One thing great about shooting for yourself is you get to do whatever you want. I like to be shooting all the time, especially for myself. It’s usually the most gratifying, and a challenge to push myself to develop my visionary skills of the craft. To keep “Refining my tastes” if you will. All part of the “ABS theory“

That said, I decided to shoot another project of my own, and instead of the 90 degree weather of Hawaii, I chose the 9 degree weather of Keystone Colorado. Having a good team definitely helps, and luckily with miles, I was able to bring everyone in. My homey Jeff Holt, helped produce and assist this shoot. Melinda Tarbell styled and Heather Hawkins did hair and makeup. It was a frigid one, but we definitely were happy with the results.

See the full story here:
http://www.nickonken.com/Stories/Colorado*SnowAdventure/

This is a topic I’ve been thinking about recently. Refining your vision and style comes down to refining your tastes, because all the little split decisions that you make when creating a piece of art, especially photography. Since photography is more instant as to what you are putting into the picture those artistic tastes come down to decisions of the moment. Does this piece of clothing work? What color should it be? Does this light work right for the concept? Is this highlight too bright? Does this prop fit the scenario? Does it look good on film? Does this camera angle capture enough of the background? Does this dark treeline work for the background? Does this pose look right? Is the hair just where it needs to be? Is the make up right? All these decisions are just a fraction that go into your artistic one click creation.

So many of these decisions are decided based on taste. What you like and what you don’t like. The more you shoot the more you realize. What works, and what doesn’t. What things do you like? As you grow as an artist, your tastes become refined and you soon realize that your earlier tastes might have been a bit more amateur than you thought. Seeing at a higher level means refining what you see, what you envision, then making those split decisions that create your refined vision. You can only develop your and refine your tastes by going through the artist journey yourself. As much as someone can teach you, practicing your craft for yourself is the only way you can develop your artistic eye.

I say all this because as I reflect on the years of growth I’ve experienced it’s come down to this: Refining my taste in the details. A great way to start seeing those details is to flip through magazines and break down images that you like. What makes it a good photograph? Why do you like it? What elements of the photograph do you like? What do you not like? This is a start to the process, but applying them to shooting is a whole different ball game. This all falls into my previous post of Expanding Your Default. Who ever said this was easy?

Keep Refining! Money can’t buy good taste.

Here's a recent advertisement that I shot back in December that just dropped. I just found it in the April issue of Cosmopolitan magazine(It should be in all the other girly mags as well). Funny thing with this shot, is that you probably wouldn't recognize it as my my work, but that just goes to show you that the good art directors(like my friend Chris Gedris who art directed this campaign) will see something in your style and parlay that into their creation. In this case, they liked the energy in my images(and probably all the jumping)

Paraty is a great little town about a four hour bus ride from Rio. I was glad to have my good friend Clarissa showing me around. You can hire local guys with boats to take you around the islands for the day. There are over 300 little islands around the area. It's beautiful. Paraty is one of the port towns where the Portuguese landed when Brazil was being colonized.

Check out the photo story here: http://www.nickonken.com/Stories/ParatyBrasil/

I even took a shot of Cachaça marinated in Snake. Tasted a bit like reptile smells. Can't say it was the best thing I've ever had, but not the worse. (like horsemilk in Mongolia)

Lawrence Atienza has just published a great in depth interview of me on his blog. Check it out if you have a minute:

http://blog.lawrenceatienza.com/2009/03/13/photographer-interview-series/featured-professional-photographer-interview-nick-onken/

One of my recent shoots a few weeks ago has been released so I can blog it. I have to say it's been one of my favorite lifestyle shoots thus far. My good friend Kyle Barnes introduced me to the owner of Aviator Nation, a rad California clothing line. Poppy colors fashion and board sport lifestyle make for some fun images.

Check it.
http://www.nickonken.com/Stories/AviatorNationFall09/

Check out their awesome clothes at http://www.aviatornation.com