For 12 Baskets Magazine, Austin.
www.greggcestaro.com These are some of my favorite pics I’ve taken in a while. I was asked by 12 Baskets Magazine to do a photo essay on local homeless gentlemen and what is in their backpacks to emphasize the “All That I Own” concept. Did you ever wonder whats in their bags? I was surprised – bags of clean socks, and extra shirt, several ziploc bags full of deodorant, toothpaste, haircare and soap, canteen of water and some snacks. Really no other “luxury” items in their urban survival kit save the very barest of essentials. For the shoot, I brought my portable studio light with homemade beauty dish and slightly overexposed over cloudy natural light with an overall underexposure on camera set on the grainiest ISO. Then a little post production bump on the CMYK and some burn and dodge gives a grainy, rough, urban, editorial palette. I shot them with the same background to emphasis the person for the spread. I appreciated the opportunity to learn something new about these people. The main photo guy above didn’t have a bag showing all that he owned, while the men below did. The gentleman in the green shirt below also had a stack of the “Advocate” which he distributes. See the rest of the story here.