Teamwork

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to work with wonderful photographer (and best friend) Bethany Puterbaugh. For this project I worked as Art Director on-set and post-production retoucher off-set. Check out some of the shots:

Photographer: Bethany Puterbaugh
Assistant: Khoi Minh Nguyan
Model: Leah Cultice
MUA: Lydia Brock
Stylist: Beth Hitchcock

Photographer: Bethany Puterbaugh
Assistant: Khoi Minh Nguyan
Model: Leah Cultice
MUA: Lydia Brock
Stylist: Beth Hitchcock

Photographer: Bethany Puterbaugh
Assistant: Khoi Minh Nguyan
Model: Leah Cultice
MUA: Lydia Brock
Stylist: Beth Hitchcock

Sticks & Stones May Break Your Bones, but Charlie Will Kill You

The haunting season is upon us; yes you know the time of year when stores are stocking up on candy and dentists are eagerly awaiting all the cavities they’ll have to fill. Spider webs, though hated any other time of year, are being used as decoration on front hedges and windowsills. Yes, it’s the time of year of treats being the bargaining tool to save yourself from tricks and orange and black are the colors we dawn out of tradition. It’s a bittersweet time of year, but the time of year The Dent Schoolhouse prepares for.

The Dent Schoolhouse © Nicole Berger 2012

Located on Harrison Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dent has been an attraction for over two decades, but was an actual schoolhouse until it was closed in the 1950’s. Known for the story of its murderous janitor, Charlie. According to the tale, students taunted Charlie before they’d suddenly gone missing in 1942 and were never found until 1955 in Charlie’s basement dead.

Charlie the Janitor © Nicole Berger 2012

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Calling Out for Help

As of February 6, I am going to be entering a photo competition called “In Your Dreams” put on by PhotoPlace Gallery. I had begun a project based on a number of reoccurring nightmares I began to experience in 2010 and will be submitting 5 images to the gallery in hopes of being selected; however, I need help selecting my top photos.

© Nicole Berger 2010-2011

If you could please take a moment and click on the image above, you will be taken to my Facebook Fanpage and the corresponding album consisting of photos you can choose from – please ‘like’ your TOP 5 ONLY.

Thank you so much for helping me with this.

Didem Mert – Sculpture, Potter, and Printmaker

There’s some about a simple project that helps someone out and gets me shooting that just makes me feel well rounded.

During my last semester, I took a ceramics class to fulfill one of my final degree requires, and during that class I got to know an advanced ceramics student, Didem Mert. Didem is a Cincinnati-based artist attending NKU to earn a BFA degree in ceramics. She asked me if I would be interested in taking photos of her work to put on her website and submit to shows – naturally I agreed and met her on campus one evening for a shoot. She did a large collection of mugs (that I actually helped remove from the kiln not even knowing they were hers), and the final glazes came out pretty beautifully.

© Nicole Berger 2012

© Nicole Berger 2012

© Nicole Berger 2012

To see more about Didem’s work, check out her website: DidemMert.com

Graduation and Personal Projects

Things feel quite different now that I’m out of school completely. A college graduate – something I’m not quite sure I ever planned to hear or expected to say, but that’s what I am. A “professional” photographer, or at least in the process of becoming; I’m no longer a student, but officially trying to make a living through photographs.

I began a personal project mid-semester last year I’ve titled “Ink’d” and it’s surrounded around the idea of tattoos. This was something that has interested me all my life, but something I never took into deep consideration for a very long time. Why? I’m not sure, but I think it was intimidation of people with tattoos – guilty of getting caught up in the stigma or stereotype of people with tattoos being arrogant or mean – because everyone knows if you have a tattoo you’re automatically a “badass” no one wants to mess with, right? Cue my sarcasm.

It has only been in the past few years (with the increase interaction with people with tattoos) that I’ve learned how down right ignorant I was and that it was my own made up conclusion that tattoos were some kind of taboo to get near. Secretly, I’ve always wanted one, and now I admittedly want four, and it’s because that stereotypical bias has been broken that I feel comfortable in saying I have the belief, tattoos are the second skin you grow into over time – and showcasing that is why I wanted to do this project.

