You might think I could get tired of shooting beautiful women in the South Beach Sunset. Actually, you probably don’t think that.
This was Susell’s first shoot; though you wouldn’t know from the images, her work ethic, or her natural manner in front of the camera.
The same beautiful Tina you may have noticed in the Seaquarium Charity Event photos. These are a few weeks old, but better late than never.
Styling by the lovely Julia of Pearl and Company. Small world right?
I’m really not sure what day or hour it is right now. Red eye flights from Vegas always leave me disoriented and confused.
While I went to Vegas to help my friend and fellow photographer Luke Potter shoot a wedding (including a shoot at an abandoned Vegas Sign graveyard) I couldn’t pass on the chance to shoot in the desert.
The wind was blowing across the sand like a banshee. Fortunately Teri Marie was a truly professional model and stuck through the high wind, constant dust in her eyes, and abusive sun. Finding good models (10% looks, 40% talent, 50% professionalism) is hard work, so if you are in the Vegas area and need a model who you can count on I can strongly recommend Teri.
The style in these shots is heavily dependent on the lighting technique. The camera used for this shoot was a Hasselblad H2 medium format body with a Phase One digital back. The H2 system uses leaf shutter lenses which can sync with flash at 1/800th of a second, which means it’s relatively easy to under-expose the ambient light (making the clouds, sky, and ground dark) and take most of the light from the strobes.
Photo styling by Julia Kreibich.
THE “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”
Keep Reading the Masque of the Red Death
Fun fact: 1 out of 9 homes are now vacant due to the crises in real estate (USA Today Article).
Below is model Florencia.
Tom Laveuf and I teamed up for a casual shoot at South Point jetty in South Beach. Even after a week full of exhausting shooting, it can be one of my truest forms of relaxation to shoot.
Dear Ladies,
Please find below your black and white headshots. Your event coordinator will be deciding how best to use these headshots in your program. In addition to viewing these images online I have prepared both the black and white, and color images, as downloads.
Please note that nearly all of you opted to purchase your portrait as a high-resolution, full-color, retouched image. Therefore I have placed all of the headshots in their retouched form in this download. Tom and I spent our entire Sunday and most of my Monday evening setting up, shooting, editing, retouching, and posting these images for delivery. Please also note that $30 for a portrait is about what Sears charges, and well, frankly, Tom and I are a heck of a lot better than Sears; we only charged $30 because we too were poor college student at one time and while I don’t know your individual circumstances I’m sure most of you are not rolling in the money. All that said, if you opted not to purchase your portrait I ask that you respect my time and intellectual property by not downloading your image. If, after seeing your portrait you would like to purchase it please email me at info@doug-peterson.com and we can arrange for you to pay using PayPal or by mailing a check so that you can, without any moral hesitation, immediately download your portrait.
Download Black and White Low Resolution Images (this link will remain active during March only)
Download Retouched Color High Resolution Images (this link will remain active during March only)
If any of you have friends or family that are getting married, need photography for their business, or would like to test as a model we would love the referral. It was an absolute pleasure working with you all and I look forward to seeing you all at your event.
Tom and I are also be recruiting models for the following shoots. Please contact me at info@doug-peterson.com if you or any of your friends would like to hear more about this opportunity.
- Underwater Shoot with long flowing dresses
- Lingerie in a Derelict Private Jet
- An Infrared Portrait Series on the Beach
Sincerely,
Doug Peterson (doug-peterson.com) & Tom Lauvef (tomlaveuf.com)
Playing with the fan and a beautiful dress made for some stunning results.
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.
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.
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.
Very few high end photographers work alone. It can take an entire team of talent, assistants, and production agents to accomplish a single finished image. This weekend I was very fortunate to be part of an amazing team photographing fashion in South Beach. The makeup artist and wardrobe-coordinator/stylist did a wonderful job of creating a look for the models that either contrasted or complimented the grungy look of the location. The three photographers (myself included) traded off shooting and assisting. Below is the team as captured by Tom and I at the end of the night. The room we are in was completely dark, which allowed for easy light painting. In light painting you leave the camera open and use a flashlight (or strobe, candle, or whatever) to paint light on. In this case I ran through the frame like a mad man waving an LED flashlight which I then tossed to Tom so that I could be included.
From left to right are: Julia Kreibich [Stylist], Scarlet Fernadez [Model], me, Claudia Davila [Model], Tom Laveuf [Photographer], Lauren Coleman [Makeup], Krista Leger [Photographer].
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It was my pleasure to be an assistant and digital instructor at the GetDPI.com Lighting Workshop in Florida a few months back.
While most of my time was spent assisting the lighting instructors and giving the students tips on digital workflow and raw processing I was able to participate in some of the shooting. The beach shot in my retouching section was from the sunrise shoot from this event.
Most of the workshop was in-studio at a first class rental studio in Fort Lauderdale by the name of TYE Studios. The best set was a dozen+ light setup used to accomplish this shot:
Scarlet and I met in line waiting 4 hours to vote early in the 2008 presidential election. The conversation turned to modeling, and a shoot this Sunday was the result. We originally hoped to start at sunrise on the beach, but the weather had other plans. From the photos below, taken in my studio as a backup plan, I hope it’s clear why I’m not at all disappointed. For those keeping track, all of my friends who waited until election day to vote did not wait 4 hours combine
