DEVAN PEREZ PHOTOGRAPHY

New Gallery Show, Being Published, & New Camera!

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:10:38 -0400

My new gallery show is November 17th in downtown LA with Create:Fixate!

Here is a link to the website for more details!

http://www.createfixate.com/events/next-event/

Great news! I am very excited to announce that I am going to be published in two new books, both of which are scheduled to come out next year! This will be my first time being published and I am so grateful that I have been given this amazing opportunity. I will obviously make another excited announcement as the dates of each book release gets closer!

My new camera is in the mail! I am upgrading to the Canon 5D Mark II and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’ve been using my Nikon D90 since the beginning of my journey in photography and it has definitely served me very well. I am debating still if I want to sell it or not, but my Nikon will always be my first love. I should be receiving my Canon in the mail today actually…if you follow me on Twitter (@DevanPerez) you will know exactly the second I have it in my hands I’m sure! Great new things to come!

Four Year Anniversary

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:20:39 -0400

I am dedicating this short, but very meaningful post to the most important people in my life. My family. Four years ago today, my family showed the unlimited amount of love they have for me by saving my life. After years of suffering with an undefined illness, I was finally diagnosed with a cystic tumor between the two hemispheres of my brain, the size of a lemon. Through the heartache of understanding that surgery was my only option and through fighting for my insurance to pay, my family could not have showed more love and support for me. The day before my scheduled surgery my insurance retracted their previous commitment to my doctor and would no longer pay for the extremely, expensive procedure. Without missing a beat, everyone in my family pulled together in just one day and payed out of pocket for me to have the surgery. I will never forget that day and how much love I felt. I am forever in debt to them all for saving my life. Even if I could pay back every cent to each person who helped me it would never be enough. I love them all so very much and if I do one thing in my life I hope that it would be to make them all proud of who I am today.

Opening Night!

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 14:38:00 -0400

Opening night for the gallery show that I am in was awesome! I am so grateful for all of the support I have from my family and friends. The show is at Norbertellen Gallery in downtown Los Angeles and is owned by some of the nicest people, Margaret and Erik. I feel so lucky to be apart of such a great gallery. The show will be up until July 28th which includes two art walks, June 14th and July 12th! For more info about dates and times to visit the gallery see my previous blog post or check Norbertellen’s website here.

http://norbertellengallery.com/

This is my dad, my sister (who is often my model) and me at the show!

Gallery Show!

Wed, 30 May 2012 15:21:00 -0400

I am in the summer group show at Norbertellen Gallery which starts June 2nd and I am very excited! The show will be up for two months so there will be plenty of opportunity to go out and see it! It’s in downtown Los Angeles on 6th Street between Broadway and Spring. I will be there wandering around on the 2nd and the 14th. Hope to see you there! :)

Venue:

Norbertellen Gallery

http://norbertellengallery.com/

Address:

215 W 6th Street, Suite 110

Los Angeles, CA 90720

USA

Starting: June 02, 2012

Ending: July 28, 2012

Start Time: 6pm

End Time: 10pm

Return of the Mermaids?

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:39:00 -0400

Getting back into the water again to shoot was both exciting and terrifying, but I did it! Some of my photographer friends and I made the trip out to my mother’s house to use her pool in Thermal. It’s a very hot and remote area in the desert tucked right up against the mountains. Although it was definitely warm, it served as the perfect place for an all day, uninterrupted, shooting extravaganza! My amazing mother even made the crew tons of food including homemade enchiladas and fudge brownies. I think all photo shoots should be this way!

For the first task of the day, my friends and I built a structure out of PVC pipes. Basically we built a giant cube (minus one pipe on the bottom to make room for a backdrop) and then attached white fabric to the top of the structure to block the sun from casting a reflection onto our models. It took some time to put together, but it was definitely worth it. It looks small in the photo, but the pool was fairly large and trust me those pipes go all the way down 8 feet to the bottom! We used this setup to shoot under for part of the day.

Our next challenge was to attach a black sheet to the top of one side of the structure and run it all the way to the bottom of the pool. We weighed the black sheet down with bricks and essentially created an underwater backdrop…and it was one of the coolest things ever. If I could set it all up by myself I would use it all the time!

I would like to share that I am definitely not the best swimmer. This is why I referred to getting back into the water as terrifying. While shooting in the deep end I used a short ladder to stand on so that I basically wouldn’t drown. Again, worth it. With three photographers, three models, a ridiculously awesome underwater structure, and tons of good food, this was definitely the best way to spend my day.

