Sneak peak pics from the Sensuality Project...

Wow!  Two posts in one day!

I must say that shooting in a venue like this is much different than anything else I've shot before so please go easy on me.  The rest of the photos are uploading and will be available in a day or two.  You can find them in the client gallery section of http://www.MGimagery.net

So, let's get some pictures going...........

The beautiful and talented Diana Deaver herself (on the right)

Lots of Beautiful people there tonight.

The Man of most awesome talent himself Eric Bradshaw enjoying Diana's work.

Fine young couple there.

So many expressions in this shot, I wish I knew the reason for this one.

Models everywhere!

We had a shootout :)

I love this guys style.  When you see him around you know it's a party!

What's a party without some music?

So many ways I could caption this one...

The Sensuality Project by Diana Deaver

The other night I got a call from a dear friend of mine, Diana Deaver asking me to come out and shoot at her premiere of The Sensuality Project at the Torch Velvet Lounge.  Her work is brilliant and to be asked to come out and shoot at her event was a bit overwhelming but an honor as well.  If only I could have a sliver of her  talent!

I must stay for those of you that did not make it out last night to see her premiere, you really missed out on a great time.  Fear not though as her work will be on display for the next month.  I highly recommend stopping in to check out her work.

Pics to come soon of the event!

Family day downtown

All weekend I've been tearing myself up trying to come up with ideas for things to shoot, frustrating.

I just gave up and decided to spend the day with the family and just have a good time and put the camera down.  Even though the day was meant to just spend time with them, we still ended up lugging around reflectors, umbrellas, light stands, etc...

Here's some random photos from today, nothing real serious.


Though I don't really care for shooting wildlife, I like to shoot these guys when I can just to practice panning.  They move really quick and it takes a lot of work to follow them smoothly with a 70-200 2.8 lens.

Tanya asked me to shoot this real quick, but since she was in a good bit of shade and the background was much brighter I decided to light her up.  To do so, i set my sb-800 camera left set to 28mm and bare to bring her exposure up.

Just a quick capture of my wife and son.

It was a crazy bright day and they were in the shade so I just quickly set up my reflective umbrella and sb-800 to light them up.  Unfortunately the background is still brighter than I'd like but I was already maxed out on shutter speed (gotta keep it at or below shutter sync), even at ISO 100.  If I had the time I would just up'ed the power but they were getting restless.

GOYA shoot with my brother....

If you don't know, GOYA is a term I picked up from Zack Arias  It means "Get off your A&$" and shoot. So that's what I did.

My brother decided to drop by and hang out and being a shooter himself, I got him to tag along.  Here's some random pics from today that I kind of liked.  Enjoy.


You Can't help but shoot the birds when you are down at the battery!

Had to go to -5 EV to get this...

Sometimes I like to do patterns and textures. Who knows, could make a good background for a later image.

Moultrie

I just needed a little more courage.

I loved how the light hit this one.

Served.

You see all kinds of artists here at the battery.,

My Bro and his F100 film camera...

My boy being silly on the wrong side of the diffuser panel.

Results of the diffuser panel.

Strobing to kill the sun with a bare SB-800

My favorite things...EYES

CCforP Lecture Series: David Sullivan

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the 2nd monday lecture series at the Charleston Center for Photography to listen to photographer asistant and photographer David Sullivan, aka Sully. 

He's a talented photography that has also had the opportunity to work as a first assistant to many top names in the fashion/photography industry.  Sharing his insight on being an assistant to other photogs is useful to anyone that has or wants to assist other photogs while gaining experience in the industry.  Not only is he well versed in the art of being a photo assistant, his witty presentation style rather enjoyable as well, sometimes even comical.

Since I got there way to early, I did what any photographer would be.  I shot.  Being in a little bit of a rut lately I decided to play around with some different subjects that are way outside of my normal.

Here they are......

I struggled to find anything interesting to shoot so I whipped out by SB-800 and cybersyncs to make it interesting.  For this, I simply set my flash to about 1/32 power and placed it on a pipe just below and to the left of the window.  Not sure why, but I really like it.  Kind of eery.

I've always been a big fan of simple minimalist photography.  This was an ariael telephone wire right outside of the CCforP.  Since there was still a little bit of daylight left but I didn't want any of the ambient, I set my SB-800 to 1/4 power and held it in my hand just below the lens pointing straight at the subject.  Using my shutter at it's max sync speed allows me to keep the ambient out giving the look as if it's completely dark outside, while a larger aperture (f4) allowed me to capture the right amount of flash since it was a relative long distance.  Just simple long throw hard light.

For those that are learning to mix ambient with flash lighting like me, here's the biggest tip I can give you.  Aperture controls flash while Shutter controls the ambient light. 

In a studio environment where flash is 100% of your available light, the shutter speed doesn't even matter.  Set it to whatever you want as long is it's at or below your max sync speed.

He says what I can't explain...

I know this is way over played every where else but I can't stop watching it.  Zack Arias says some of the things I've been trying really hard to put into words.

umm, what am I?

I was talking with another photographer whom I consider a friend about business and photography.  During our conversation, I began to wonder what kind of photographer I am.  I've put so much thought into what kind of photographer I'm not nor want to be, yet never thought about what kind I want to be.

What am I?

Am I an Artist?  No, I don't think so.  I've never worn a turtle with a beret and go to a coffee shop to drink tea.  To be honest, I don't even know what art is!  I don't think I have a creative bone in my body.

I'm a very technical person.  Sometimes it's a currse, sometimes a blessing.  I'm always trying to master something that someone else has already done, but have yet to do anything of my own.

I can look at an image and tell exactly how it was done, heck I can even recreate it.  How do I create my own?

Why do I even continue to shoot?  What's making me lose sleep constantly thinking about taking images?

I look at my images from past to present, I can see the image and it's huge.  They are technically better 10 fold yet just as boring as before.  What does everyone else see in them that I don't?  I don't get it.  I just keep trying to tell me self that as long as they like them that's all that matters.

That's it!  As long as the people I'm shooting for likes the images they get are happy than I'm happy.  I sat and thought about this for about.  The one common motivator in everything I've ever done has been to make others happy.  That's what makes me happy, while feeding my need to be the best at whatever it is I do.

I actually don't really care about the images I've created (well I do, as I don't like crap) but for me it's about the process to get there.  Someone might like my images, great for them.  For me, it's about the making of the images.  Planning the shoot, setting up my equipment, working with my subjects for the look I and they want, creating the customers vision.

Alot of times, the process of creating the image is as much of an art as the image itself.

Does this make sense to anyone?

I guess that's all for my senseless dribble this evening.