Las Vegas Photographer A M Johnson
These are the Most Recent Blog Posts
Grape Vegas Second Anniversary Party Tonight
Grape Vegas is in Town Square by Rave. Come join us!
First Friday in the Arts District
Ugh. I was supposed to post this three days ago! So much for good intentions!
The hot spot this month for First Friday is 1404 3rd street. That’s where the Neon Venus Art Theater is. The venue features a band and my gallery opening. My first gallery display in Las Vegas features landscapes and seascapes. I [...]
Another Black and White from Hanne
Hanne finally has her images edited. I promised to have them done on Wednesday but everything in the world got in the way. They are done and an email is sent for her to download them from the server. I prefer to upload a zip file to the server and have the client download the [...]
Goofing Around on a Parking Garage
That’s right; on not in. Most garages in Las Vegas have roof top parking. No need to waste space with a roof. I was assisting my friend Mike on one of his shoots for actor Raymond Moore. We went through the now shuttered Jillian’s Restaurant area at the East end of the Fremont Experience doing [...]
Writing a Good Usage License
A Usage License is a contract between a model, MUA, designer, publication etc… and a photographer. The photographer licenses (gives permission for) the images to be used in specific circumstances to the person named in the license. For instance, the license can state that the model can use the image in her on line [...]
Don’t Tell Momma
I do a tremendous amount of editorial in downtown Las Vegas, on Fremont Street. I’m starting to get into doing short series. They are fun and I like telling stories. This was done in 35mm Black and White film, BW400CN*. Other than resizing, these images are as they were right from the negative scanner. [...]
Great Shoot Yesterday in B&W Film
I’m a sucker for film. I would rather shoot it than digital any day. I tried a new studio and a new model, Hanne. She is Danish and is actually a club singer here in Las Vegas. She sings Jazz and anything 1930’s through 1950’s. Most of the shoot was for her CD cover and [...]
Copyright Links
Here is some more copyright information to chew on…
This isn’t really bad reading. By the time you read it over a couple of times, you will have a real clear understanding of copyright law in the US.
The United States Copyright Office contains an explanation of American copyright basics and a list of frequently asked [...]
New Model Advice~ Before the Shoot
This is a follow up to other blog pages in this series. Other articles dealing with model issues are:
~Basic Advice for New Models
~Photographer Myths and Models
~Models, Scams and the Internet
~Models, Copyrights and your Likeness
Let’s say you are a new model and just contacted me to shoot you. You may have never modeled in your life [...]
Models, Copyrights and your Likeness
There is quite a bit of confusion these days over copyrights, usage, model releases and contracts between photographers and models. I thought a little blog post about it would be in order to help clear the air and make sense of the law concerning these issues.
The scenario here assumes that the photographer is [...]
Models, Scams and the Internet
As a followup to my rant about set safety and escorts, this little piece is about how to spot scams on the Internet.
Scams are all over but models still fall for them every day. Whether they are 419 scams, Craigslist scams or talent agency scams, models waste tens of thousands of dollars every day [...]
Photographer Myths and Models
I’m constantly amazed at all the misinformation on the internet about photographers and modeling.
Photographers can be divided roughly into a couple of simple categories. There are working photographers like me, amateur photographers who do this as a hobby mainly for their own enjoyment, and finally, “photographers”. (I’ll freely admit I’m also an amateur photographer [...]
Reflections of my Life in Three Photographs
A photographer on a forum asked an interesting question. I normally am not terribly introspective but felt this was really worthy of some thought. I’m like most people in that I’m busy, my mind is on living and getting ahead in a horrible recession and trying to create some art along the way. I enjoy [...]
Sugar and Spice
I really love family photography. I tend to not get the whiney seven year olds so that makes it nice. Even babies seem to like me taking their picture! Go figure, eh? I know what it is, kids take cues from adults and tend to rise up to the occasion. Baring missed nap time, hunger [...]
Hot Chicks and Downtown Las Vegas
Fremont Street is a well known area. Free concerts, old school hotels and great bars are irresistible to tourists and locals alike. One of my favorite bars is on Fremont. The huge overhead screen and street performers only add to the flavor and fun atmosphere. When people say “downtown”, most often they mean Fremont Street. [...]
The Lone Holdout in the Sky
It’s been raining for the last couple of days here. We need the rain more than you could imagine as we are in a crushing drought here in the desert. Sometimes the rain produces spectacular skies, as spectacular as marine skies at dusk.
Yes, it is Photoshopped some. Angry black clouds made more angry as [...]
