London

Is the current city I’m in. Sweet. No promises on a post anytime soon cause internet could be iffy the next couple weeks. Party on….

Peace.

Aaron & Ira ::: Old Town Scottsdale

Heyo! Another married couple/friends of mine wanted their own shoot (for no reason whatsoever) so I happily obliged. We started off about an hour later than planned so we missed out on a lot of light.

They were a really fun couple to shoot. Just kind of goofy people. However I think they pulled off the serious shots pretty well. Ira is a photographer herself and helped me with this shoot.

Things I learned:

DON’T cut it close at dusk.
The nifty fifty + 5D2 isn’t always glorious (where the crap are these focus issues coming from?!)
Even with the focusing issues, and even with some nice L glass, I still love my 1989 50 1.8.
I need to invest in some Pocket Wizards ASAP, cause I’m totally fed up with Canon’s IR.
Post processing to the rescue!

Gearcheck:

5D2
50.8
135L
16/35L
3x580EX

This is them telling me there’s a car coming… While I’m telling them there’s a car coming. Haha.

Favorite

As for the flash shot from a few posts ago, the hotshoe on my flash broke so I finally got around to fixing it. I got my Eurail pass (2 days! Whoo!), and Steffi’s prints came in. They look dang nice.

That’s about it for now, I’ve been crazy busy trying to get ready for London!!! My next post might be from a different state, country, and/or continent!

Peace.

Aaron & Ira ::: Teaser

Next on the to edit list: Shoot from tonight with Aaron and Ira.

More coming soon…

A Few Quick Updates…

Explanations coming soon.

Peace.

Welcome to the 30’s [20’s?]

Hello dearest readers… Summer’s coming down fast. Days are starting to speed up again. In 3 1/2 weeks I’ll be in freaking Europe. Heck to the yes.

So the most recent chaos that is occuring in the Villa home is Dave’s rebroken wrist. Ok, we don’t actually know if it’s broken yet [he is on route to the hospital as I’m writing this] but we’re pretty sure it is. He broke it playing football. Again. He did the exact same thing last year. Twice. So far Dave’s football casualties have include three broken fingers and two broken bones in the hand. All in his left hand. And that’s not even including this time. Needless to say his piano teacher is pissed. Bonehead.

My photofriend Ira and I went on a shoot last weekend and it was pretty fun stuff. Got to mess around with some new lighting and processing and I think I’m liking how they turned out. Brandon and Breanna [our lovely models] got all tuxed-up in a 1930’s [maybe 1920’s] get up and we headed into Downtown Gilbert for some lens flare fun. Here are my faves from the shoot:

Third favorite from the evening:

So they were dancing here. But it kinda came out looking like a boob grab. Either way I love their expressions. [Second favorite]

Favorite

Steffi Rocks a Shoot

So yesterday I did my first senior shoot outside of working at Leasures. It was a ton of fun and Steffi absolutely rocked the camera. Also, she gets major props for trekking around for four freaking hours (it went a little long…) in heels. Not only that, but we were hiking up ridiculous hills, kicking around gravel in junkyards, dodging electric fences, and walking down tipsy docks. The words “just don’t get me killed” were probably said way too frequently. Anyways, it turned out to be way more of an adventure than either of us had planned for, but it was that much more fun.

This shoot was also a way sweet one for me because it was the first shoot I got to use my shiny new 35L. Mmm…. Beauteous. Diggin’ it.

So that’s the intro, onto the pics:

By far my favorite from the whole day 🙂

“Ok, now jump off the swing.”
“Like from high up? Like a real jump?”

Favorite number dos

Conquering the wobbly plastic dock in heels. Way to be.

Coming next: 1930’s photoshoot in downtown Gilbert. Check back soon peeps.

Peace.

Get Stoked

Steffi totally rocked a photoshoot today. Here’s a [very vague and straight out of camera] teaser for the awesomeness that is coming soon to a Mikerophone near you:

Roll.

Yumatown

Hey folksies. I mixed up the blog a little bit. I never really liked my old layout and I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one. One day I’ll get my own hosted one that I’ll be satisfied with, but until then I’ll make do with wordpress’s canned themes. Also, new logo (again…) to go along with it. Thoughts?

