santa barbara

LISTEN to TURTLE

August 03, 2022 in creative content creation

Promo work for Carpinteria skatebrand Listen to Turtle.

Martha Soffer for Naturally Danny Seo - Editorial Publication

December 08, 2020 in portrait, travel

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

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.

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

SHOP ART

November 03, 2020 in online gallery

Introducing Gallery Jonas - you can now shop my art!

I am excited to share that you can now shop my art work on an elegant new site: galleryjonas.com

The online gallery shop offers photography, sculpture and wall works.

Browse the Water, Mountain and Skin collections for photographic images that can be bought as loose prints or in a custom high quality frame.

Buying fine art online has never been more popular. If you have been considering shopping art for your interior space, may that be a house, apartment or office, I hope you come over to Gallery Jonas to take a look.

Create sets of framed photo prints to add design elements to your interiors!

Large scale, framed photographic prints are incredible, but sets of multiple images can add modern design to a wall and tell stories. Depending on what you want to achieve with the art in your space a set may be the right choice.
Getting lost in a vast, minimalist, large scale landscape image can be meditative and allow for focused thought. That type of artwork will create calmness and add peace to a space. It requires more thought to analyze and make sense of a single photograph, which, in my opinion, is the point of large scale imagery.
A set allows for storytelling and quicker digestion. The individual images compete for your attention so it is more difficult to dive as deep into each one as when you have one single image to dissect. The set allows for a more playful, less serious consumption of visual candy, though. Further, the design of the set or grid becomes an important factor to the story you are telling.

Browse the photography collections and design your own sets!

Foils - Parrish + Lovelace

November 02, 2020 in video

A short film featuring artist R. Nelson Parrish and custom surfboard shaper Ryan Lovelace’s project FOILS

I produced and shot this short film featuring artist R. Nelson Parrish and custom surfboard shaper Ryan Lovelace’s project FOILS recently. The project was commissioned by the good folks over at Entropy Resins, makers of amazing bio resin.
We shot this at Parrish and Lovelace’s studios in Santa Barbara with a Covid-safe tiny crew and had a good time. Being the two characters they are, we had an entertaining day, including a lunch with Keith Malloy that consisted of a conversation which can only be referred to as unique.
Having documented Parrish and his work for over a decade we hadn’t produced a video/film before except for a vlog type video featuring a project in Berlin, so this was fun!
I’ll let Nelson and Ryan explain what FOILS is all about in the video. Enjoy!

A big thank you to all involved and especially Entropy Resins for making this possible!

Carey Hart for EasyRiders

September 29, 2020 in portrait

Editorial shoot featuring Carey Hart for Easyriders Magazine

Before the shut down resulting from the Covid epidemic I photographed an editorial for EasyRiders Magazine featuring Carey Hart. Maybe you’ve seen the short film we shot at the same time in a previous post but here are some still portraits and action shots.

This was a small crew shoot but we managed to shoot stills and motion of three different scenarios that day. Portraits and lifestyle stuff around Carey’s hangar, some motocross action and some streetbike stuff on his Indian.

Carey Hart being the motocross rider he is, the dirt bike part was just crazy to watch. He has his own track on his property and we followed him out to it, him of course getting there before us. When we came up to it he was just flying over the massive table at the center of it. He then proceeded to jump over a fence for fun. Watch the film for some impressions, its good!

Right before our shoot Carey had finished an asphalt pump track behind his hangar. It actually was so new the edges were still soft, but it was rideable. So my assistant (the great Tate Larrick) and I took a BMX and a skateboard out there and had a fun little session in the late evening light to finish up the day. Amazing!

Many Thanks to the crew at Easyriders and Carey Hart and his team who were incredible nice, supportive and accommodating!

Carey Hart for EasyRiders Magazine

August 11, 2020 in portrait, video

A short film featuring Carey Hart for EasyRiders Magazine

Earlier this year, before Covid-19 had arrived, I did a production for EasyRiders Magazine featuring Carey Hart. This project was a stills and video combo. Stills aren’t released yet but I am happy the video is, so check it out below!