Emotions in Contrast
Breeayana, Emotions and Art. The artist that did the painting here is unknown to me. However, it looked like a great backdrop for Breeayana to get some emoting in. I liked the contrast in the artists rendering of his subject being pensive to Breeayana’s emotions of despair or pain. The film image of her in [...]
American Iron Rawks!
I love American Muscle cars, Classic Rides and all sorts of crazy creations that takes creativity and talent to levels that leave me in awe. These are a few shots from the car show at Sante Fe Station last weekend. These cars are getting harder and harder to find, the wreckers have claimed most of [...]
I’m in Love.
Just Thought you Should Know…
This is one of my professional cameras posing for me in an artful manner. It’s a Mamiya RB67, a Medium format film camera that takes unbelieveable images. Words just cannot describe how wonderful images are from medium format film compared to digital. With stunning colors, vivid depth and clarity, it’s [...]
I Finally Chose Justhost
In this blog post- I had some comments about several hosting companies. I was particularly unkind to MediaTemple, my most recent web host and 1and1.
My move to Justhost was easy, painess and in the end, the right thing to do.
I got the 50% off deal with three years of hosting and every single [...]
Silhouette and Backlight Experiments
I was around Blue Diamond and Las Vegas Blvd a week or so ago. I saw something I wanted to try so here are the results. All four of these pictures were taken then resized. No other Photoshopping was done.
It’s amazing how different it looks when the camera is fooled by auto exposure calculations. [...]
I finally updated my theme for Cafe1956.com
I think it’s much better than the old one. Much work to do, but it’s coming along. ..
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I’m also playing with spacing and other back-end things in this theme.
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I see I’m going to have to fix the graphics in the side bar. They are way too big.
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The Cutest Little Girl
This is Emilia. Her mom and I met at the Venetian for some paperwork things on Monday. She was unbelievable in her ability to pose and take direction. I kid you not, at 3 1/2, she is a better model than most I have shot this year. She definitely takes after her mom in both [...]
Aria Tower Navigation Helpers
One thing I noticed about City Center’s Aria Tower is what I would call minimal signage. It took me a minute to figure out that they have staff all over the place to guide you and even walk you to where you need to go. I like this. I like helpful, happy people and prefer [...]
Modern Trains and Glass Houses
I spent a couple of hours at City Center today, mostly in the Aria Tower. City Center is impressive in it’s size and to me, an antiseptic look. All that glass and stone is astonishing. It is clean, polished and sharp. City Center is definitely a testament to the talent and creativity of the designers [...]
Domains Migrated with no loss of Sanity
Now I’ll get 50 people telling me I have no more sanity to lose.
I officially cancelled my account with Media Temple and will get back to my routine of trying to update my image gallery here. This is something I started a couple of months ago but managed to spend my time on other things [...]
I Met Jaime Edmondson
I went to the Playboy Store on Saturday as part of my mini casino crawl on the strip. Thanks to @Playboy on Twitter, I knew that Jaime Edmondson would be there signing autographs, handing out pictures and getting her picture taken with old guys. My Assistant, Mike, did take a picture of me with Jaime [...]
I’m Having Email Problems
Unbeknownst to me, I have not been getting all my emails for the last two weeks. I have no idea how much work I lost or what damage has been done to my business yet.
It seems like it is a two-fold problem. MediaTemple has a spam filter system that was blocking some emails that should [...]
Pete Rose is in the House!
I cruised by Field of Dreams in Caesars Palace yesterday. They are located in the Forum shops. I hadn’t been to Caesars Palace in many years and forgot how nice it is. The architecture is rich and of course there are lots of Roman statues and other art. They have some sort of animated show [...]
Current Status of Hosting Company Hunt
I get asked quite often what I think about various hosting companies. So, here is what I think, all in one post complete with ribbon and bow.
1and1- Horrid customer service. They used to be regularly accused of killing accounts and seizing domains from customers then extorting huge amounts to restore the domain and [...]
We Knead the Dough
I had the pleasure of meeting the fine folks from The Rape Crisis Center (RCC) and all of the volunteers, guests and passers by that turned out on Saturday for We Knead the Dough (Nov. 28 at Town Square). I shot for about three hours and found everyone there to be friendly and having as [...]
Gilligan’s Island In Las Vegas
I shot the last of the Kodak BW400cn last week. I really like black and white, however for landscapes and water color definitely is better.
I wasn’t too happy with the lab again so I think I need to not shoot C41 black and white anymore. I need to actually watch them develop [...]
This morning’s Security Update Breaks Masthead Image
I did a security update to cafe1956.com this morning. It looks like the update crippled the rotating masthead image to the right of our favorite server girl, Peni.
I am working on a new mashhead graphic anyway, featuring Valeriya, whose image appears on the main page. Since this is a weekend holiday, I might not have [...]
