Great new experiences

I had the pleasure of shooting a wedding on Sunday for Ali & Rodina. This was my first ever Lebanese wedding, and was the largest sit down dinner (600 people) I have seen. Apearently this is relatively small for Lebanese weddings too, they run about 1000 normally. Wow! I was quite honored to be the only caucasian service provider for the couple too. Although since a good portion of the day was spoken in Arabic, I was at a slight disadvantage when it came to knowing what was going on. The videograher was super helpful though and kept me in the loop. The day went quite smoothly and we got some really great shots that captured the events and the emotions of the day. Both Rodina and Ali looked great and the weather even cooperated as the sun broke through in time for formals.

Thank you guys for evrything and best wishes for the future.

Jeff

The last weekend

On Saturday, I was working on a wedding for Cef & Nerissa, Cef is the brother of Heidi, whose wedding I did last year. As usual, it was a grand affair. I love the Phillipino weddings, the huge bridal party, the sponsors, the cremony. Everything was great, right from the start. Nerissa looked like a million bucks in her beautiful dress, the Bacilica (as always) provided a specatcular setting for the ceremony, and the Sutton had top notch service and dinner. I wanted to share a few of the images from the wedding with you, and thank Cef & Nerissa for having me. (2 down 1 to go in the Hernani family) ;)

I really liked the 'God light' in this image as the sun spilled through the window where this fellow was sitting by himself. It has a really good feel to it.

Jeff

Micheal Grecco seminar

I know I should have been building my wrap around deck, but I spent the afternoon at a seminar that Stephen from Lighttools put together. He brought in Micheal Grecco, who is a well known photographer and who has an extensive list of clients. Stephen asked me to come and give him a hand with the seminar, so being the kind of guy who likes to help people out when asked, I did. I am very happy that I went too. Micheal was showing the group some lighting setups and going over his method of thinking when doing a shoot. I was fortunate in the fact that I was able to actively participate in the demos by setting up the lights and metering them. I also lent him my camera to shoot with. An additional perk was meeting the model for the afternoon, and her friend. Tanis and Deb were very nice. I hope to do a shoot with Tanis in the not too distant future. She has a great wardrobe of corsets and shoes (my 2 favorite things!). Here is a shot of her that was taken at the seminar.

Jeff

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Studio on location

Satuday night I spent at the awards banquet for Premay, photographing the guests and providing mounted prints on site. These guys specialize in the tranportation of rediculously huge things. I love going the banquet because every year they have a video of the highlighs of the year and there is some amazing stuff. My favorite has to be the million pound coker they brought up to Ft. Mac. A MILLION POUNDS!!! and something like 34 feet in diameter and about 290 feet long. They had 7 semis, 4 pushing and 3 pulling to get it up some of the hills. Anyway, I digress. This is post was to be about the lighting. For this job, I set up 4 slaved strobes. I had 2 softboxes for the key and fill lights, 1 for the hair light on a boom stand, and 1 gelled for the background light. The setup produced some really nice lighting and I was very pleased with the results. I try to do better photos every year than the last lear to keep it fresh. So next year I'll have to come up with something new. Maybe digital green screen? Put them all on the beach in Hawaii or something. So when it comes to studio looking lighting, you don't need a studio, just some space to set up. All of this gear fit into 1 duffle bag, including the backdrop and stands.

Jeff

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Casket case

So yesterday I was hired to photograph some caskets. I hadn't shot a casket before, but figured the rules of light don't change regardless of what the subject is, so I was pretty confident I'd be able to make some great images to the clients specifications. Then they wheel out this shiny black casket that is metal and reflective. Well those of you who are fellow shooters know that this is no easy task when dealing with this kind of subject. Probably the only thing worse is a big chrome ball. Then to top it off I started to set up my lights and realised I didn't have the proper adaptor to connect the speedring to my boom mast. As anyone who knows me knows though, I am a MacGyver when it comes to improvising on the fly, and within seconds I had rigged up a clamp and ball bungee to do the job. After fiddling with the set up and checking all the angles I managed to light it up with 4 strobes, and several reflectors. The shots turned out really great.

Jeff

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Composite photos

Long time no blog eh? I know, I know, I am lazy when it comes to this stuff. I was photographing some kids yesterday for a friend of mine who works with my wife. Two young girls who were surprisingly easy to work with. As anyone photographing children can tell you, it can be very difficult. I had talked to Leanne prior to the shoot about doing a composite. One main image and three inserts. So with that in mind I created some images that would work for the concept. Here are the resulting images.
Jeff
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Pin-up shoot

I had the opportunity to shoot with a lovely girl today named Pam. We crossed paths via the Model Mayhem site, and I must admit I was skeptical. Most of the MM girls are kind of flakey and seldom show up for shoots, but Pam was different right from the start. She maintained good communication via email before the shoot, and called me the day of to confirm. I was very fortunate to work with someone who wanted to do a shott like this and had some good wardrobe to assist the look. I was quite pleased overall with the shoot, and we made some really great images. Here are a few.

Jeff

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