Many Thanks to the team at EasyRiders, Tate Larrick and of course Carey Hart and his team!

Scooter in the Skatepark

August 06, 2020 in portrait

Scooter in the early morning hours in the Santa Barbara Skatepark

This image and light was the inspiration to that earlier post with the black and white image of the skateboarder in the Santa Barbara skatepark. This is at around 6am and that soft light coming from the left was natural sunlight filtered through some light clouds. Just so pretty…

Portrait in the Pacific Ocean

August 02, 2020 in portrait, travel

A moody portrait of a swimmer in the ocean in Santa Barbara

I kayaked along an early morning swim of friends of mine the other day and took this image at the beginning. It wasn’t particularly warm and it was definitely moody. Low hanging marine layer but a little wind as well.
The swim left Hendry’s Beach and went to Shoreline Beach in Santa Barbara, about 3.8 miles. In the kayak it was a comfortable cruise but swimming looked a little painful. Especially when they had to swim through thick kelp beds. More images coming soon…

Portrait of Skateboarder in Santa Barbara

July 31, 2020 in portrait

Black and White portraits of a teenage skateboarder doing tricks with some attitude in the Santa Barbara skatepark.

I’ve been spending some time at the Santa Barbara skatepark recently… at six in the morning… My son likes to go early so he has the place to himself. Lucky for him I have been in skateboarding for the past 30 years so I am willing. I noticed how beautiful the light is in the skatepark at that time so I asked another friend of ours if he’d join to take some action shots and portraits.
For any of you who are familiar with my work, this is the kid from the Flying Baby photograph that was published in Friendship, Family, Love & Laughter in 2009.

Editorial Publications

June 18, 2020 in portrait, travel

Editorial publications in the current issue of Naturally Danny Seo Magazine

I have three stories in the current issue of Naturally Danny Seo Magazine and this one is a odd one. This was the first editorial job I photographed after the shelter in place order in March and nobody could travel or put together photo productions. So Danny came up with the idea of printing out photos of products that needed to be photographed for this story and then placing them around my property here in Santa Barbara. A creative solution to a complicated challenge. Shooting a commercial production like this is a little more nerve-wracking and logistically complicated but for this editorial I was left to play around and just over-shoot it a little.

The below story was shot in Minneapolis and an image from it ended up on the cover of the magazine. Always nice! We shot this right before the Covid-19 shut down and I got back to Santa Barbara before air travel got restricted.

And finally a Yoga story I shot earlier in the year at Rancho Valencia resort in San Diego. We shot this early in the morning and I was wearing a Patagonia Puff Jacket… Erika Gibson (yogi) rocked it in the cold morning air!

FaceTime Portraits

May 04, 2020 in portrait

More Virtual Portraits photographed with FaceTime

Since my last post about my Virtual FaceTime Portraits a lot has happened on that front. At this point I have photographed 80 plus people with FaceTime photoshoots and I am still shooting almost every day. The Washington Post has assigned me with a story for which I had to photograph 17 people across the United States and I photographed a musical Quintet in the Netherlands.

What I keep telling people is that as a portrait photographer I normally move intuitively around the subject. I adjust the cameras angle and position relative to the subject subconsciously, small movements can make a big difference. All of that I now have to do with words. When photographing the violin players for the Quintet in the Netherlands I was telling them that it is sort of like them telling someone how to place the fingers on the strings of the violin to play. I would argue that my results are a little bit better than what that situation would produce but you get the idea.

Another interesting development I have watched for the past weeks is that FaceTime photoshoots are happening all over the place now. To the point where companies like Nike are trying it out. Some photographers are projecting the FaceTime call onto surfaces of all sorts and then photograph the projection, some shoot it in color, some focus on professional models, it’s all over the place.
This brings me back to what I said in an interview with aphotoeditor.com about my project. While the technical quality of these shoots is mostly pretty rough, I believe this technique will be used in the future even past the Covid lockdown. Cameras on phones will get better, 5G will improve call quality and clients will think twice about flying someone around the world when they can just send a high end Iphone to the subject and do the shoot remotely. It will be niche, I am sure but I am also sure that it will be done. Technology just has to catch up a little bit more. Nobody had a PDA in the early 2000’s, then mobile internet allowed the Iphone to do what it did.