Modern Conveniences
I had to laugh. I do remember “ice boxes” and coal bins. I remember getting our first TV, with 13 channels. It was as black and white as this photograph. I remember the test pattern in the late evening, right after the 10:00 news. I remember the Ed Sullivan show and the Elvis controversy. I [...]
Steam Locomotive
These are from Tuesday afternoon. I had some Kodak BW400cn so I thought I would do the grainy-contrasty mood. Canon 10S with a 70-300, CPL and red filters in AV mode. I had a couple of other lenses with me but just didn’t feel like swapping them out. I had intended on shooting this roll [...]
More Black and White From The Ghost Town
These are also from Tuesday afternoon from the same roll of Kodak BW400cn. I shot 24 frames in two hours and had a great time doing it. Film is just fun.
Why I still Shoot Film
No, I’m not showing my age here. In my opinion, film is still a necessary part of creating photographic art for many reasons. There are things you can do with film that you cannot do digitally (and visa-versa of course). This is more than a horse vs. motorcycle debate, this is about achieving goals and [...]
Why I still Shoot Film (Continued)
Continued From Why I still Shoot Film
Some article excerpts from this test about the RZ are:
“Starting with the Mamiya 7, the print of the motor is very sharp, shows outstanding contrast, handled the transitions from dark to light very well, and in general returned a very clean print. There is the appropriate Zone3 details in [...]
Behind the Scenes with Alice
This is of course the model Alice S. and Christa Adamson, MUA. When we did the set on Fremont in front of the El Cortez in the median there, (see previous blog post) a guy drove right by me with that big RB67 in hand and rolled down his window by Alice. He said “Hey [...]
35mm Black and White from Nov. 18
The scans from the roll of 35mm ended up being in medium res. Oh well. I got tired of arguing with the guy about what I wanted. These are a little more grainy than I am used to but still fine for 400 ASA oh excuse me- ISO 400. This is Kodak BW400cn. Shot on [...]
Medium Format From Wednesday
I shot a roll of Fuji Pro 160C 220 MF on the RB67 with a 180mm lens and no filters. I hand held it with no problems, mostly 1/125, F16 and some F11 in the alley. Hopefully I’m starting to remember what I’ve forgotten over the years because in the alley, I looked around and [...]
Shots from Yesterday in Downtown Las Vegas
On 6th Street in Downtown LV yesterday-
I have all sorts of stories from yesterday too. But, that is for another blog article, tomorrow maybe. There is def more to this than the four pics here. Stay tuned!
This [...]
This is what I was up to yesterday-
This is what I was up to yesterday-
After it was all said and done, only a few cars showed up. Since I already had pictures of all the cars from other events, I shot the people. As always, a nice, cordial, friendly crowd. That is if you could call two dozen people in a huge [...]
Great Morning Shooting Cars
and girls. Hot promo girls. With great personalities. And pretty smiles.
Yes, I was playing with Photoshop. I forgot my filters for the 10D that I use for these events, they were on the film camera. I was running late this AM and just grabbed the camera without looking in the bag. At the event, [...]
I Gots the Film! Part 2, Medium Format Color
From Tuesday’s excursion into medium format color on Fremont Street. Shot with an RB67 (with no finder) 180mm lens, 220 Fuji Pro 160 C color film, no filters. Mostly 1/125 and F16 and a jiggly tripod. The release cable was at home on the counter along with the light meter. MF film rocks! FWIW, this [...]
I Gots the Film! Part 1, 35mm B&W
From 35mm on Monday. FWIW, I’m shocked that Sahara Camera Center processes film so quickly.
Taken with a 10S, 70-300, red, cpl, natural light, Kodak 125 Plus-X 9:00-12:00 AM. Looks like I need to use 400 asa when I use the red and cpl, even in daylight.
So Obviously…
I just spent two days shooting film on Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas. This place is a craphole of course. Homeless, hookers, mentally ill, drug dealers, cops on Segways, disinterested security, abandoned buildings. The gang graffiti and litter is a nice touch.
You guessed it, a PERFECT place to take pictures. The place is [...]
Playing with Film
Black and White film is so much fun! It can be 35mm or 220, I don’t care. I love it.
We see in color, when we see the developed B&W images after having seen the color live, it’s amazing how different it is. I snapped this image of my paper background, part of a shoot through [...]
Media Temple Employees Doing Drugs
…or at least they act like it.
Their DB servers are erroring out and causing sites to be unavailable. MT uses what is known as a “grid system”, where many web sites share many processors. This allows a web site to draw power in bursts across the server array when that web site needs more power [...]
