Lights, Camera, Rock It.

Much like everything, and everyone, I am guilty of going through phases. Perhaps more guilty than our friend Mrs. Anthony? Over the past few months I've been addicted to natural light. And I mean addicted. I'll be sitting on the couch, and notice the high quality of light streaming in through the windows. Even at midday. Or I will be walking to my car under overcast skies and just yern to take a portrait. I love natural light. As the great Alexander Neumann put it. " Natural light is my big thing. Reality is beautiful, I want to recreate reality like it is." That my friends, is the motto I've been living for the past 7-8 months. It wasn't until I became utterly discusted with the level of work I was putting out. Not that it was bad, but I was bored. I wasn't challenging myself. And I always said I loved natural light because of the mood it created, but I was beginning to wonder if I was staying away from strobes because I was scared. I knew how to light my subjects with the available light, and while I could dial in my exposure with just 1 or 2 shots, I was wondering if I was subconsiously afraid.

So what did I do? I lit the heck outta my subjects this past shoot. Not one natural light shot. Every shot was lit. Some mixing flash and ambient more than others, but I put my flashes through their paces. Killed a couple batteries and probably left my subjects feeling like they stared into the sun for hours at a time. But I did it, and, it was fun. Really fun. I forgot about the creative possibilities when you essentially play God and make an artificial sun.


We met up in Little 5 points at an alley way behind a theatre. Spent a couple of hours and came away with some great shots. The girls, also sisters, KILLED it. Not only was I shooting with a different lighting technique, I wanted to shoot more towards an editorial style, rather than your cliche senior photos. The girls rocked it. I put them in some uncomfortable poses, poses that if you saw them doing you'd question my sanity, but what often looks weird in real life, really speaks to a viewer in photographs.

 And because everyone likes a little behind-the-scenes. This was the go-to lighting setup for the entire shoot. A shoot through umbrella, boomed above and at a 45 degree angle. I love the shadows and the catch light this setup produces.

As most of you know I'm involved in a leadership organization in Kennesaw, Leaders IN Kennesaw, (LINK). There are many different groups under the large umbrella of LINK. One of my fellow LINK groups was looking to raise money in order to help with the orphan population in Georgia. In order to raise money we partnered together to raffle off a photoshoot. It was enormously successful and I feel fortunate that all parties were able to benefit from the raffle. The group was able
To raise sufficient funds to help the orphans, Jasmine was able to get some great shots to jump start her modeling portfolio, and I was able to let loose creatively and have some fun shooting with Jasmine.

Jasmine did a great job and got quite a few compliments during the shoot from onlookers. Modestly she denied being a model, but I assured them she was the real deal.

The shots came out amazingly well, we were rained out on our first attempt, but luckily mother nature blessed us with overcast skies to really ease the process and open up the door to creativity.



    Vert Mobile is a full service digital marketing and advertising agency in Atlanta that specializes in mobile, social, and emerging media platforms. They are relatively new to the Atlanta advertising scene, however, they have been making quite a splash in the industry lately. One of their latests projects included shooting some videos for some of Coppenrath's European Bakery's new products. I got a call from the crew at Vert a couple of weeks ago asking if I would be interested in photographing some of the desserts in question. My answer: Um, duh, I wanted to!

    Shooting images for a more commercial type use is still something I'm not a seasoned veteran at, however, that didn't stop me from letting my creative juices flow on the day of the shoot. I lucked out that there was a great window right by the wine rack at the restaurant we were shooting at (Paul's Restuarant, in Buckhead), and I just put a scrim over the window to soften and difuse the early morning light and started firing away at the beautiful desserts. The hardest part of the shoot wasn't anything technically challenging from a photography standpoint, but instead, not eating the desserts before I got a few decent photos of them.

    Overall I had a great time working with Vert Mobile, the chefs, and the videographer, Kendrick Disch, and I was very excited to get to opportunity to shoot something outside the realm of portraits. While I love portraits, the idea of shooting commercially excites me. I was able to meet alot of great people so hopefully there will be more opportunities like this in the future.

                                                           Vert Mobile: http://www.vertmob.com/
                          Coppenrath's European Bakery: http://www.europesbakery.com/news.html



Rain. I hate it sometimes. It always seems to only rain: A) right after I wash my car, or B) right when I'm supposed to have a photoshoot. And this week, this week took that to the extreme. I had three shoots in the

schedule this week/weekend, and after the first got cancelled due to rain, I was determined to get this shoot in, rain or shine. As I was driving down to Decatur, in the torrential down pour, I was just day dreaming about the creative options that the rain would open up, and for once, I enjoyed the rain. It challenges me. Fortunately.......and unfortanately, (go with it), the rain cleared up by the time I got to Decatur and we were able to shoot under the stormy/overcast skies.

Lindsay "said" she was nervous, and she had never done this before, but after seeing these photos, I'm calling her bluff. The only bit of advice I gave her before the shoot began was to "talk with her eyes". And talk with her eyes she did. We started with just some really simple headshots but we quickly started gaining steam and started knocking out winner after winner.

She laughs. At my jokes. My LAME jokes. I like her.

And then she can quickly turn on the female blue steel. Zoolander would be proud.

The light was hot? Haha. Luckily for me, my subjects are champs.