A work in progress and something I want to keep as an on-going personal project, in two months, I photographed 22 people and as soon as I have space available, will be shooting more.

© Nicole Berger 2011

To see the project: Nicole Berger Photography

Summer Workshop

Originally, I decided to take this summer workshop so I could be that much closer to graduation, but that changed once I realized how helpful this workshop is actually going to be for me in the end.

I was talking to a friend of mine about how much we don't really know about our cameras when we walk into Photo I. Personally, I realized a while back that when I didn't know anything about my camera - merely played with the options to see what it could it do, I got "better pictures."

I use this loosely because I know most of those photos were awful, the subject matter was soft, if not downright uninteresting to say the least, but that photo was better because it was different.

Instead of doing something pointed and ridged, I was actually just having fun. Sometimes it's nice to just take a picture, look at the back of your camera, and go, "Damn! I didn't know it could do that!" I can't speak for anyone else, but I feel wide-eyed and curious all over again.

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

© Nicole Berger Photography

The "great debate" of where to do after graduation is heavily weighing on my mind. As of December, it's all up to me - and I have no idea whether I'm staying or going somewhere new.

This is where I've grown up, but I want to be somewhere I can go to grow. There's a difference between the two, and I fear losing sight of that. My boundaries are medically set for now, but what will happen when I break them down?

Artist Statement

     "Highly driving by psychology, my photographs are born from the parts of my mind I do not understand. Drawing from my nightmares, daydreams, and memories, I push my photographs to create a connection between my reality and something I feel is much larger than I am.
     These photographs are stories without words - much like the muse I use to create them. I wish viewers to read my work the way they would read a dream of their own - pulling it apart to find the meaning, each viewer walking away with a development of their own.
     By overcoming the fear we all share of not knowing and not understanding, I want people to walk away knowing something about themselves they may have not understood before hand." - Nicole Berger

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

Applied

As much as I like a challenge, I have to admit, I was extremely intimidated by my Applied Studio class. In the end, though, I now have my own studio strobes and I want to apply for an Amazon job after I graduate this December. It's kind of funny, in high school, I loved creating still lifes when I couldn't sleep and it kept me busy instead of over-thinking why I couldn't sleep. During my senior year, for one reason or another, I stopped making them and started photographing people instead - mainly myself for convenience - and now it's coming back around and I'm turning back to photographing objects. I think it's the simplicity in it and how disconnected from everything I become and instead, I just worry about the photograph. These are the photos I used for my class final. We were required a self portrait in William Coupon style lighting, a jewelry shot, that jewelry shot on a model, a product shot, and a food shot.

Scarangella

I had the opportunity to photograph local band, Scarangella, this weekend and I have to say, it's one of the best shoots I've ever done. 

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

It's great to work with awesome people and people who aren't afraid of being themselves - that's really what made this shoot such a success. Thanks guys!

This Just In:

MY PHOTO WAS FEATURED ON PICTORY'S BLOG!

 Edit:

They even tweeted about it!

Twisting it Up a Bit

I've always been very jealous of people who could rock photoshop like it was photography's second skin. It felt almost like there was this club of people who knew how to amp up their photos and turn everything they saw into something unrealistic. I don't get jealous often, but these people would make me sick simply because I didn't know how to do it. Learning how to do it is how you fix being envious.

© Nicole Berger Photography

I'm still the new kid in school (certainly no Scott Kelby), but I'm trying to make friends with this program. I'm happy with what I've come up with thus far. There is still major tweaking needing to be done and there are changes needing to be made, but it's the best thing to come out of my imagination and technical skill combination.

Clay Enos Inspired

For my Applied Photography class, we were assigned various portrait assignments. One in particular was based off the photographs of photographer Clay Enos. His black and white portraits of the photography group VII Photography Agency (more about the agency here) is what we were told to base our images.

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

© Nicole Berger Photography

As a twist for myself, I asked my mother to model - something she'd usually deny right off the bat, but luckily she agreed and I'm happy with what I've come out with.