A few years ago this family allowed us to put a spin on the traditional family portraits by transforming into super hero’s for the day.  This year, they are stars walking the red carpet.

Tivon, Kiera, Willie, Randi & Naazir.  If you know this family than you really know how suitable this is for them as they are real life super stars - amazingly giving, ethical and passionate with all that they do.  I believe the red carpet was made just for them.

Thank you to RSVP for the set up and to Tuxedo Junction for dressing the men so handsomely!

Delight in Disorder by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction–
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher–
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly–
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat–
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility–
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

We seriously can’t get enough of the gracious Ms. Ricci.  We photographed her wedding and bridal session, her pin up session and now her anti-bridal photos.  Now all we need are maternity and newborn;)  As you may or may not know, JMC has been coined as the “godfather” of the Trash the Dress phenomenon. Considering we actually don’t even offer “Trash the Dress” sessions, we find it humorous.  But we do offer anti-bridals and we do not offer them to just anyone.  Not only is there a hefty price tag attached to these but this art is more about the concept and about finding the right person.  John Michael Cooper came up with this idea just under a year ago while photographing a live concert.  Ricci was the perfect subject and when she arrived for her pin up shoot, we explained that we had finally formed the concept for her very own anti-bridal.

Make up by Jolana Adamson

They say “all good things come to an end”, “change is good”, myself -I  said at the Mystic conference “it is always a good time to re-invent”.  Enter Finao, a bad ass album company, to help us with the reinventing of altF.  Yes…. an album company.   As of the beginning of 2010 we have been changing things all across the board here at altF and our albums are not immune to those changes.   As of a couple of months ago we have stopped the production of our hand crafted albums and passed over the craftsmanship of our books to the folks at Finao.   I know some will be disappointed, as we have been at the very forefront of artist crafted books for the last 11 years, but not to worry - I will still have my hands busy creating things, it will just be in a different place. Having Finao produce our wedding books will free us to do what we do best which is push the boundaries and do things people haven’t seen yet.  So with that, I’ll leave you with a small hint on why we have chosen Finao over all the other album companies:  There are a lot of great album companies out there and Finao’s quality (which is superb by the way) was only a very small part of the equation.  We picked Finao because of their attitude, passion, and style line up with our philosophy here at altF.  Frankly we are just “trying our best” to be bad ass fucking photographers and we need one bad ass fucking album company to make our books. Finao!

.johnmichaelcooper.

ps. I also like that there is an “F” in Finao.

a few of our new samples and a good segue into moving away from our albums to Finao’s with a 12×18″ book with a decade of our artwork,  signature images from 2000-2009.

a little bit of Joe.

The ultra cool, Mr. Joe Photo swings by every now and then to hang with us at our studio so this time around I decided to pay a little homage to Irving Penn then headed to the airstream to get down and dirty.

.jmc.

Yes, I Have Mariachi Pants!  Thank you Jimmy and Sanne!  Our grand opening party was a huge success, not just because I was wearing some of the coolest pants ever made, but because we had so many friends, family, clients and vendors that showed up to party and support us in a 23 year old dream to have our own studio.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  If you missed the party of the year, I will give you a small recap.  We had a Cool band doing some great covers - Dean Cortez, Greg Diaz and World Famous Drummer, Joe Esposito in form Southern CA, and killer DJ - Mike from Good Vibrations - spinning and keeping the party going and lighing up the studio making it more like a club, of course we have to hand it to Randi from Naakiti for transforming our ultra cool space to an even ULTRA-ER cool place, The crew at Ice Occasions for literally cooling some hotness down, JR Lighting for equipping us with some fun toys to play with, William Pfersching for providing the delicious cuisine, Lori White for making Dalisa beautiful and finally, to Loftworks for providing a unique and exsquisite location to fit our brand, lifestyle and business.

