It’s been so busy that it’s been hard to keep up with the blog. I just returned from New Orleans where I shot with a couple of other photographers and good friends of mine and a couple of girls. The model I worked with is Mallory and I swear I could have sworn she is Alessandra Ambrosio’s long lost twin sister. Take a look for yourself…
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And our setting — the gorgeous New Orleans. The buildings are so unique and such a great resource as backdrops! Fellow photographers Reny Ramos, Dave Contreras and ArthurAlikhanian (from left to right) and Mallory.
Yes, this gorgeous lady in the middle is Chloé! Gorgeous, right? Mom and dad look good too, but she is obviously the standout star here. We definitely got some great family portraits even though Chloé turned out to be a really fast crawler!
Well, I really wanted to do these right, so I did take my time with them. This second image took 3 hrs to edit, but it was all worth it. As any experienced retoucher will be happy to tell you — there are no silver bullets or shortcuts in quality retouching, there are no magic tricks, there’s only dedication, hard work and time…lots and lots of time.
Again, make up and hair thanks to the one and only Holly Corsano @ hollycorsano.com. The pink lipstick!!! LOVE the pink lipstick!
And here’s something different for me. I thought she looked so menacing that I found the dark tones very appropriate. I asked for attitude and attitude is what I got!
Woohoo for a busy month. Ren and I had to pick up a few clothing items for an upcoming project only to realize in the car on the way to the store that we have booked the entire month of November. Fun and diverse projects coming our way too. The Energizer Bunny has nothing on the two of us!
Sometimes selecting a few “winners” among the hundreds of images from a good photoshoot can be just as daunting a task as finding a few OK images among the disappointing images from a bad shoot ( luckily we don’t have any of those! )
That’s why I swear by ACDSee Pro for image review and selection. It loads huge batches of images insanely fast and displays a good size of a preview as you hover over images with the mouse. As you can see it also displays the histogram of a highlighted (selected) image in the left bottom corner. The program also offers pretty comprehensive RAW processing ( even though, I prefer using Adobe Camera RAW for that). And the easy and quick batch processing functions are real life-savers let’s say, when watermarking a batch of 400 images that need to be sent to a client.
Yes-yes, Adobe Bridge offers very similar capabilities and functions, but there’s something special about ACDSee for me in terms of the interface.
The negative here, of course, is the fact that I need to switch between platforms when an image has been selected ( whereas Bridge will open the image for me directly into Camera Raw), but I am willing to take that extra step in my workflow, just because I like ACDSee that much!
A good shoot = hard decisions in selecting images for processing. Model: Brynn.
The preview popup window is big enought to judge detail and sharpness
Our most recent shoot — a client had asked for some simple head shots. This is probably one of favorites in the bunch.
Maggie — obviously a gorgeous girl.
I helped with the make up (MAC all the way! ), which we wanted to keep very clean to compliment her features.
Also used a double warming gel combo this time as the hair light. Her hair is so light that a regular hair light would have created some pretty hot spots and bleached it to white. I’m quite pleased with the effect and yes, I’ve been getting a lot of use out of those warming filters.
It’s a well known fact that once a person gets behind the camera, they are often reluctant to step back in front of it. This is true for me as well. This is probably one of the last self portraits I took and it was taken more than a year ago. Taking a self portrait falls into its own category as far as the experience goes. It can be quite intimidating because you are essentially responsible for all the aspects of the photo. The team work element is completely stripped away and you (being the photographer and the model in one) are baring it all, so to speak.
Maybe Ren can venture into the world of self portraits this Saturday when we are meeting up for a commercial shoot we have been planning for two weeks now.
The setup here’s extremely simple — two softboxes in the front and the instrumental remote shutter release.
We definitely got some great family portraits even though Chloé turned out to be a really fast crawler! 
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