A portrait for today...

Tags:Personal Work, Portraits

Had some time to spend a few hours at EBT with my favorite dancers. As I'm going to be traveling to Europe for a few weeks, I wanted to spend some time in the studio shooting before I left. I took some lovely photos, and even was there to witness one of our dancers go up on point for the first time. I hope to get a few pictures from the past few weeks online soon.

Here are a couple of pictures of Viktoria - founder and danseuse extraordinaire...

Tags:Dance, Personal Work, Portraits, Emerald Ballet Theatre

The boys were feeling left out as I shot some pictures of Chloe (see yesterday's entry) so I popped them into the frame for a few shots each.

Lovely kids, and both are real hams. I wonder where they get that from.

Tags:Portraits

Well, sometimes clients change directions and ask for something else.

Nothing new with that. After posting the selects from a recent shoot for a Summer Intensive ad and even getting as far as image delivery, the powers that be changed their mind. No longer was the image to be a just a "happy girl" with a big smile. It needed to say "dance" as well.

Yes, I know.

I specifically asked about this and was told that it wasn't necessary.

Ok, round two. We re-shot a series of images more along the lines of what they now wanted - 3/4 portraits with elements of "happy girl" and "dance" thrown in for good measure.

Hey, I can do that.

Here are some of the out-takes (my favorites, only some of these were selects for the client):

I'm very pleased with this set and more-so with my wonderful model. What a trooper. And I love the colors I was getting out of Lightroom tonight. Sometimes things click, and especially the blue tones were really working for me.

I caught a video on YouTube of imaging wunderkind and all round great guy Seth Resnick (of D-65 Fame, highly recommended) at Imaging USA today:



Forgive the goofy video, focus on Seth's pearls of wisdom.

He's singing Lightroom's praises and I understand why. Today I was asked to go back in my archive 8 months and get a picture for a client - it took me less than a minute. I found it amidst the 60,000 other images I shot last year. Nice.

Finally, I worked late into the night working on a book for a client - 90 images in 50 pages. The prototype looks great and I'll be excited to send it off to the printers...

Tags:Portraits, Client Work

My youngest was in dire need of a haircut. I generally do them myself as its more work than its worth to drive them down to the Kuttin Korall when all I generally do is shave them nearly bald and call it done. Of course, I *always* shave it into a mohawk and act like I'm done, and then after the appropriate whooping and then wife-scowls, I finish the job.

To my utter surprise, this morning she let me get away with it. Well, mostly. I couldn't get her to let me go completely bald on the sides (just the smallest comb), but it looks really cute and he loves it. And honestly, knowing the tidal wave that he is, it fits him perfectly.

But why a mohawk? You see, my wife and I were punk rock back in the day. We reveled in the music and the straight edge lifestyle - as did all of our friends. We were hardcore - boots, painted/studded leather jackets, bright green Manic Panic dye and yes, the most awesome haircut of them all: the mohawk. I wore one for awhile - jet black and almost a foot tall. It was supreme when put up, although it made driving a chore as I'd have to tilt my head at a very uncomfortable angle. Yes, imagine it. I even met my mother-in-law to be for the first time in such glory.

But time crawls on, and 15 years later we are a happily married couple with 4 kids and the lovely family baggage that generally entails. Soccer. Ballet. Boards of Directors. Corporate lackey. etc. So I wax nostalgic at times regarding our more, ahem, vivid lifestyle.

So here is one for the mohawk. Go Liam!

PS. Kids today have more-or-less normalized what was fringe and exciting about punk, which kinda makes me sad. But I do see some of that original spirit every once in a while, so it ain't all posers and corporate "edgy" garbage.

Tags:Portraits