Playing with Fire
Well, I’m really not playing with fire. What I am doing is playing with film.
I love film, it’s fun, technical, makes me slow down and think, it’s calming and different. When I started shooting, it wasn’t different, because everyone shot film.
Developing film was done in the bathroom or basement if it was B&W. If you [...]
Why do I torture Myself?
No, not because I like it. Although there was this one girlfriend… oh anyway, I am doing two more WordPress sites. I love WordPress, I tried to love Joomla, but I love WordPress.
Why? Because it makes sense. When things make sense, when they are easy, they are a joy to use and the task [...]
Weekend of Shooting Film Coming Up
I have a bunch of 35mm film to shoot, some black and white, some color. I need to kill the rest of a roll of 220 (medium format) in the RB67 but need to wait for Monday at the earliest for that. I’m going to Sunny 16 all of it, as long as the weather [...]
MediaTemple.net WIN!!!
I have been living with web site drama for two weeks now. (See previous blog posts for details)
It seems like all is well and the future is sunny. I originally started with Bluehost, but they have a no-boob policy. I moved to 1and1 Internet but 1 and 1 only allocated 20MB of server memory [...]
Location Shoot Win!
Coming off of my 1and1 Internet fail, I am loving this win. Three great things happened today. Two of them actually have something to do with photography!
First, I shot some very nice cars at Cars and Coffee. This is my weekly gig that I shoot in Henderson. I got a friend to pose for [...]
1 and 1 fail!
I’ve been openly critical of 1 and 1 for years. I know I know, I spend money with them every month. BUT, they suck.
The latest thing is I can’t upload images to my gallery here at cafe1956.com because they have a micro sized memory limit on the server. They added this feature when they raised [...]
Fantastic Day Shooting Yesterday
I had two models in the studio yesterday. Both were wins. I am updating my logo and had these two in to shoot for it. There is nothing like sexy girls in referee outfits, with the fishnet bonus. The only way I could improve on this is if Holly Madison did the shoot. That would [...]
The Photographer is Back!
I like making pretty pictures much more than raising my stress level over XHTML. I have two very nice shoots in the next couple of days and am itching to get in some studio time shooting medium format.
My preferred mode is shooting outdoors though, you just can’t recreate some scenes in the studio. I’ve shot [...]
Godaddy Girl Stoned Out of Her Mind
“So like hey dude, how can I help you? At first I didn’t realize that it was a person and not a computer voice. We chatted a bit as I gave her my customer information. I said I’m sure it’s all godaddys fault as to why my subdomains were broken. Silence. I said “that was [...]
My Own NOH8
Since Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt have their own NOH8 pictures, I thought I would do one of my own.
Of course, I am the photographer and I had to put my own spin on it. The guy in the picture is a music artist that I was privileged to meet today. A new friend was [...]
Email Up Again and a Nice Rant Again
Sooner than expected. Yay Team!
I am really frustrated with godaddy’s web site. It’s very unintuitive and most of the pages they serve isn’t about what you need to see it’s about them trying to sell you something. One thing positive is that they have people a phone call away. I will say that they are [...]
Email Will Be Down For Two Days
I ultimately blame bluehost, for making me go through this change process. If they had a policy in place that wasn’t wishy-washy and subjective, I might have kept my domain there. I don’t want to hear “ohai, we now own cafe1956,com because of an errant nipple.”
So i moved, to protect myself. BUT, moving to godaddy [...]
Updating DNS and Twitter
I did the DNS changes in Godaddy but didn’t do the masking yet. Godaddy has a really powerful web site but unfortunately they blast you with advertising wanting you to upgrade your account everywhere and hide the functions you need. Many links to go to a function takes you to advertising, then down iin the [...]
Saturday Morning Changeover
I am going to update the DNS records tomorrow early. At some point, the old web site will be gone and the link http://cafe1956.com will point to the new site (this one). This will give the whole day Saturday and Sunday to fix all the inevitable broken links that will magically appear. The problem is [...]
So I joined Model Insider
It is just starting up and it looks like they are building in some really nice features to make it usable. I still need to upload images to my portfolio and figure out how to use the many cool features but my initial impression is that it will do well.
Model Insider is a new social [...]
New Server Girl Coming
Every six months or so I get a new server girl. That’s about how long the printed advertising lasts, things like the handouts ie fliers, business cards and the like.
As much as I like Peni, both personally and professionally, I am changing it up. She is really a great model and fun to work with, [...]
New Blog and New Look
I am dumping the old theme and Joomla along with it. I seem to be doing OK with Wordpress so far after a few false starts. From what I can see, having a web log is part and parcel to good marketing, something I need along with all the others hurting in a down economy.
I [...]