For my photo I knew that I wanted a tree growing out of my model. I wanted the tree to be very specific and I knew that the best way to get exactly what I wanted was to just create a tree myself! I found this bush, picked these red sticks, arranged them on the ground, and took a picture. Voila!

Here is my final Image!

You can view this image and others on my website

http://devanperez.com/fine-art

Graduation Portfolio Show

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:01:00 -0400

My Graduation Portfolio Show was this past Wednesday September 21st and it was truly an amazing experience. I had such a great time and had so much positive feedback on my work it was really nice to hear! I can’t thank everyone enough who came out to support me, I love you all. Congrats to all the other graduates, you are the best!

Here are some pictures from the night :)

Me at my table! I printed 2, 16x20 metallic prints and had custom frames made. The metallic prints are mounted in the frames with no glass in front of them and I had two lights, one on each picture. My portfolio book was custom made for me as well using the same type of wood that my frames were made out of. Of course I also had business cards and leave behind cards at my table as well!
These are my two best friends and fellow graduates. Check out their work, both are amazing photographers!
mjtremaine.com
melinadesantiago.com

In my last quarter of school I interned for fine art photographer Brooke Shaden and she came to my show to support me! It has been better than I could have imagined interning for her. She is an incredible artist, go look at her work!!!
brookeshaden.com

All the photography graduates!!

Strange New World These past few weeks have been so...

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:21:24 -0400

Strange New World

These past few weeks have been so unbelievably crazy and really busy! In the back of my mind I was really sad that I wasn’t keeping up with my blog, but had no time to actually post anything. Now that everything is settling I feel like I can get back in the swing of things! I’m graduating and will be done with school for the most part next week. I am very glad to be graduating and am happy to be able to focus 100% on my photography and building my portfolio! This photo Strange New World is currently in my portfolio and I am very excited about it. I shot part of this image in Thermal CA which is for the most part completely desert. I was driving out to visit family when I came upon this dead, abandoned orange tree orchard and thought is was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. Unfortunately that day that I shot it was sometime mid July, and anyone that lives in the desert knows that July is the absolute least ideal month to, lets say, be frolicking around with a camera outside. I really wanted to capture the all of the textures and depth of the dead trees. I got the shot that I wanted and got out of there as quickly as possible, but it was so big that I would love to go back and shoot more of it very soon!

My Artistic Style

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 01:54:00 -0400

I like to create things. Plain and simple. I like my photos to have a sense of mystery and suspense. I was given an assignment in one of my design classes in college and it was experimental. We had a week to shoot five images of anything that we felt fit the category. At first I had no idea what I was going to shoot and I was a little nervous about how I was going to pull it off. I ended up shooting a series of abstract double exposures and not only did my teacher love them, but I finally felt that I was beginning to find something that I really loved to do. A spark of creativity was lit inside of me and my excitement for experimenting only grew more as I began to use other interesting techniques as well as photoshop.

While shooting my photographs, I thrive on naturally progressing them into what I would consider my finished piece. This process of building that I go through in creating my images, I feel is much like I am painting my photograph to life. Even when I am shooting something that is well planned and thought out before I begin, I will almost always introduce a random element to create a different effect.

My photographs are expressions of a moment in another world. Mysterious is one word that my work has been described as often by many different people. I believe that mysterious describes my images because they are set in undefined surroundings and often have a haze over traces of a subject. These transcendental worlds and abstract human forms that I love are my expressions of my desire of the unknown.

These are a couple of the double exposure images that I turned in for my design class’s experimental assignment.

I was so excited about this particular image that I had it printed on fine art paper for my mother :)

I took this photo in between a couple shoots that I was working...

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:37:27 -0400

I took this photo in between a couple shoots that I was working on yesterday for my internship. We took a short hike up a trail that was filled with angry fire ants and lots of vicious prickers (or stickers whichever you prefer to call them) Unfortunately, I also made the poor decision to wear sandals for the day and later did pay the price. Though when we reached a point on the trail where we could see the entire valley of mountains everything seemed to be so peaceful and it was so gorgeous outside that day that I didn’t care about that stuff anymore. I am excited to go back and explore this place even more, with the proper shoes of course :)

This image to me is free and makes me feel as though anything is possible. This image is about release and being able to let go of all of the negative things in life that might cross you. It is about remembering to breathe for yourself and most importantly to trust yourself. It was a good day in fact :) Doing photoshoots with genuine people who love what they do is a great way to spend the afternoon!

Mon, 02 May 2011 18:44:34 -0400

Devan Perez Photography Promotional Card

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:26:00 -0400

4x5 Large Format, instant film