One think FaceTime does not seem to like at this point is movement. Subjects have to be rather still for the quality to catch up and not look glitchy. But with a great connection and a newer model device I have been able to get FaceTime Portraits that look amazing on a screen. They go through some post processing, sharpening and grain mostly, and then are completely usable for screen applications. I also printed some portraits and made collages and grids which I then photographed with my DSLR and got a high res file of.

FaceTime photoshoots force the photographer to dive deep into the creativity bucket and that’s why they are great! There is almost no control over technical aspects of the camera, no exposure, focus, or any other trickery. The photographer isn’t even holding the camera. I had people stick their device in the washing machine and shoot out of it, hide behind colored plexiglass and involve their spouses to act as moving tripods. It becomes a creative exercise for both, the photographer and the subject and especially during times of Covid lockdown offer a fun escape from being stuck at home.

portrait of Constantin von Jascheroff

August 04, 2019 in portrait

Natural light portrait of German actor Constantin von Jascheroff in Berlin.

Constantin von Jascheroff by Jonas Jungblut

I was in Berlin recently and met up with Constantin von Jascheroff for a quick portrait shoot. We have been working on these portraits for over a decade now. Everytime I am in Berlin we meet and take some portraits. I’ll post some more over the next weeks, but this one stood out. We had shot for a while and ended up in this location (his front door with a long dark hallway behind him). He shaved his face except for his mustache for this last set up. and when he told me that he had just finished dubbing Tarantino’s latest release “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (starring Brad Pitt, Leo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie) I couldn’t help but tell him he reminded me of Pitt.

Editorial publication in Naturally Danny Seo

May 29, 2019 in travel, portrait

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:

NASCAR at Auto Club Speedway

April 02, 2019 in travel

NASCAR - photographing and vlogging a racing series like no other

I am a portrait photographer. I photograph people. Most of the time in a studio setting. Controlled lighting, background, props. But then I also travel quite a bit and shoot editorial stories for magazines. I have been all over the world to shoot editorial stories and photographed while riding an elephant, 60 miles off the coast on a fishing trawler, hanging off a vertical cliff, while having food poisoning, underwater, the list goes on…

So naturally I am interested in the story. I try not to decide what to photograph based on my opinion on the subject matter. Actually, let me rephrase. If anything, I like to explore topics I either don’t know much about or have an opinion on which isn’t based on first person experience. If you really want to learn about a topic dive into it and experience it.

Queue NASCAR.

Through a close friend I was invited by Aric Almirola to watch the 2019 race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Full access to the pits and drivers area. This is how you go experience something you don’t know much about. Now, full disclosure: I had been to a NASCAR race before, in Sonoma. But this one was a track and not an oval. (Yes, both are in California and both are NASCAR races…).

So what did I learn? Well, you can watch the video linked in this post to follow along. Otherwise what I can tell you is that the viewer demographic is rather narrow. And it is what you would expect.

Aric Almirola at Auto Club Speedway in 2019

But there is something else I noticed here and also the first time I went in Sonoma. NASCAR is a racing series that operates like it is the 1970’s. While Formula 1 cars and teams are run by technology stock cars aren’t. They fuel the cars during pit stops by gravity fed canisters and they don’t have much data on the car while it is on the track. What this means is that the driver is mostly responsible to deal with the car. Driving as well as communicating how the car feels and if something may need adjusting in the pits. I call it out in the vlog, it’s good old driving. No readings on the screen in the pits and then a command on how to drive. The driver actually has to feel it out and do it. (Now going around an oval, which is the large majority of events probably doesn’t require as much input as a regular track but I wouldn’t know that… I can only assume. And assumptions can be dangerous.).

Aric Almirola taking off after a pit stop at Auto Club Speedway in 2019.

