Ben

Took a shot of Ben from the side of a bank building in East LA the other day. It was an awesome wall but was in a not-so-awesome neighborhood.

Lately I've been seeing more and more opportunities in less-than-stellar areas of town than anywhere else. I always wonder what people would think if I took out some camera equipment complete with lighting, reflectors and stuff and started doing a portrait shoot.

Hmmm... Maybe not a so good an idea...

Cinderella

Did a Quince portrait session of Emma at the Old LA Zoo. She was so beautiful and the dress was incredible! For Emma and her Mom it was the 1st time that they ever came here. We had a blast!!! I love this location! There's so many elements that can be used to get some great shots. It makes for a great session.

Veronica had an idea of doing like a Cinderella shot with one of Emma's shoes being left on the stairs while she ran up away from it. I figured, OK so I started with metering the scene with a light meter. Then I used a strobe to brighten the shoe.

Once we did that we were ready. I focused on the shoe and had her run up the stairs a couple of times until I got what I envisioned.

Brandon & Kiana

After what seemed like forever, we finally made it back to San Diego to visit. We were also able to do a shoot of my very close friend Junior and his kids Brandon and Kiana. Should I even call them kids any more? Brandon's getting ready to graduate from high school and Kiana's in 10th grade. Wow how time flies!!!

We really didn't get much time to do a complete shoot but the location was a beautiful place. I saw how the light from the sunset was playing against the water and, through the shoot, really wanted to incorporate that element into some of the shots.

Close to the end of the shoot I had to use it before it all went dark. I figured it would be perfect as a backdrop and had the kids set up close to the shore while Junior held the flash up. The sun also added an element of also being a edge/fill light.

As soon as everybody was ready and I had the ripples framed just right I started firing away. Click

Games

It's unbelievable how much technology has evolved. The handheld games these kids play nowadays are amazing! With touch screens, built-in cameras, high res graphics, stereo sound, ability to play music, etc it's incredible how complex these things have become!

When I was growing up the most popular handheld game was Coleco Electronic Quarterback. That came out when I was in 8th grade! All it had was a screen with 3 rows of red LEDs. You had to maneuver your man... er... LED through the oncoming LEDs with these big buttons until you made a touchdown. Such a simple game but man was it addicting!

Perseverance

I was reminded the other day while watching my son climbing up a slide that perseverance is the key to success. No matter how many times you slip you've got to keep going.

The older I get the more I forget the little things that I learned growing up. My kids keep me grounded though. I am finally beginning to learn from them as much as they're learning from me.

This is another image that I ran through the LR3 beta. The more I use it the more I'm really enjoying it. It processes images beautifully and really tones down the amount of noise without taking out very much detail. It's still buggy and I do have problems with the speed through my machine but maybe an updated release will take care of that problem.

Veronica

Did a shoot of my better half Veronica yesterday. With all my tantrums and emotional ineptitude it's amazing that she's still with me! For that, and more, I love you baby!!!

I really wanted to experiment with shallow depth of field for a portrait for quite some time now. I also wanted to figure out a lighting scheme that would accentuate the feel of the shot. So I figured I would light it so that the subject would have a warmth while giving a coolness to the background.

And this is what I came up with.

The lighting setup is as follows: 1 580EXII 1/2 CTS gelled in medium softbox @ 1/64 above camera. Silver reflector below camera. Camera WB set @ 3500. I metered the scene with a Sekonic L358 & triggered the strobes with Pocket Wizard PWIIs.

The Reef

Every time I look at this it makes me remember all the aquariums that my brother had in his room. He had a Baja tank setup that was awesome! It was filled with leatherback groupers, garibaldis, morays, and a bunch of other stuff!

Oh and the tank of piranhas! Now that was a conversation piece. One of them actually bit off a chunk of this guys finger! He put his finger on its mouth to see what it would do and SNAP! All because he didn't believe that they were piranha.

Those were fun days...

Jellyfish

Went to the Aquarium of the Pacific over the weekend with the family. My wife got the tickets for free at her employee health fair. Still paid for parking though but that wasn't bad considering we saved $74.00!

I know that everyone tends to shoot the jellyfish but I couldn't help it. When the light from the aquarium hit them in a particular way they looked as if they were glowing, so surreal, so otherworldly! I had to take a shot, so I waited until at least one of them crossed my viewfinder... and then... Click!