The Bad Bad Things

 

I was contacted by a good friend a few weeks ago for two reasons. The first was to check in and see how I’ve been doing, and the 2nd was to ask if I would be able to photograph a local band that he’s been heavily involved in. Without hesitation, I told him that I was interested in doing it. I immediately called my cousin (who is also into photography) and coordinated securing lights, backdrop, and scouting locations. We set up a studio in my buddy’s apartment and proceeded to shoot portraits of the individual band members. With this being the first time that I had shot in a studio setting, I am very happy with the results. Once we finished this part of the shoot, we headed downtown. Downtown Los Angeles is famous for it’s variety sceneries.  Here are a few of the shots from the day.  A few from the indoor and a few from around the downtown area.

2013 Calendar Shoots

When I was asked by a fellow member of my car club to shoot for their chapters calendar, I initially wanted to say no because they didn’t want “cars only” in the calendar. I mean, what’s a classic car calendar without models? This produced some challenges for me since we would be shooting in various locations and various times of the day. Oh, and did I forget to mention that due to time constraints, we crammed all 13 shoots into a single weekend? Needless to say it was a challenging weekend, but I was pretty excited to be a part of the project. The general idea of the calendar was to utilize locations around the area of the territory of the car club chapter. Between setting up at each location and travel time between shoots, I only ended up with around 40-45 minutes per shoot (sometimes less). For someone who hasn’t shot with models before, this was not really enough time to “learn as you go”. It was more of a “sink or swim” type of situation. Although it was a whirlwind of a weekend, I am pretty happy with how the project turned out and can’t wait to shoot next years calendar.

If you are at all interested in purchasing a calendar to support the Cadillac Kings Car Club, please contact our Antelope Valley chapter on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/cadillackingsav?ref=ts&fref=ts

Forced into learning

I am told by most of the people that I know that I take amazing pictures. The truth of the matter is that I post the most amazing pictures that I have, of course. Most people don’t understand the fact that for every one of my “great” photos, there are at least 15-50 attempts that they never see. This is the point that I tried to convey to my boss when she requested that I be her wedding photographer. Initially I refused by telling her that I wasn’t comfortable doing it. But being that I have worked with her for over 12 years, we have an actual friendship as opposed to just a professional relationship. Eventually I accepted the responsibility and began to do some research on what equipment I wanted to rent for the event. I enlisted one of my young cousins who is also into photography.

I am in no way, shape or form a wedding photographer. But I was actually surprised at the photos that I was able get. Being that these are her wedding pictures, I figured that I would only post a few of the lesser shots.

Stop Motion

Video

I am continuing my personal exploration of figuring out what I can accomplish with my camera. I decided to give this a try. For my first attempts I figured why not photograph something that would take a while, but something where I wouldn’t have to constantly watch for anything that might happen to the camera. Working on these types of projects on my car gives me a few hours worth of pictures, and I am consistently near the camera.

 

 

Out of my element…….. at the El Rey Theater

My brother is a “nomadic musician”. This means that he plays music whenever and wherever he can. Being that he is in 5 different bands, I am constantly invited to rock and roll shows. And although staying out late in a club with more people than the building can handle and music that is over amplified is not my idea of a good time, every once in a while I do go to see him play.

This last Wednesday he had a show at the El Rey in Los Angeles. His band ( the Singularity ) was opening up for the Pinker Tones. I figured that being the middle of the week the show wouldn’t be that crowded and I was right! Of course I packed my camera so that I could shoot during the performance. Apparently at this venue they do not allow cameras unless you have a “Press Pass”. Lucky for me that I was a guest of the band and my brother had already secured me a pass. I felt really cool being one of only 3 people to have cameras inside.

This feeling helped me a lot since I was completely out of my element photography wise. If you look through any of my other posts you will see that I generally shoot cars and on rare occasions people ( with or without cars ). These photos are usually taken during the day at a family gathering or at car shows. Concert photography is a totally different situation. It’s dark and the stage lighting is constantly changing. I found that I could get good pictures using my flash, but they lacked the concert feel. So I put away my kit lens with the maximum aperture of f3.5 and only used my 50mm lens which has a max aperture of f1.8 . My strategy was to stay close to the stage and focus on taking portraits of the band members during the performance.

And as with everything that I shoot, it was a learning experience. Hope you enjoy the photos. Also, be sure to check out the band on Facebook !   http://www.facebook.com/thesingularitymusic

Animal pics

I was asked to take some pics of the animals at work for a few enlarged prints to be used as decoration around the facility. Sometimes I feel like I end up over-complicating things sometimes by trying to adjust every possible setting on the camera for some of the simplest shots. Either way, I ended up with a few shots that I am happy about.

Practice, practice, practice!

I haven’t been shooting much lately due to a hectic work schedule. Fortunately I was able to shoot a bit at work last month. Because one of the rescued cats was being transferred to another facility, some of the people who worked with her on a regular basis wanted to take portraits with her before she left. I did snap a few shots of the cat by herself.

I also decided to begin taking classes at the prestigious University of “You Tube”, LOL. My first project was to shoot things falling into water/liquid.

I gotta keep shooting……….

A night out in Hollywood

I went to an art show last night at the Known Gallery in Hollywood. The artists featured were well known graffitti artists from the area. I arrived expecting a decent amount of people to be in attendance, but when I actually walked in it was one of the most crowded events that I had ever attended. The art was amazing, complicated and colorful.

As I exited the gallery, I noticed a smaller gallery across the street. The Norm Maxwell gallery was packed too. I was unable to really get a good look at the great paintings on exhibit due to the live spoken word and poetry being performed. The poetry and music from local young artists was more comprehendable to me. And even though I wasn’t able to see all of the art on display, I was blown away by the few paintings that I did see. All in all, I did enjoy myself out and about with all the “cool kids” in Hollywood last night.

 

 

Still need alot more practice

I’ve had multiple opportunities to shoot at clubs during band performances due to my brother playing in 3 separate bands. The only problem is, is that the majority of the shows he plays are during the week and usually late at night. I was fortunate enough to be a part of a jr rock band show on the Sunset strip oin Hollywood for work. It gave me a chance to practice shooting. I obviously still need more experience with this type of shoot, but I feel like I got a few good shots.

 

Gotta post something

Pictures, pictures and more pictures! My brother has been bugging me about seeing the picture that I’ve been shooting since mid-December. I have been taking the camera everywhere and photographing everything, but haven’t posted any of them anywhere. So here are a few of the many photographs from the past month or so.