The 6 hour bus ride.

Providence to NYC to Philly.

The best picture of Jesus ever to exist.

Behind the scenes and scouting locations.

The ride home to Providence

All of these shots were taken on my iPhone using the Hipstamatic application and some editing software on the iPhone.  By no means are these real polaroids or holga shots. If you want to see some real polaroids head on over to jon mmmayhem’s tumblr.

I will post a more in-depth blog on Tuesday about my trip to Philly and how everything went while I was there. I even have some awesome behind the scenes stuff from Redrum Collaboration!

You can find Joe Balestra on the following websites.
Model Mayhem
Tumblr
Krop Creative
Facebook Fan Page

]]> http://dustingenphoto.com/artist-feature/featured-photographer-joseph-balestra.html/feed/ 0 http://dustingenphoto.com/life/help-donate-to-my-medical-bill.html http://dustingenphoto.com/life/help-donate-to-my-medical-bill.html#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:08:29 +0000 Dustin http://dustingenphoto.com/?p=391 Some of you know this but many of you do not. In the beginning of June I was riding my roommate Steves fixed gear bike to the post office in the Onlyville section of Providence, Rhode Island. I was heading to the post office because I just received a brand new 85mm that I bought off another photographer and was excited to get it and actually use it for a shoot I had on this day.

As I was riding down to the post office a man bombs out of a parking lot and smashed right into me. He did not look both ways and he did not even look at me. After he hit me he just kept going and drove away. So I ended up flipping over the handle bars and becoming best friends with the pavement. I smashed my chin and head off the ground which took most of the impact. An old Spanish gentlemen who spoke broken English helped me out of the road because I got thrown into on coming traffic and he grabbed the bike too. I had no idea the severity of what my injuries were. The old man told me I was bleeding and I took my hand and touched my face and felt bone on my chin. Lots of flesh and bone. So I took my beanie and just covered my chin. Of course in Dustin fashion I asked the old man to take a photo of me with my iPhone so I could document this fine occasion.

I called a good friend of mine to come pick me up because I did not want to pay the $2,000 it is to ride in a ambulance even though I probably should have but I am stubborn like that. As we got to the hospital I told the people in the ER that I got hit by a car and they freaked out! They rushed me to Triage and started running all theses tests on me.

So after being in the hospital for most of the day and being poked and prodded and injected with this and that and had blood drawn. I also ended up getting a CT Scan, MRI, EKG, X-Rays, and 24 amazing stitches in my face.

In total I was at the hospital for 14 hours. I was told that I had 2 ligaments detach from my upper spine and a very very tiny bone chipped off my spine as well. They wanted to run an MRI on me and I refused because after being in the same position all day I was being stubborn because I was tired and wanted to go home.  My roommate LJ insisted and he put up a good argument as did Erinn and Steve as to why I should get the test. So to make all my friends happy I did it. But of course unknown to my knowledge MRI’s cost like $3,000!

So they discharge me with stitches, pain meds, a goofy brace, and a note not to work for almost a week. Fine by me I literally felt like I got hit by a car.

Literally that following Monday, the accident was on a Thursday, I got the first bill! Then that Wednesday I got another bill! The first bill was for the hospital stay and all the testing the second bill was for “repair superficial wound” aka my stitches. They don’t even wait or give you time to heal. I never had a problem with the medical industry in America till that day.

Here is were I need your help.

I have medical insurance. But it’s not covering all of the hospital bill. I am a recent college graduate who works retail right now barely living paycheck to paycheck and making ends meat. I know everyone out there has a similar story to mine when it comes to medical bills or other bills. The medical insurance places are already calling me daily to pay them, which I cannot at the moment, so I need your help! The hospital bill is over $7,000 and the second bill is over $800. My total bill for this visit is close to $8,000!

I’m not asking you to help donate hundreds or thousands of dollars but if you could donate $1, $5, $10 it will add up and help me keep them off my back for the time being. I would forever be in your debt and be so thankful for anything you could do to help me out! I have added a donate button to my paypal account were you can donate below!

Thank you so much!

PS. I am thinking about having an art show, some sort of benefit show, or ask a few bands to play to help raise some money. If you are able to do this or know of anyone who has a space available that would be awesome. You can email me at dustingenphoto@gmail.com

Last week I spent some time visiting some friends in Florida and Georgia. We went to a few beaches and hung out. Prior to arriving, I had wondered, “Are any of these beaches going to be affected by the oil spill?” Upon arrival, luckily, none of them had been reached by the oil spill. It was something that crossed my mind every time I found myself upon the beach.

