Morgan and Si Engagement

I had been in Phoenix for a week and a half, but I decided to extend my stay for a few more days so I could do an engagement session with Morgan and Si.

I had met Si when he was writing for kontaktmag and spent a little time with Si and Morgan when they moved to my neighborhood shortly before I moved to NYC. A little familiarity was a good starting point. It had been a while since we had talked (even via Twitter) so some catching up was in order. We decided to go to the Downtown Phoenix … Read the rest

Keep Shooting

After spending two weeks in Phoenix, I find myself back in Bakersfield and, quite frankly, in a little bit of a funk. I was pretty busy working in Phoenix with three unexpected shoots and the video shoot I originally went to Phoenix to do. When I wasn't working, I was catching up with friends. It was a pretty nice two weeks. Special shout out to Tyler and Katie for putting me up.

Now, back in Bakersfield, I am doing some freelance design work and getting ready to edit the video footage shot in Phoenix. This place is sucking the life … Read the rest

Hard Drive Dilemma

I have many external hard drives. Used them to backup and store my photography, design work all my files from my previous life as publisher of kontaktmag. Some of my external drives are over 5 years old. That’s pretty old in hard drive time. Until recently, all my hard drives have been LaCie drives. I started out with their regular line but then bought some new ones when they teamed up with Porsche Design and Red Dot Design winner Neil Poulton. They have proven to be very reliable as I don’t think one drive has gone bad … Read the rest

Available Light Mode

I’m not talking about a setting on the camera (although that could be cool), I’m talking about a setting in my brain.

My background is in studio photography. My very first shoot was a product shoot for a tech company. Most of my fashion was done in the studio or at an indoor location. When someone says “photo shoot”, I automatically think “lights”.

I did a corporate headshot recently in the office of the company president. I brought my lighting case and started setting up lights with soft boxes. The president was duly impresses and uttered, “All this for me?”. … Read the rest

Location Serendipity

Even though it’s not an extremely rare thing in my life, I am still amazed when serendipity comes into play.

On Friday I got a text asking if I was free to do a ‘quickie’ shoot on Sunday. I had Sunday free so I answered back “Sure. What am I shooting?”. Maria, a web designer and friend had a project for a tea company (Estate Tea Merchants) redesigning their web site and needed some photos for the site. She showed me some sample sites with the type of imagery she wanted. The main challenge was we had a … Read the rest

Contemplating Engagement Photography

When I started my first go around as a photographer I promised myself I would not shoot weddings or porn. Mostly for the same reason. They pay well, lack creativity and you can be very easily pigeonholed into that genre. I only broke that promise one and a half times. I shot a wedding for a friend that turned bad when the photo processor ruined the film. The half was a shoot involving a tattoo shop, a tattoo covered stripper and another stripper in a nurses outfit. It got out of hand.

Times have changed. Terry Richardson has made a … Read the rest

To Gear or Not to Gear?

Let’s face it, almost all photographers have a healthy dose of geek in them; in the digital age even more so. We’ve always loved our cameras and lighting and couldn’t wait to get our hands on the latest photo gadget. Digital photography has exacerbated this for many reasons. The top two that come to my mind are the fast evolution of this relatively new technology and the tight intertwining of photography and computers.

While writing a term paper in college, I came across the tidbit that if flight would have evolved as fast as the computer did, man would have … Read the rest