Sooo… what did I take away from actually going to a race and experiencing it myself? It’s a lot of things that you have to go experience for yourself. You reading my account is just like reading any other. My point with this whole post is that to really learn about something you actually just need go experience it first hand!

You should still watch the video. Do it! It’s fun! It’s entertaining! It’s NASCAR!!!

Photographic prints on wood

March 20, 2019 in portrait, how to

How to mount prints from a laser printer on wood

Here is a video I created to show how I mount laser prints on plywood. This is a way to create wall art that doesn’t break the bank but has a pretty edgy, cool look to it. I printed the photographs here in Santa Barbara at one of the local FedEx places. A black and white 8.5x11 print is $0.14!!! Doesn’t get any cheaper. And you can go up to 32” wide depending on the printers at your local FedEx office!

Laser prints are cool because they have strong contrast and there is no ink that can bleed or fade. By no means would I consider these archival but I have some hanging in my house and studio that are over 10 years old and they haven’t faded! Laser prints became popular in the street art scene for wall pieces and murals and if you haven’t played with them, give ‘em a try.

The video above goes through me making a set of 15 outside my Santa Barbara studio so follow along there but I’ll also give you a quick list of what you need:

-laser print
-1/2” to 3/4” plywood (cabinet grade if possible)
-modd podge glue and sealer (get it at Michaels or on Amazon). I like the matt option. YOU ONLY NEED A SMALL AMOUNT!
-a roller to flatten the print and squeeze the glue around

This does take some practice and you’ll find your own ways of doing it but since it’s so cheap you can play quite a bit. I recommend doing a couple to figure out what works for you.

Most important: Have Fun (and I hope you get some entertainment out of my instructional video…)!

HD cinemagraph from Santa Barbara

February 28, 2019 in travel, portrait

HD high quality cinemagraph shot in Santa Barbara

Here is another HD high quality cinemagraph I shot recently. It took me a while to figure out how to make these cinemagraphs HD. There is of course flixel but as far as I can tell they are putting out a video file instead of a gif. Making video files is easy to do yourself in Photoshop. The tricky part is to code the embed code to loop and autoplay. It is not as universal as a gif but rendering the cinemagraph as a high quality video file just makes it look so much better.

We shot this HD cinemagraph in Santa Barbara. The creeks are all full of water these days so it was easy to find a pretty waterfall and put this together.

At the Bookstore

February 22, 2019 in portrait

stock images photographed at a bookstore

Finding a good bookstore these days isn’t that easy. In Santa Barbara we can call ourselves lucky to have Chaucer’s, an amazing bookstore. During a stock photo shoot a little while ago we were in the area and so we stopped in and I took this image of the model browsing the collection.

HD Cinemagraph from Nojoqui Falls

February 21, 2019 in portrait, travel

High quality HD Cinemagraph by the creek at Nojoqui Falls

playing with a cinemagraph during a quick excursion to Nojoqui Falls. The trail was closed and we were told by the ranger not to disregard the closer since it was raining heavily and the hillside was in danger of sliding. Anyways, I set up the camera by the creek and took footage to create this cinemagraph.

This is an HD cinemagraph as well. Not a gif. I created it in Photoshop and exported as a video file. Some creative embed coding later and here you have a high quality hd cinemagraph!

Dos Pueblos High School Engineering Academy

January 19, 2019 in portrait

Amir Abo-Shaeer and Emily Shaeer for The Townmarket

It’s always amazing when you find out something about your town that you had no idea about. Cue the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy. Founder Abo-Shaeer and Emily Shaeer run a program that teaches high school aged kids all kinds of fantastic skills and knowledge in the greater realm of engineering.

I was perplexed when I visited. The amount of resources available to students is fantastic. From CNC machines to computers, tools and of course most importantly knowledgeable help and not to mention space, lots of it! Teenagers were programming machines, writing code, building things and discussing projects within teams. I wanted to stay and join!

The Academy is linked to Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta but students from Santa Barbara also visit the school. Overall a very healthy mix of kids, lots of girls and ethnic diversity. I felt like I had discovered a Santa Barbara gem…