When I returned from my trip, I decided to make a few posters concerning the oil spill. We have all seen the awful imagery on the national news of injured wildlife that may or may not survive. It’s an issue that I find very important so I worked on these as personal work, and I would like to turn these into a series of prints if anyone would be interested in purchasing them.

When is enough, enough?

You can find more of Jared’s work on the following websites

Personal Portfolio
Flickr
Twitter

This will be the first post in my guest bloggers series. I have a few photographers, designers, and models who will be guest blogging and posting from time to time about their work, their experiences, and anything and everything they really want the world to know. The first in the series is by Noelle, a close friend and model that I have worked with.

There’s nothing to fear, There’s nothing to doubt”

When I was seventeen I met a lot of girls in the Boston area, who were tattooed and were modeling for a website called supercult.com. I thought these girls had a different kind of beauty to them, and I wanted to be a part of it. February 26th 2004 I turned eighteen, and sent an application to supercult.com to model, I never heard back. A year of so later, I received a message on myspace from Chase Lisbon of supercult.com asking me to model for him, I didn’t even think about it – I just said yes. I did for my first shoot November 17th 2005 in an apartment in Boston, I was so nervous, it took me forever to actually be ready to shoot – I started shooting with the fear no one would like my shoots because I wasn’t like the other girls – but I got over that fear very quickly.

I have done ten shoots with Chase over the last five years, and up July 2009 – I wouldn’t let ANYONE else take pictures of me unless it was Chase. Supercult has been a huge part of my life, and I have met so many wonderful people in the time ive been modeling for the site. Chase, alone is one of the most explosive and addicting people I have ever met. I can’t really describe Chase to you, its more of an experience that you need to experience for yourself to understand where I am coming from, He works very hard and is so devoted to this family he has built for himself and everyone involved in supercult.

July 2009, in a very dirty & messy warehouse I decided to take the leap and do a shoot with a photographer Chase is friends with by the name of Dave Dawson. The shoot was done late, after I shot with Chase for five or more hours, I was tired, but didn’t prevent me from doing a shoot. I was definitely nervous, shooting with someone else because like I said previously I never had any desire to shoot with anyone else BESIDES chase – I was comfortable with him – so why shoot with anyone else? I ended up getting along so well with Dave and we had an absolute blast shooting together and the product came out amazing for my first shoot with a new photographer. I have done four shoots with Dave since then, one in which was published on Zivity, one for a tattoo magazine and the two other shoots can be found on www.dastardlydave.com. Dave is such a great photographer to work with, and if you have the opportunity to shoot with Dave I strongly encourage it. You will not regret it,, the experience itself is  all around a great time.

January 2010 I shot with the amazing Dustin Genereux, after talking about shooting for about a year  we finally made it happen. The weather was awful, the shoot was so short notice – there wasn’t any sort of location to use so we just used a huge Vans poster as the background in my teeny tiny little bedroom in my parents house. Dustin’s equipment took up half of my room, and without more than three hours notice I unfortunately didn’t have time to clean up. The room was full of clothes, and camera equipment. We shot for about three hours, with a few outfit changes – I had a lot of fun and I finally had the opportunity to get to know Dustin on a photographer level. I hope to do more work with him, in the near future (IMMEDIATELY), and produce some amazing photos with him. He is one of my good friends and an amazing photographer.

In the process,of my shoot being edited by Dustin, I was communicating with a few other photographers on model mayhem, I found a photographer in the area who really stuck out to me – and she was a GIRL! I never worked with a girl photographer before so I thought this could be something new and fun, her name is Brittanny Taylor. She is Providence based, and is a lot of fun to work with. We did a shoot in the middle of the winter in the purgatory in Cumberland, Rhode Island. I was FREEZING, but it was worth it. I haven’t worked with her since, but I would absolutely love to again ESPECIALLY since its nicer out and a lot more comfortable in model in.

There’s a few photographers I’d absolutely love to work with and hopefully when I have the means to do so, I will be lucky enough to shoot with them. Kencredible, based out of Philly, Mojokiss who is all over the place, Merkley out in California are all amazing photographers who are wizards and magicians behind cameras, such amazing photographers and their models are so beautiful.

