Like a Marlboro Ad

had a fun shoot with a model looking to update her folio. There will be more but I edited just one so far.

Lessons learned 

- don't let models venture away and talk to their friends on the phone while we are losing light. 
- Be straight with them and tell them what looks good and especially what looks bad. They will give more shots this way. 
-Ranger Deep octa is great, but I need a larger light mod. Suggestions? (Elinchrom, Profoto, Chimera only pls) 

This is a simple shot and i used the big ranger and the Sun.

Fashionably lost

This is the same Amalia model but the location is different, as well as pretty much the entire setup. I can't even say it was the same shoot. Same day, yes, but the rest... 
let me just say that this was the most challenging location and the shoot I have ever done to date. 
The place was really difficult to get to, being very deceiving how close it was. I sctatched the hell out of myself, while bringing the gear down into the dry creek bed. 
The model was almost in tears, trying to stand up in high heels, which we decided to remove from the set entirely, after 30 minutes of struggle. 
Technically this was the set of dragging the shutter and making sure the model is frozen in the time continuum. Lots of blurry shots in the beginning and about 20 minutes to find the right balance between the holy trinity of ISO, f stops and shuter speeds. I swear it reminded me of mixing a cocktail for some reason! We all needed a drink after this set. 
I am pretty happy with the results, considering the circumstances. My wife was a great support, being an awesome MUA, model's support hotline and a voice activated lightstand! Love her to pieces! 
Anyway, just one shot, sorry. More to come if I feel like it 

Cool Waters

Nick called me today, as I was walking my dogs, and asked for some portfolio headshots and a portrait or two just himself. Totally unprepared I said yes, since it was either a couple of hours of shooting or a couple of hours being bored. We have a heated pool at our apartment complex and decided to try something with water at the same time knocking out some natural light shots. Little did we know that our little model will be pushing himself almost to hypothermia THAT's dedication. 

The light was pretty challenging since the pool is oddly shaped and we ended up with the deel octa to camera left and a bare Quadra all the way 40 feet away on the opposite side. I was very pleased at the performance of that little thingy, since it was working at full power while still managing to recycle at a pretty decent rate. Not as fast as the RX Speed though. 

Nick is not a professional model and today was more of an extreme cold practice run for him. That heated pool is still 20 degrees cooler than I'd like it too be. Gotta go talk to the manager :)

Overall today pretty much was fun, since this is my first water shoot. I will absolutely return to our beloved pool and they say that the hot tub is gonan be fixed really soon :) cant wait!! 

Mrs King

my wife is very supportive even when I ask her to stay still for a minute (which is a huge accomplishment for her ) 
These are the samples from a quick test shoot we did right outside our windows on the bench. I tested my new Elinchrom Quadra and my wife tested her new hairdo 

no makeup and very little editing. the top one is warmer since I played with color balance a tad. She liked the cooler one better and that's why i am posting both. 

main - EL ranger with deep octa
hair rim - EL RQ w/small kit reflector behind a leafy branch (natural cookie)

the rest in the exif as always.

Foggy Due

Souls of LA

yet another street photo outing. There's always something magical about captureing raw emotions and just everyday life.
I encourage everyone who is passionate about photography and especially about people photography to go out and try this. 
Play some music in your headphones and just watch. Don't forget to click. 
You have only one shot to make it happen. I am not sure if I "made it happen" for the viewers, but consider this a neverending exercise in photography. 

What I really liked about today is the light. Very harsh because of the super low humidity especially good for high contrast images, so this is what I was going for. Hard light is not always a bad thing, contrary to popular belief. 

These photos were taken at the annual Taste of Soul event in LA, CA.

Brand New Kitty!

actually kitties! The cat that lives by our place just had 4 little kittens and I am presenting one of them to you! Cute thing is only 3 hours old :)