-jmc & dc

version 1

version 2

“flying is the ability to throw oneself at the ground and miss…” -douglas adams

The most recent conceptual shoot… Gina being so brave, daring and exceptionally gorgeous for us.  Who knew she had such amazing abilities?  Rachel and Robert were the final touch that helped execute this vision

The results of another Zero Package.  As some know, amongst our offerings in our price list there is one package that is very special and very different.  The Package Zero.  What is Package Zero? The best way to describe it is to describe what it isn’t.  It is never the same, and it is never what I normally do.  It is a package that gives me total creative freedom to be an artist and to view a wedding day as the opportunity to make art that is considered as “one of a kind”.   The clients that accept this kind of package have zero input on what I shoot, how I shoot, and what I produce for the album.  My promise to them is that I will follow a style, genre, or theme that I have not done before and then once I do it, I will never do it again as coverage for any other wedding.  In addition, I will build an ultra custom, one-of-a-kind album that I will not replicate, ever.  The resulting trust that these clients give me to produce the final product often becomes a burden as my goal is to produce (what I hope will be) my opus of that time: the best piece that I have ever done. 

The above video is just a quick glimpse of what my latest zero’s album looks like.  It was shot and designed knowing that I would not be able to share the images effectively online since I shot the entire wedding in stereo and the results to be viewed as large format stereograms.  Also included in the album is a 100+ year old stereoscope viewer.  This was, by far, the most difficult wedding that I have ever photographed and its post production and album has been the most complex project that I have done to date.  Although I can’t share with you the experience of the images online, the album in the above video represents (for now) my magnum opus.

We have so many ideas written down, sketched out, just waiting to see the light of day.  Most of the time these ideas take so much work and effort that I procrastinate and put off the project until the concept finally overcomes my laziness and pushes itself out into the real world.  Below is just one of the many ideas that I have sketched out for a project to bring my conceptual “anti-bridal” approach to portrait and family photography.   

above in tights our willing participants in our first antiportrait project: Kiera, Willie, Tivon, Randi, Autumn and Naazir

Our most published image, the gatekeeper to our website.  ”My Joan of Arc” has been published nationally and internationally in major photography and wedding magazines along with my version of “Ophelia”. These images have also been a part of the inspiration to the “Trash the Dress” phenomenon that has spread through out the world - pushing photographers to think well outside of the box.  We don’t want these to become like those good songs that are overplayed on the radio, so we are taking them from the front of our site and burying them somewhere peaceful.  We will no longer submit them to requests for publishing. At the start of the new year you will have to look hard to find the bride on fire or the tragic romance that consumes the bride in the water.  This also means that it is time to put up new images and start to push the boundaries once again, reinventing ourselves and doing the unexpected. 

When intitiating the “anti-bridal” project, I did not realize the paradigm shift that it would cause within parts of the wedding photography industry,  nor did I realize the opportunities that it would open for altF - demanding speaking engagements around the world.

Thank you Joan and Ophelia for making such an impact in our career.  

Take one last look… February being the end of the sale of these fine art prints on our site.  If you want a piece of wedding photography history, you can snatch up your copy here until February 28th - a limited edition fine art print of each of these images as well as the black and white version are available.  Prints are signed and only 250 of each will be printed - we are almost to that number.

The McLellans **updated**

Strange how some of my ideas get from my sketch book to reality.  It was near the end of July when i just happened to be strutting through Elvis’s living-room pondering a peanut butter and banana sandwich when i mentioned to the noticeable pregnant McLellans that i have wanted to shoot a maternity bridal session in front of an old air stream, ala trailer park anti bridal….  well a few months later and the super cool McLellans flew out all the way from Nashville to let me play dress up with them…    So while channeling a peanut butter and banana sandwich i give you the Fabulous McLellans as my latest anti-bridal “trailer park bride” .

big thanks first to the McLellans for flying all the way out here, 2nd for Mikka at Tuxedo Junction for supplying us with a vintage powder blue tux, and 3rd but not least Hoss for allowing us to spill beer on his driveway while also allowing us the use of a pre ’70s Silver Streak.**update…ok when i originally posted, i totally forgot to give proper credit to this last image.  while shooting with the door open our daughter, Ros, said we should put them in door facing one another..  well i tried it out and just before i started to shoot someone said that it looked very Norman Rockwell-ish.    Sorry Ros, i forgot to give you your due credit….  thanks so much, now if you can just be there for all of our shoots….