Dreams of Wind
February 28th, 2009
Playing with the fan and a beautiful dress made for some stunning results.
Leaps and Bounds
February 28th, 2009
Megan, Skyler, and Alison are dancers in the local Ballet school. Their love of dancing, and unbelievable body control and form made for an easy and enjoyable photo shoot. This was my first attempt at strobe-frozen dance photography and I’m quite pleased with the results.
Who Knew: Shoes!
February 19th, 2009
My friend Julia Kreibich just launched her website for professionals in the shoe industry. You might remember Julia from Abandoned House Shoot #1 for which she was the stylist. From the moment I met her I realized that Julia is one of those people. Talented, enthusiastic, and just plain awesome. So if you’re working in the Shoe Industry walk, don’t run (though if you’re in heels a jog is acceptable), to: Shoebizness: Shoe Buisness Forum
Flavia
February 12th, 2009
Flavia’s first shoot did not make it onto this website because, like many models doing their first “testing” (an unpaid shoot to build a modeling portfolio) she was a bit nervous and consequently her photos did not exude confidence.
What a difference a few hours of shooting can make. I hope you’ll agree that Flavia’s second shoot went exceedingly well.
Abandoned House Shoot | Take 2
February 10th, 2009
This week my motley crew of photographers, assistants, models, and makeup/hair stylists (with a few new faces) went back to the location of our last Abandoned House Shoot. On our last shoot at this location we had so many ideas we couldn’t capture them all in one night.
The first image below and the group shot of the crew are light paintings where the camera is kept open and exposing for several minutes while the light is “painted” on using a flashlight or multiple flashes from a small hand-held strobe.
From left to right are: Madeline Cosme [Makeup/Hair], Scarlet Fernadez [Model], Tom Laveuf [Photographer], Lauren Coleman [Model], Cameron Gagne [Model], Alex [Assistant], Sonia [Wardrobe], Krista Leger [Photographer
Behind the Camera, not pictured: Me.
Sunset with Meetup.com
February 9th, 2009
Recently I found meetup.com which is a social organization site that encourages people with similar interests to get together in “meetups.” One of the meetups local to Miami Beach is a photo meetup.
These are four photos taken at a sunset shoot organized by this group. It’s always a pleasure to meet fellow photographers. If you’d like to join there are two such groups Miami Photography and Shoot Miami.
Moab: Losing my Leica Virginity
February 7th, 2009
Leica is a treasured and storied name in photography, having an illustrious past and a following akin to religious fanatical or Apple fans. I made it over a decade in photography without holding a single Leica camera in my hands. During this trip to Moab I had the privilege of shooting a Leica M8 Mark II which was a loan arranged by Guy Mancuso compliments of Leica itself. Let’s be clear: my usual shooting kit consists of gear totaling around $60,000, so I am no stranger to high-end gear, but shooting the M8 still felt like I was stealing breath from the devil. The prestige and aura surrounding the name “Leica” would be difficult for any non-photographer to understand.
The ergonomics, functionality, feel, pure joy of shooting this camera was truly amazing. However, once I opened the files I felt instantly disappointed. Being used to the unparalleled image quality produced by a Phase One Digital Back I am extremely spoiled. The two camera systems are not in the same price league ($4k street vs. $40k street), nor are they in the same league quality wise.
Still I loved losing my Leica virginity and look forward to the private indoctrination ceremony whereby masked Leicaphiles brand you with a Red dot (the Leica trademark). Here are some of the images I took from around of only four natural double-arches in the world (where one arch ends with the beginning of another arch).
Moab: The Flight From Miami
February 5th, 2009
The MIA-DEN flight left long before the sun rose in Miami. The sunrise through the plane window made for an excellent treat on the way to Denver. A good sunrise on a flight to a photo workshop is a sign of good things to come!
Moab: Black and White Landscape
February 5th, 2009
Here are some of the images I captured at the Moab, Utah workshop run by GetDPI at which I was a guest instructor. These were shot with a Phase One P21 medium format digital camera modified for infrared capture. I’ve written about infrared photography previously and have a portfolio of landscape images taken with various infrared devices (film, dSLR, and medium format digital).
Moab: Why I Went
February 5th, 2009
This past week I had the pleasure of being a guest-instructor at a GetDPI landscape photography workshop in Moab Utah. The coordinators of the workshop, Guy Mancuso and Jack Flesher asked me to lead instruction on one of my areas of expertise: Capture One (a program used in high end photography for conversion of raw camera files into finished photographs). Every morning we would wake up and be at the nearby national parks well before dawn so we could catch a particular view at sunrise. While I returned to Florida utterly exhausted I feel extremely fortunate to have been asked to teach alongside two of my photographic heros, men of enormous integrity and skill. The GetDPI Forum has grown to become the the best place on the web to gather to discuss landscape photography with a healthy mix of seasoned veterans and fresh faces.
Images: Black and White, the Flight from Miami, Losing my Leica Virginity, Moab in Color