Another head shot shoot / Escobars work shoot

This week was filled once again with a lot of time spent in the photography studio and also a little time at Escobar's restaurant, where for a change I wasn't waiting on tables. The shoot at Escobars was especially challenging because I had to shoot during business hours . It wouldn't have been a problem but when I started shooting an intoxicated patron decided that he wanted to be involved. I was not pleased to say the least. It didn't matter much because as soon as he had arrived he had gone, and the show must go on.I also had another head shot shoot as well, my instructor told me that I am a little too "Fashion photographer"... I interpret that as "you're having too much fun" but thats how you get good shots, right?  And as always, here are a few of my favorite shots.

HEAD SHOTS SHOOT

Studio fun / head shots

For my most recent Studio Photography assignment I was asked to take head shots for a local actress, the beautiful and charming Cheyenne Drew. I have to say that this was my most enjoyable assignment yet, and its easy to see why. Cheyenne is easy to work with and the camera adores her. Working with someone that is comfortable in front of the camera takes a lot of pressure off of the photographer and overall the shots turn out much nicer because of that. Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot

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                             I told her to be "Kim Kardashian"

Slash / G'n'R / Jack Daniels / Gibson Les Paul, more (or less) studio time

 skip to 8mins in to see the most awesome guitar solo EVER
So today in the photography studio.... My project is a still life that pays tribute to the most rockin guitar god of the late 80's and early 90's .. Slash. The project required us to make a still life of our choosing, using the studio lighting equipment, using images straight from the camera without the use of Photo Shop. Once again our time was limited to 1hr of setting up lights, adjusting the lighting, and then finally getting the shot. Working with tight time constraints in the studio I tried my best to get the shot that I had envisioned, but nothing could measure up to Slash rising out of the ocean. I used as many Slash inspired props as i could get my hands on ... here are a few of the shots, enjoy.

In the studio , sometimes things weren't meant to be

For my first "in studio" project, a group project, we were to recreate a picture that our group had chosen from a magazine. We chose 2 pictures one with a model, and one still life (as back-up) One of the group members had convinced her lovely daughter to be our model (she is a news anchor for C-I Living on one of the local news channels), although she was on a strict time schedule because she had to be at work immediately after the shoot. So after a hurried set-up and a few broken props we tried to correct the lighting, and get the shot, we were unsuccessful in doing so due to our time constraints.In the end we went with the "back-up shot" which was a still life of a white rose, in which we were successful. Overall this was the most difficult shoot that I have been a part of, working with a diverse group of strangers to recreate a professional shot was an extreme test of patience.  I have a few shots I took in the studio of our set-up with the model and I will update this post with the final still life and the reference pictures when they become available.

      in the below shot you can see the picture we are trying to emulate, and also the patience of our model slipping away

Origami, Studio Photography project 1

The semester is officially underway, and as such I have completed the first project for my Studio Photography class. This project is an exercise in white balance and exposure, also lighting arrangement. The subject matter had to be still life and (white on white/ black on black/ organic shapes) so I employed the skillful hands of my friend Debbie to make me some interesting origami objects to arrange. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the project. ( the funny thing that happened was that for the assignment we were only supposed to take about 30 shots per arrangement so 90 shots total and I ended up taking around 400, honestly I haven't even looked at them all)

 

Photography final project / New gear / The future

Fall semester 2014 is wrapping up, and I am submitting my final project for photography. My project is a series of concert photos that I took over the last 2 months at The Canopy Club and Cowboy Monkey. here are the photos I selected to submit as my final. They have appeared on this blog before but this is the final series as a whole.
At the bottom I wrote a little about my new gear and some plans for the future!!!!!

I shot all these photos using my Sony Qx10, which takes nice photos but has a very slow reload time, and since it used my iphone as a view finder and memory device sometimes it would lag causing me a lot of loss in timing and shots. I liked the quality of the images but the device was simply too slow.

So I decided to upgrade to a Sony a6000 , it is an amazingly fast camera. The a6000 can shoot bursts of 11 frames per second, at 24 mega pixels and has an amazing iso range coupled with "the worlds fastest auto focus" that boasts 179 points. It was an easy decision to make, my Qx10 looked great with the 18 mega pixels but lacked the controls and speed I needed. So, I grabbed a silver one.

With some new gear and a new semester on the horizon (with a studio photography class) also some exciting shows, I am looking forward to doing a lot of shooting and playing with my new toys. I plan on continuing this blog from now on as I prefer it to most social media. Soon I'll be posting pics from the a6000 so look out for those ... Till next time