Where you can find Noelle’s work…

Noelle’s Model Mayhem
Noelle’s Twitter
Noelle’s Facebook
Supercult
Dastardly Dave
Brittanny Taylor

“Dustin is very easy to work with. He gave me great direction and made me feel totally comfortable while we were shooting. He has a real talent for using natural lighting and utilizes some awesome locations to produce very unique photos. I would definelty recommend Dustin to anyone and would love to work with him again in the future!”

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Mara

“Dustin is a true pleasure to work with. Not only does he provide a wide array of edited images after shooting, but is very professional and easy to collaborate with. His most valuable attribute is his artistic eye and attention to location, light and model (or subject matter.) It is easy to find a photographer that knows skill, for skill is something anyone can learn. However, it is not easy to find an artist with the following skills. And for these reasons, I highly recommend him to anyone!”

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Ariel Taylor

“To start, Dustin is an amazing photographer (which of course you already know). But he is also amazing to work with; he’s fun, kind, and you can tell that he absolutely loves what he does. I recommend him 100%!”

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Laney Durden

“I highly recommend working with Dustin. I stress that recommendation more if you really enjoy photographs with artistic merit and avant garde flare. Dustin has a really unique and direct eye for things that really compliment the model as much as the whole image. He’s a blast to work with and is off the bat one of the easiest people to talk to, get along with and bounce ideas back and forth with. Sincerely a blast to work with.”

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Within the last year she moved to Florida but is planning a move back to Maine. When you think of Maine you don’t really think about fashion photography at all. But you will now. Tiffany Fortier will put Maine on the map as one of  New Englands up and coming fashion photographers. So New England models, make up artists, hair stylists, clothing designers, etc etc be on the look out for Tiffany Fortier and I highly suggest that you jump at any opportunity you can to work with her.

This is in Tiffany’s own words…

As some of you may have already heard, I will be leaving the sunny state of Florida and moving back to Maine at the end of Summer 2010!

It’s been a great year! I’ve gained an unbelievable amount of experience inside the fashion and modeling industry, meeting some of the most talented groups of people I have ever had the pleasuring of meeting! I’ve grown not only as a young photographer but as a young adult in ways I never thought possible. I’ve accepted every opportunity presented to me over the past year and every one of them has had great impact on my life; Good or bad, I would not have changed this experience for the world. Times have certainly been rough, learning to life on my own for the very first time but, in the end, it has only furthered the passion of my career and of simply living life to the fullest. I will be sad to go but, in the end, Florida is just not for me. Maine will always, surprisingly, have my heart!

So what’s next?

I will be moving back to Maine at the end of Summer ( finances permitting ) to be with my family, to see my friends, and to work as hard as I possibly can to prepare my next move, to Philadelphia, PA; One step closer to my ultimate goal, New York City.

I will be coming back in full force.

I am ready and eager to show the beautiful state of Maine how Fashion and Beauty photography should be done! I will, once again, be offering studio sessions to those of you who are interested in seeing the ins and outs of studio fashion and, of course, will be offering never-seen-before location sessions to those of you who are a little more adventurous! You will learn endless amounts of tips and tricks to high fashion modeling that I have learned over the past year, things that other photographers, simply, can not teach you. You will leave with knowledge, you will leave with experience, and you will produce some of the absolute best photographs in your portfolio!

Tiffany is available for the following:

• Fashion/Beauty Portraits
• Modeling Portfolio Development
• Professional Headshots
• Senior Portraits
• Child Portraits
• Live Events
• Band Promotion
• Band Merchandise
• Engagement Sessions
• Weddings

For booking inquires, please contact Tiffany via her E-mail: Tiffany@TiffanyFortier.com

You can find Tiffany Fortier on the following websites
Personal Portfolio
Facebook Fan Page
Model Mayhem
Flickr

All images in this post ©2009-2010 Tiffany Fortier

Download packs after the jump.

The ‘Decay’ Pack Features 8 Photographs

Download the Decay Pack.

The ‘Other’ Pack Features 7 Photographs

Download the Other Pack

Please leave some feedback on how you liked the packs or suggestions on what else I should release as wallpaper packs for  the iPhone, Palm Pre, and Android.

All photos in the iPhone packs are copyright Dustin Genereux Photography .

You can find Tiffany Ann Photography on the following websites.

I have also had the pleasure of photographing Tiffany. It is not very often you come across someone who works behind the camera just as well as in front of it; not to mention she was so fun and easy to work with. She may be tiny, but this Rhode Island native packs a mean punch when she strikes a pose. She and I have also worked with a number of the same models and every time Tiffany is mentioned I hear nothing but praises and kind words about her.