I’ve been traveling a bunch this week and aside from the long hours spent driving it’s been filled with good times, great people, beautiful places, and really good photographs. I’m very happy with the work I’ve been making. Especially the photos for a new magazine client whom I’ve just clicked with from the get-go.

The driving hasn’t been bad, though. In an effort to make the time in the car productive and more visually stimulating I turned off of I-26 in South Carolina and headed west on Highway 11, also known as the Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Highway. Here are a couple of images from along the way.

Photos © Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

I stopped into a local lab today to drop off a few rolls of film. I hadn’t been to this place in a while and since I shoot mostly all digital these days trips to any lab are few and far between.

I had two rolls of C-41 and one black and white. All 120. The lady behind the counter took the two color rolls but told me they stopped processing black and white a few months ago. Too bad. But no problem, I know of a couple of other places in town that can handle it.

After a few minutes of back and forth with her about how little film they see these days and how digital has taken over — you know, the same things all labs are going through and talking about — I told her that I still like to shoot film and will continue to do so, if not for work, mainly for pleasure.

Then she says to me: “You’ve got to get with the times and get yourself a digital camera.”

Classic.

I love digital, I really do. I actually prefer it most of the time. So do most of my clients. But I also love film and can make a place for both in my life. It’s just going to take a little longer to get the damn rolls processed around here.

© Armando Bellmas

This is John. He works in IT for one of the big banks here in Charlotte.

I wanted to do something different with his portrait, somehow combine the conservative banker wardrobe that is so common here with an offbeat location or pose. I was dealing with quickly disappearing daylight and a lack of the right location. Then I asked myself, “What would Chris Buck do?” I thought about it for a few seconds, got myself together, and pressed on.

John and I walked for a few more minutes, looking for the right spot for him to stand in. We crossed a parking lot and came upon this brick house (which is a business and not a home). I asked John to stand over there and close his eyes. Sized him up, framed the shot. Got it.

I’ve been thinking a bunch lately about style. Specifically, making photographs that I want to make instead of the photographs that I need to make to land editorial, corporate, and advertising clients.

Since Chris Buck had been on my mind I went to his website to get inspired. (Buck is one of my favorite photographers.) As if put there to make me think more about style, I came across this photo Chris made of entertainer Andy Dick.

© Chris Buck

In the accompanying story about the photograph Chris talks briefly about his curiosities and instincts as a photographer and how photographing Dick helped nurture them. He writes:

A lot of what [Andy Dick] was playing with [during the photo shoot] was of particular interest to me though we played things out in different ways. The instinct to express our curiosities and openness, combined with a taste for extremes, created an instant bond between us.

It was very exciting to have ideas that were relatively extreme and yet have a subject embrace them. Most people in the public eye work so hard to hide those vulnerabilities and those fantasies, whereas Andy really was excited to put that part of himself forward.

It’s so reassuring to read that. I feel kind of weird when I ask a subject to do something that breaks down the fantasy, exposes a vulnerability, or is seen as “relatively extreme.” For instance, putting an IT guy for the bank up against a brick house with his eyes closed. There’s nothing bankerish about that yet it felt like the thing to do.

There are dozens of photographers in Charlotte — hell, anywhere — that can make a banker look like a powerful person. It’s been done to death and it’s an archetype that will continue to be beaten into the ground. I want to be the photographer that does it differently, that explores the curiosities and extremes, and is ultimately hired because of it. Much like Chris is.

Yeah, it may not be what the market wants or demands. Hell, I’ll shoot it straight if the art direction calls for it. I do have two young children to think of. I also don’t want to imitate Chris Buck or anyone else for that matter.

My intention is to develop my own style (which, admittedly, I’m still working on), build up the confidence to shoot my vision consistently, and get hired because of it and my ability to make the photograph the client wants.

I will get there. I’m sure of it.

© Armando Bellmas

I love these two women. I love the sun.
For a quick moment on Saturday morning they came together beautifully.

© Armando Bellmas

Riding high on a blitz of making photographs that shows no sign of slowing down in the next week or so and it feels damn good.

© Armando Bellmas

Lots of new work to review, sort, and post here and/or on the main portfolio.

I can be very slow with my creative process/workflow, partly because of procrastination and mainly because of my desire to live with ideas and images for a while before they’re released into the wild, so to speak.

This photograph, however, was made just a few days ago.

© Armando Bellmas

This one is for the photographers who inspire me with their Hasselblads: Allison V. Smith, Amanda Marsalis, and Andrew Hetherington.

I’m always making photographs, especially when there are no assignments or commercial projects to shoot. Those times between gigs are a good time to grab a model or a friend, hit the streets, get creative, and try out new ideas. I may make some amazing images. I may fail miserably and make nothing but crap. But what would I be if I didn’t even try?

A couple of weeks ago I asked Lauren, a model I just met, to meet me out on Elizabeth Avenue. We spent the better part of the afternoon walking around and being completely free-form with locations, poses, and ideas.

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

After a while I started to get really loose with the ideas. Lauren on the ground, sun towards the lens, flat on the hot asphalt, this may be good, it may suck, who cares, let’s try it.

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

Not really my regular style. I like these shots, though. Maybe put them on the blog, maybe on a personal or experiments section of the website. Whatever. Sometimes I shoot the vision, sometimes the flight of fancy. Who knows where any of it may lead? The familiar path, a road less traveled, or a dead end? You never know.

© Armando Bellmas

It was a creatively charged afternoon. I couldn’t wait to get home to look through the photographs.

© Armando Bellmas

As long as I keep shooting my vision and refining my signature style, going off the grid a bit visually and creatively — and knowing the differences and similarities between each — is something that I will always look forward to doing.

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

Tearsheets from a feature I photographed about New Crops in Western North Carolina for WNC Magazine. This was a really fun story to photograph. I had the good fortune to travel through the Western North Carolina mountains visiting and photographing people who are passionate about what they do.

Along the way I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in years, scored a big batch of raspberries to bring home to Nick and Sophie, ate some great home cookin’ in a tiny mountain restaurant, learned about sturgeon, truffles, and tomatoes, and was reminded time and time again that I have the best job ever.

© Armando Bellmas

Another of my photographs (above) has been featured on wan.der.lust.ag.ra.phy. Photographs of youth was the theme behind the set I was included in along with photographers Brea Souders and Amanda Tretault. Thanks for the props, Amy.

Every couple of months I contribute photographs to Charlotte Viewpoint, a citizen-driven forum for ideas and expression in and about Charlotte. Here are few of the images being featured in the October 2007 issue.

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

There’s a bit of the past, present, and future in every nook and cranny of Charlotte. My work for Viewpoint attempts to capture slivers of our city that may be overlooked as it grows (rather quickly, I might add), pushes forward, and flourishes into one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the New South.