Matt Hill 2/24/13 Matt Hill 2/24/13

Night Paper #8: Falana Fox on the 56th Floor in Manhattan

We were fortunate to borrow a little time in a beautiful apartment space near 30th St in Manhattan, all the way up on the 56th floor, facing downtown.

The scouting photo where the Freedom Tower was unobscured by clouds.

During our scouting mission, the sky was clear and a gorgeous view of the near-finished Freedom Tower was occupying the view at the foot of the wedge of Manhattan Island.

Last night, however, the weather was a mix of drizzle, low clouds rain and sometimes not rain. I do like shooting night photography in adverse weather simply because I like the challenge of making something beautiful out of what people typically call "shitty weather" (grin). Clouds and water make for great movement and reflections.

So we set the lights, metere, put aside two film cameras for later in the shoot and were ready for our beautiful model, Falana Fox, who is also a burlesque performer in NYC.

Here are the rest from the shoot. It was very hard to choose just these:

Want to see more NIGHT PAPER? Read more about the project and see the gallery of images.

Matt Hill 2/16/13 Matt Hill 2/16/13

Night Paper #7: Heather Whatever in a Snowy Brooklyn Backyard

I am delighted to present that latest installment in the NIGHT PAPER series. A good friend of ours offered his backyard in Brooklyn as a place to have a shoot. LIttle did we know that when we scheduled the shoot, it would be the day after WINTER STORM NEMO (ominous drumroll and peals of thundersnow).

I was happy, since I envisioned at least one snow shoot in the series. Fortunately, our brave soul, Heather Whatever, agreed that a snow shoot was a great idea!

For this project, I made a timelapse while cutting Heather's cut paper fashion. Here it is for your viewing enjoyment:

And now for my favorite images from this shoot:

Matt Hill 1/6/13 Matt Hill 1/6/13

Night Paper #6: Indoors with Bombazeen Bean and Gymnos Alitheia

This is an experiment that was so good, it's an official shoot. The models, who graciously volunteered their time and talents, were Bombazeen Bean and Gymnos Alitheia. Thank you! First things first, deep thanks to Mabel, my lovely PA and girlfriend, and to Sharon Radisch who was my photo assistant on this shoot. Without the two of you, this shoot would only have been a shadow of what it was.

Matt Hill 12/2/12 Matt Hill 12/2/12

Night Paper #5: Rockaway Beach

This Wednesday past, on the full moon, Gabe, Sylvester, Mabel and I spent a brisk evening on the beach at Rockaway. Having previously seen Sylvester's panoramics from when he was volunteering, we decided that the beauty of the repeating shapes from the concrete supports for the now-missing boardwalk was of such beauty that we were simply compelled to make art in that scene. Of course, we got to see the continuing efforts to clean up and rebuild Rockaway on the way in, and seriously, it's still not good there. My heart goes out to those displaced, and I hope that they find housing soon, and perhaps their new homes.

On to the art. I decided to roll the dice and continue the Night Paper Series. Our brave soul, Sincerely Y Ours, came ready to bare all and dress in paper when the temperatures reached the freezing point.

Here are my two top favorites:

And one portrait I just couldn't resist taking:

You can see a little more from this shoot here.

Matt Hill 10/7/12 Matt Hill 10/7/12

Night Paper #4 - Dumbo (NSFW)

This next shoot involves a second night of shooting with Gymnos Alitheia. Originally, we were scheduled to do this on the heels of the Long Island City shoot, but he was feeling under the weather, so we postponed. Luckily, we encountered a street fair! (grin).

Matt Hill 10/2/12 Matt Hill 10/2/12

Night Paper #3: Rainy Rooftop in Williamsburg (NSFW)

Last Friday evening, I completed my third shoot in the Night Paper series. Deepest thanks go to the very courageous models who braved the high-60′s temperatures post-rainstorm atop the 11th floor of a building in south Williamsburg. One was Clara Coquette, a fantastic and talented local burlesque dancer and the other wishes to remain anonymous. You were both amazing, and I thank you. Also big thanks go to my assistant and girlfriend, Mabel, for making many important details happen effortlessly. Mwah!

Here are some favorites from the shoot. More after the jump!

Here are test shots from the fitting:

Matt Hill 9/9/12 Matt Hill 9/9/12

Night Paper #2: Gymnos in Long Island City (NSFW)

Second in the "Night Paper" series, I present the shoot we did on 8/30/2012 with Gymnos Alitheia, a fantastic creative mind and eager participant. I can't say I've met anyone with his energy and ebullience yet! Thank you, Paul. Also deep thanks go to Mabel for being an awesome PA on this shoot and Jeremiah Sjoberg who joined us as photo assistant. Three digital shots, first being my favorite:

One 4x5" film shot so far - more to scan:

And some test shots from creating this outfit and fitting after the jump.

Test fitting. This shows Paul's creativity - I hand't figured on wearing the paper cape backwards. Great idea.

And here are some shot from Mabes and I scouted the location:

Matt Hill 7/20/12 Matt Hill 7/20/12

Proud to present: Night Photography + Cut Paper + Nude Model = Start of a massive project

I have been dreaming about this project for nearly 4 years. After spending a lot of time working out mechanics of dressing someone in paper and honing my night exposure abilities, I felt I was ready to make this happen while on art sabbatical in Denver. Enjoy, and look forward to more of this. I intend to make this a gallery show + coffee table book. Shot on location at Barr Lake near Denver International Airport. Special thanks go to Sky Donohue for being creative, professional and brave enough to try this unusual project (Thank you, Sky!). Also I wish to thank Frank McDaniel from MAC Group and Denver Pro Photo Supply for their incredible support from gear to processing film. Deepest thanks!

These first two are really the essence of my vision for this project - dressing nudes in hand-cut paper for long exposures that include star trails and perhaps more. These are digital from my D700. ~~I also shot film with my Mamiya 7II and Toyo VX125. When those are scanned, I will share~~. Here is one 6x7 - the 4x5" film got blown at the airport :( I am very partial to the film shot, as the hour-long exposure makes the star trails look like rock stars.

After the jump, see some dusk outtakes we worked on while waiting for complete darkness and clouds to clear (which happened around 11pm).

The work involved in making these fashions was very detailed, yet fun. There were many iterations, fittings and start-overs. Here are some BTS photos of the process:

I used a Profoto D1 Air 500 Kit (2 heads) for this plus a Profoto BatPac for power. I decided I wanted very tight control over the light that included harsh, crisp shadows to complement the paper edges that also did not flood the foreground with light. The D1 grids are awesome, but I wanted even more control. So I made my own 30" snoots from roll paper and white gaff tape. What a perfect light!

This kept the light on the model only and allowed the 8-minute (digital) and 1-hour (film) exposures to be filled out by ambient light, not flash.

Stay tuned! This project will continue fora while until I have a body of work for the show and book. Follow me here in the RSS Feed, Twitter or Facebook.