Sunday, February 27, 2011

Adventures in photography...

I took the opportunity to take a break today and that resulted in a photo boondoggle that ending up bring me back to Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills California.  It is really a neat place and this is the third time I've been there.  Every time I go I find something new and exciting about the place.  I hope you enjoy the images, just click on the one above and you will go through the selects from the day!

This was all done with a pretty light setup that included one of my Nikon D300s, Nikkor 17-55 2.8, my old Bogen (Manfrotto tripot) and newer Giottos MH-3000 Ball Head.  This little setup worked out very well and enabled me to stay "focused" on the composition I was looking for instead of lugging what would have been a very heavy camera bag.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

New Shoot!

I had a really great photo shoot with Jessica McGoldrick and a new model Brian Bailey.  We have been planning this shoot for a few of weeks now and Saturday was the day that everything came together.  I was able to secure a great location that provide a wonderful space to setup a temporary studio.  It was a long day of shooting but we went through seven wardrobe changes from casual, business and formal evening gown and tuxedo.  We did shots with Jessica and Brian together (like above) and then individual shots.  We were able to do various themes and it was really a wonderful shoot.  I have a lot of images to go through and they are really coming out great!

We had two great assistances Jennie Kinney who stepped in at the last minute to handle the makeup and Mike Cassidy who was instrumental in keeping everything running.  Unfortunately Mike had to leave part way through the shoot so he wasn't available when we did the group shoot as the last shot of the night.

I ended up using all of my studio lights to light the set and it worked out very well.  I also incorporated the new Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB SD card sending medium sized JPG images to my Apple iPad 32GB running Shutter Snitch.  In the shot above they are using the iPad as a prop but Brian and Jessica are really looking at the shots coming downloading automatically.  Shooting tethered is a wonderful thing and shooting wireless to the iPad is truly a life-saver.  We were able to use that instant feedback to fix clothing and set errors and to allow the models to see what was going on.

As I said above it was really a great shoot and I want to thank Jessica, Brian, Jennie, and Mike for their hard work and all the effort and energy they brought to the set!  You all were wonderful!