street photography

Martha Soffer for Naturally Danny Seo - Editorial Publication

My recent publication in Naturally Danny Seo featuring Martha Soffer of Surya Spa in Los Angeles

Martha Soffer by Jonas Jungblut

Martha Soffer by Jonas Jungblut

My recent editorial piece on one of the most renowned Ayurvedic doctors and experts in the country, Martha Soffer, can be viewed in print in the current issue of Naturally Danny Seo Magazine. Martha operates Surya Spa in Los Angeles where I photographed this story. You'll also find two gems from trips to northern Thailand and Telluride, CO in this issue.

Surya Spa by Jonas Jungblut

Surya Spa by Jonas Jungblut

Surya Spa by Jonas Jungblut

Surya Spa by Jonas Jungblut

Surya Spa by Jonas Jungblut

Surya Spa by Jonas Jungblut

Telluride by Jonas Jungblut

Telluride by Jonas Jungblut

The image on the right was photographed at the Anantara Golden Triangle Resort in northern Thailand on a trip a few years ago. My favorite memory from that place is a teenage elephant wanting to play with me… by running into me…

Anantara Golden Triangle by Jonas Jungblut

Anantara Golden Triangle by Jonas Jungblut

JUNGBLUT2019 now available

my annual journal style book JUNGBLUT2019 is now available

JUNGBLUT2019

JUNGBLUT2019

It is here!!! JUNGBLUT2019!!! My annual journal style magazine featuring my favorite photographs of the year.

I have been making the JUNGBLUT20xx since 2013 and it’s been fun to go through the year and select portraits, travel images and whatever else stood out that year to compile them all in this volume. This is not a portfolio, it is a journal style compilation featuring photographs from personal projects, tests, magazine publications and commercial photo shoots. It features images that may be outtakes from jobs or the hero images. It is a truly personal piece, showcasing the images that stood out to me and which I love.
It also helps to keep track of my progress over the years. At this point I can go back 5 years and see how my style has changed. From taking a portrait or landscape image to editing it and then also formatting it in the magazine. And of course it acts as sort of a catalog of my work. Selecting the best images from a year and printing them in a tangible magazine insures that they stay around.
I bring these on jobs and leave them behind, or send them in the mail but you can also just buy one from Magcloud HERE. And you can find the previous years HERE.

Editorial Publication - Japan

Tearsheets from my recent editorial photographed in Japan for Naturally Danny Seo

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In May of this year I traveled to Japan for Naturally Danny Seo to photograph an editorial around travel and food. I photographed portraits, landscapes, food and some industrial/ingredient images, a true travel story. Our journey started in Osaka and via Tokushima we traveled to Tokyo from where we departed (check out a vlog HERE ). We documented Wakame (seaweed) harvests, Mochi production, visited a Umeboshi (plum) farm/factory, a Miso producer and finally a Shoyu (Japanese style soy sauce) facility. This last stop left us with the most exotic experience.

You fall in, you never come out…

The Shoyu was cured in large wooden barrels measuring a diameter of about eight feet with a depth of at least ten feet. We could walk between the open barrels but they were placed tightly together so that the space between them got very narrow in the middle, less than a foot wide. At first I just thought it was fun balancing in between the barrels but then I realized that the Shoyu was too thick to swim in. If I fell in I would just sink to the bottom. And they were wide enough to where it was pretty unlikely to get a hold on the rim if you actually fell. It became clear that if you fell in, you’d never come out. It would take too long for someone to notice, know which one you fell in and then find some sort of device to pull you out. I stepped a lot more carefully…
Once I was done shooting I asked our guide about it and had my theory confirmed…

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I had one amazing short little trail run in Tokushima prefacture (vlog HERE) and of course seeing Mt. Fuji from the Shinkansen at dusk was amazing (and so was seeing it from the hotel in Tokyo). The alleys in Ginza (Tokyo) at night were fantastic and the fact that they shut down the road in Ginza and converted it into a promenade on the weekend was nice to see.

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Many thanks to the team and the people of Japan for making this a fantastic journey!

Natural light portrait

Natural light portrait of artist Nikola Bartenbach in Austria.

portrait of Nikola Bartenbach

portrait of Nikola Bartenbach

I am currently in Austria working on a few personal projects. One of those is portraying local people and recently I photographed artist Nikola Bartenbach.

This was photographed with no light modification. He was standing in a doorway with a dark garage behind him and the light just wrapped around him like this. Finding the right light for portraits is often times easier than one would think, or maybe I have done it for long enough to where it just seems to be like that.

When you are on the road and can’t bring light modifiers or don’t have access to any being able to see the light is essential. Travel portraiture mostly relies on the right light but the same practice can be applied to a more organized portrait. Just spending a few minutes looking around the area and locating a spot that is naturally suited for a portrait can make all the difference.

Editorial publication in Naturally Danny Seo

Lots of new work in the summer issue of Naturally Danny Seo

Over the last months I photographed a piece on LePrunier, a Sacramento based brand that makes plum beauty oil, a story on GT’s Kombucha that featured GT Dave, the founder of the brand and a travel story about my very own, Santa Barbara! The Santa Barbara story featured great local spots like East Beach Tacos, Garde, Jake and Jones, Make Smith Leather, the Lark, Satellite, Bibi Ji, Lotusland, Auto Camp and the Hotel Californian. And last but not least my good, artist buddy Nelson Parrish.

Check out the tearsheets below:

Photographing 20 Strangers in Isla Vista

Step out of your comfort zone and photograph 20 random people on the street.

I studied photography at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. Known for educating students on the highest level of technical skill when it comes to photography there was one (amongst others) infamous assignment that dealt with approaching a stranger in order to photograph them. This was obviously not intended to teach a technical but a communication skill. It also forced you to deal with your fears and doubts. It challenged your comfort zone. It was called 25 Strangers.
Basically you had to produce a portfolio of 25 random strangers. Build a pop-up portrait studio in a park, photograph the strangers in a bar, at the pool, the retirement home or at the law firm on the corner of your street. I don’t remember the specific rules of the assignment but I put up a white background and had each of my strangers add a word to a sentence on a small chalk board and then I photographed them with the chalk board. I called it: 25 Strangers build a sentence. Surprisingly they didn’t. The sentence was grammatically and logically just … not a sentence. No idea what went wrong there…?

Anyways. The other day I remembered this assignment and decided to revisit it. 15 years and many strangers in front of my lens, from celebrities to homeless people in the back alleys of Mumbai, later I figured I should be a lot better at this. But it still was challenging the comfort zone a little. No control over the situation and you have to talk a random stranger into taking their portrait.

So Hugo and I went into Isla Vista on a Friday morning and approached a bunch of strangers. Isla Vista is a blend of University students, homeless people and middle aged surfers. Generally a demographic open to random experiences. This worked in our favor I think. Still, it took a little time to get groovy with.

The amazing thing about doing this was people opening up and telling stories. As you can see in the video some of the strangers shared memories, vented or maybe simply wanted to chat. It was amazing to see how quickly one can dive a lot deeper into a community by simply striking up a conversation with random people on the street. And using a portrait project like this is of course the perfect ice breaker.

I do this type of thing on assignment all the time but it is different when you go into your own community and when there is no agenda or story that you need to tell. Just letting your ego go, the creative juices flow and welcoming any input with open arms. Fun!