Animal Portraits

Animal Portraits / Behind the Scenes / Portraiture / Self Promotion / Winokur Photography — No Comments
8
Aug 12

Velcro is now a BOLD FACED name.

This portrait of Velcro the Ring-Tailed Lemur won an award in PDN’s Faces Photo contest. Ironic because it’s virtually the only image in the series that doesn’t prominently feature a face.

I started making animal portraits around 6 years ago before many of the books of that sort started getting attention. The biggest struggle with the project has been finding animals who want to sit for a portrait. Animals aren’t motivated by fame the same way humans are, mostly they are motivated by money and the food it allows them to buy.

Photographing animals in a studio setting is a natural extension of my work, specifically capturing a moment that reveals character and personality. That applies to my stills, videos and yes to animals. A picture that makes an introduction between the viewer and the subject is a success for me. When I started thinking about animals what I hoped to accomplish is to create the same kinds of personality studies that I do with human subjects. Essentially separating my subjects from context so something unique about them may surface. I worked as a photojournalist for the first part of my career. There was so much in those pictures, the goal was to capture as much story as possible in a single image. Now my work is about stripping away and telling a story in the most minimal way possible.

You can see more of my animal portraits here: Animal Portfolio.

And some exceptionally cute videos here: Mr. Fox Takes a Nap. and here: Behind The Scenes.

Meet Velcro and Zero.

This might be the cutest thing you’ve ever seen: Here is Mr. Fox Takes A Nap:

Introducing the adorable Zero and rambunctious Velcro: I had the great fortune to be the first photographer to work with two brand new talents in the industry. Zero, a beautiful Arctic Fox and Velcro the wide-eyed Ring-Tailed Lemur. I’ve been working on an Animal Portrait portfolio for years, I just had the amazing opportunity to photograph an 18-foot Reticulated Python named Lemondrop for California Academy of Sciences. I love making portraits of animals so I’m actively looking for new subjects and clients who share my interest.

The Fantastic Mr. Zero

Velcro the ring-tailed lemur

I found out on Facebook that Bowwow Productions were here in town working with my friends Jennifer Bullock and Tom Hood, they were doing a shoot with a big adorable St. Barnard, but they were traveling with two fresh young faces who had never been in a real shoot before. It was an opportunity for me not only to photograph two of the cutest animals, but to meet and work with Stephanie and Judy from Bowwow. I’m so happy it worked out, it was great fun for everyone and I’m very happy with these new additions to my collection of animal portraits. Check out Winokur Photography to see more photos of Zero and Velcro.

Zero is an Arctic Fox - Vulpes lagopus

There is something about a studio-portrait of an animal that I find endlessly fascinating. The thing is, and this is true for much of my work, by removing every element except the subject and the relationship between the viewer and the subject, we create an image that allows us to believe in a personal connecting with the sitter. An introduction if you will. Photographs of these animals in the wild can certainly be beautiful and fascinating, but by photographing them in a neutral setting we have the opportunity to focus on their eyes, expression and body language. These are character studies just like the portraits of people I make.

I knew it would be huge fun to have a fox and a lemur in my studio, so I recruited my brother, Stephan, to shoot some video while we worked. I edited his footage and put together this 2 minute video showing us working with Stephanie and Judy of Bowwow Productions:

Animal Portraits / Self Promotion / Winokur Photography — 6 Comments
13
Aug 11

Date Night with Lemondrop

This coming Thursday 8/18 presents you with a great opportunity to meet two San Francisco celebrities: Lemondrop and Adam Savage from Myth Busters. It’s comedy nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences. If you haven’t already seen Lemondrop you can check him out in this video from our shoot with him. Meanwhile I’m actively looking for more cool animals to photograph. So, if you happen to know someone who has a Long Nosed Bandicoot or a Rainbow Lorikeet let them know I’m interested in photographing all kinds of cool and interesting creatures.

Animal Portraits / Behind the Scenes / Winokur Photography — 4 Comments
4
May 11

Lemondrop’s portrait at California Academy of Sciences or did I mention I’m afraid of snakes.

Before Thanksgiving last year I got a call that was at once very exciting and also a bit frightening. I have been slowly working on a series I call Animal Portraits. It’s been a project I’ve been interested in for a long time but finding cool and interesting animals to photograph has made for slow progress. The call was from Rhonda Rubinstein at the California Academy of Sciences. She had an animal for me to photograph, a 15-foot-long reticulated python. As Indiana Jones says, “Snakes, why does it have to be snakes.” The snake’s name was Lemondrop – how bad could it be. I decided that this was as good a time as any to get over my irrational phobia and make it work. I couldn’t be happier with that decision, the shoot went really well. You can watch a behind-the-scenes video here:

Lemondrop now lives in “The Hacienda” on the first floor of the Academy. His house is decorated in images from our shoot.

You can see some of the Lemondrop photos and my animal portraits here: Winokur Photography

The show is opening at California Academy of Sciences on May 9, be sure to drop by and say hello to Lemondrop for me. I’m of course thrilled to see my work 20 feet tall on the side of the building. I understand there are also some murals inside too but I haven’t seen them yet.

As always huge thanks to my team especially Chrysta Giffen and Mike Blumenfeld.