cluster of DeLorean owners around the city. During this first session, Shannon told me about the ongoing improvements he is making to the car. With the repair facility close by, and the ease at which you can complete your own repairs and upgrades, the owners are able to keep these cars running and even overcome some of the limitations that killed the sales of the car in the first place - underpowered engines, temperamental doors and lights that quickly drained the battery.
A father and his young son stopped to look at the car in the middle of our portrait session. It seems like a natural instinct to want to be near and touch this iconic vehicle. I am amazed that the car can excite kids born decades after Back to the Future was released.
I took detail shots and no square inch can be mistaken for another car, not even its cousin, the Lotus Esprit. The square headlights, the grid of the tail lights, the wheel hubs. The look of the car grows on you. It is funny that, even though this was my first time with a DeLorean, it felt intimately familiar.
This was a hybrid photography session where I used a digital Canon 6Dii and a medium format film Hasselblad 500cm.
Henry Cartier-Bresson's images imply the composition changes in fractions of a second. Ansel Adams waited for the movement of clouds and sand dunes over the course of minutes and hours. The temporal decision on when to release the shutter adds a third dimension to the 2D composition in-front of the lens.
I recently realized I missed a decisive moment, probably by weeks. I took a low quality picture of a Houston downtown abandoned building with a Pen FT. The picture is grainy, but more importantly, it was in black and white. The graffiti on the windows of the building was very large and interesting, but colourful - and it disappeared when viewed in black and white. I told myself I would return later to get a colour photo on a digital camera.
Weeks passed - and when I returned I found a building with all the windows removed. I guess the building is now being repaired and put back to use. It is still an interesting scene in its own right, but not the image I had visualized.
Waiting, in this case, was a mistake. You have to grab your moments, because you don't know when the moment will end.
Walking around Rice University feels a world away (rather than the few miles it actually is) from Houston's downtown. It has a classic campus feel and it copes with Houston's climate in a more common sense way than the rest of the city;
Old European, African, South American, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern cities with hot climates have naturally evolved to combat the oppression of the sun in the very same ways listed above. Houston's downtown has lacked arcades and streets shaded by trees despite the large spaces afforded by wide sidewalks. This is changing, however. The improvements on Discovery Green and Buffalo Bayou over the past few years are creating pockets of shade around the city and hopefully more will sprout up over time. There is a wealth of information on the Downtown District website.
I once asked one of the historians at George Ranch - what historical technologies have we lost that would have been valuable in today's city? He replied that the houses built by the first settlers in Houston were built for airflow. Open spaces between buildings and segmented houses that create a wind tunnel effect helped cool the people who lived there way before the use of air-conditioning.
So when the heat hits, I'd go for a stroll around the Rice University campus. A cold beer probably helps, too.
There is an element of research when it comes to planning a photography project. Looking at the work of others helps gather elements of ideas, avoid cliches and attempt to build on what has come before. Some comparison to the scientific method can be made here. The work of others can also be appreciated in its own right, of course, aside from as a source of learning or inspiration. I'm looking to take images of Houston that uncover its many hidden corners, and there are others doing the same.
USPS building, downtown Houston. Rollei 35s, Ilford HP5.
I'm sure there are many local commercial and wedding/portrait photographers who produce exceptional work, but I wanted to make note of some photographers who are specifically making the scapes of Houston part of their stories. I've selected a few photographers to make a of note here for my own reference - these are the photographers I'd most like to talk shop with.
Portrait and Headshot Photography in Marblehead and the North Shore, MA