So. I’m back from Yuma. Tada. We definitely had a lot of funny moments going on and I am most definitely glad to be home. For those of you who missed the memo, three of us young-ins from Leasures trekked it out to Yuma to shoot the senior portraits for Yuma High School. If Tuscan is the armpit of Arizona, then Yuma is definitely the butthole. You can put a little deodorant on the armpit and clean it up some (aka a university), but the butt region is just kinda hopeless.

There were some really cool places though. Apparently Sundeee has some family somethin’ or other who runs a casino that we did a whole photoshoot in front of.

We spent about 8 hours a day taking photos, so what did we do for fun after we finished working for the day? Take more photos of course. Phototrek number one was out in the dunes of way east Cali, about one mile out from the Mexican border. All was going as planned, until we got there and the lovely ladies decided it would be a great idea to park on the sand despite my pleas of avoidance. Twenty minutes later, I was the one with the shovel digging out the van. Hahaha. We eventually had to get pulled out by the border patrol. At least they’re doing something!

Galaxie’s desert get up:

So all of the dust going across the road in this pic looks pretty sweet. I thought it was pretty spiffy until I realized it was raping my camera. I couldn’t even see through the lens by the time I picked it up. I guess it served as a good unplanned test of the 5D2’s weather sealing eh? Whoops.

And the cameo:

Peace yo.

Also

I forgot to add, I’m getting better at the uke. My massive library of three (3!) songs [all using the exact same chords of course] is sounding good. Too bad I can’t strum and sing at the same time. Look for a uke vid sometime soon. Probably after I get back from Yuma.

Ok.

Rollfest.

Fo reals this time.

The Prelude to Epic

So I’m in Yuma. Don’t ask. Work. Weird. Crazy. Anyways can’t sleep. So here is my random, very jumbled thought for the night. One day I’ll learn how to write well, I promise.

Blogs confused me for a really long time. For that matter stories in general have always confused me. I didn’t understand how I could be so totally enthralled with one story/blog/book/movie/song, and completely bored by another that was very similar to the first. Tonight I realized it’s because there are two kinds of stories/books/movies/plots/blogs.

One kind of story simply communicates information. It exists to convey what is happening. I don’t have anything against that. If anything, I’m a total infogeek. I can point to any car on the road and tell you what size engine it has, how much horsepower and torque it makes, and if it will chill your wine (I’d like to be able to say I was kidding on the last one). I can list off the entire Canon lens and body line up and give you the approximate prices for them. New and Used. I can do the same thing for Nikon. I don’t even shoot Nikon.

The info communicated doesn’t have to be a spreadsheet list of chronological stupendipities or a chart of choreographed frivolities, it can be a genuinely interesting tale of what happened in a person’s day, or a conversation of “hello’s” and “how are you’s” between two people, but in the end it still is just a recap of what has happened. Not necessarily a bad thing, there just happens to be a different kind of story that holds my interest better.

The second kind of story is the kind that exists to communicate a purpose. It extends beyond one person or one event. It may not even use words to explain that there is something more to the story than just information, sometimes it’s just implied. It keeps you thinking. And most importantly, it impacts you. You might feel motivated, inspired, disgusted, intrigued, demotivated… anything. But by the time you’re done reading/watching/listening/soaking it in, you can feel the epicness just oozing out of you.

For whatever reason, this summer has had an incredibly epic feeling to it. I’ve probably used that word in this blog 2374124 times this summer. Maybe it’s because I’m mentally preparing myself for a once in a life time semester abroad with a few awesome friends, maybe it’s because I’m starting to realize I’m actually on the right career path, maybe it’s just because the word epic was way freaking overused at Biola. I’m not really sure why, but whatever the reason, this whole summer has had the linings of “epic” written all over it. It’s not a “currently happening” kind of greatness, it’s more of a build. Think of it as something like Angels & Airwaves’ “Call to Arms”. It’s been a prelude to something big, something really awesome that’s coming up. It might be London, or it might be something else, I’m not really sure. All I know is that I’m stoked beyond all belief.

Rollfest.