2013 In Review

So for this post since I've been a bit busy with finals and now the Christmas and New Years holiday I wanted to do a year in review type of post where I look back on what all I have done with my life in the past year and amazingly enough I almost have pictures to cover all the months! Also the idea came to me while I was taking inventory of what all I still had after my hard drive with my life got stolen. I must say I am slightly impressed with myself because at times this year seems to have passed so fast but some of these pictures I feel were last year or so but they weren't! If you click on the month (unless otherwise stated) it will take you to the corresponding blog post.

So its only right to kick this post off with the shoot that started this blog out!

January: The water droplets, I loved this shoot and would love to do it again given the time, assistant and equipment since the assistant used lives in New York and the equipment was borrowed. I feel like this was was so long ago but it was only a year ago and its what has set me on this lovely journey with you readers :D.

 February: So these were from the time I got food poisoning and wasn't able to do the lovely 5k so I stood back and took pictures which was super duper fun and amazing.

 March: Here are a couple shots from a shoot with one of my amazing friends back in March, I honestly thought this was done back in 2012 but to my memories surprise it was in March!

April: Now this one has multiple posts that correspond with it so I am linking you to the month of April because the second post starts the five post long adventure I took in April. Each group of pictures will have their own link to that post if you just want to individually look at that post. In April I went on a cruise to shoot my cousins wedding but it was such a wonderful experience altogether and so many amazing pictures! Some of these pictures did not make it to the blog posts so here are some new things!

Costa Maya

Belieze

Roatan

Cozumel which I apparently never posted about...

And the wedding pictures I did were not readily available on my computer after the incident so i'm just linking you all, but enjoy some pictures of the ship because it was super pretty and I never posted any.

May: I had worked a convention and shared with you all how to photoshop a background and make it blend a bit better than in you just dropped something in the picture.

June was quiet but July was super busy so each has their own link! First was the milk shoot, then fourth of July but I held off posting until recently and another convention!

 August: Ok so for august i'm actually liking you to a youtube channel that me and my brother had started up with him and his puppet because they are a hoot and a half together! We do plan on doing more with him but we have booth been so busy with school and work that it just hasn't happened yet! But we do have two videos up! So shameless plug, you should check it out!

Now there is where my progress kind of halted, school and work kind of got in the way and I went through a bit financially so finally I am back on track and doing what I love, I am linking but not attaching the newest pictures from posts but I am throwing in one of a soon to be post. I did pictures of one of my friends little girls, the shoot was fun and challenging (try shooting a super curious child who wont for the life of her stay on the backdrop) but as a photographer you have to make do and produce pictures that are to last a lifetime. I am also throwing in one of the graduation pictures I did of my roommate, Congrats!

So I'm thankful for those of you who have been on this crazy journey with me and stuck around. 2014 promises to be just as fun I am kicking it off in New York and hopefully if I can save up the money I will be going to Scotland in the summer for school! So as a shameless plug for me I am trying to save up money for the Scotland trip so I have opened up an etsy account and I am selling different .little things that I make so check it out and buy things please! (Also you should check out those ads on the sided and bottom of my blog...)
I am also selling fine art portraits of my photos if you are interested feel free to contact me for prices!

So I am signing off for this year and I will see you all bright eyed and bushy-tailed in 2014!

Life is kind of a living hell right now...

So I've been on this crazy long hiatus from you all because of life and all that jazz. I want to update you that I am still alive I have just been going through some crazy stuff, I have lost a friend (not dead just not really friends anymore), had a ton of stuff stolen from my car (which included my external hard drive so most of my pictures are all gone) and most recently I had a flat tire which hey isn't all bad but one on top of another on top of another is all fun right?

So I am not here to bore you on the woefulness that is my life but I as I make my way through all of this am thinking of starting up a separate blog about how my life could be a c list movie. I do plan on updating as soon as I have more free time but I know for sure there will be an update immediately following new years and hopefully one just before.

The one just before new years will be about how to shoot fireworks, all of those pictures should have been posted on my facebook so I should be able to go back and get those for that post, if not then I am a bit SOL because it really isn't firework season so lets hope I have them on my facebook :/

The one after new years will be of my trip to New York! I am super lucky to have this chance to go up to New York for new years, I have an amazing friend who is letting stay at his place so I don't have to pay for a hotel. I will be up there a week so I expect to have a couple different blog posts separating all of my pictures.

I am now in the midst of finals and getting crap done for my stupid art class and hopefully I will be able to have a post up in about two weeks(hopefully sooner if my life lets me do what I want) with a couple pictures I took over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Now I don't want to just throw a bunch of words at you and not give you any pictures so here are some pics I have either previously posted the shoot and didn't share or I just hadnt had a chance to share it just yet.

 This picture was from my Night Time Photography blog post. This was a little pencil pouch I used to carry arround so we have a bit of fun up on the bridge.

 This shot is from the Photoshoot with off camera lighting blog post. I have a TON of pictures from this shoot that were just down right amazing, most of which are posted on my facebook page if you would like to check them out.

 This one is an extra from the Better then spoiled milk blog post. Yet again I have a ton of these but I havent gotten around to editing most of them! Hopefully there will be more of these up on my facebook page in the future.

This picture or rather composite is from a photoshoot I did almost a year ago. This is one of my very good friends and we were doing promo pics for the cosplay group she runs and I created this little beauty for her. 

Backdrop it like its hot!

Navi annoying Link like always.

So this past weekend I was up in Houston for an anime convention, Delta H Con. It was fun and I had my backdrop setup like before with the white but this time I had a different backdrop because my last backdrop was messed up by my last shoot :o but it was so worth it. So when I went online to get a new backdrop I got a vinyl backdrop and I LOVE it! Here are some of my favorite shot from this weekend!

Link ready for battle

Navi being ignored like always :(

 I did not have any lights directed at my backdrop so it came out a bit grey in photos but that doesn't matter because I was aiming for a solid backdrop. Also for this con I forgot one of the key pieces for my off camera flash system so I had to use all three flashes one on master the other two on remote and I was bouncing the flash that was on my camera. Most of these shots are from a production company I work for Twisted Dreamscapes Productions you can find us on facebook. I will post up a review for my backdrop I just need to write it up first :D

All of these have already been posted on my facebook but there will be more so keep an eye out!

The Mad Hatter

Ariel and her dinglehopper

Star trek engineer, she was super sweet!

Happy bat family? probably not...

Cat woman can steal me any day!

Better then spoiled milk!

Ok so I know this post is going up super late and I am sorry just been busy and time got away from me! So I know those of you who follow my facebook are expecting a fireworks post but I think I am going to save that for closer to new years so you can get your own amazing shots! So that being said I am going to talk about the amazing session that I had this weekend with the most amazing model ever!

So the best I can describe this shoot is basically we played in colored milk all day! Well we started with water but I am getting ahead of myself! So setup is the most important part of this because it can get MESSY! So this picture of the setup is after because I was too lame to get one before but you can see the mess it can make!

 

So for the setup we put the backdrop as far from the splash zone as possible. For the splash zone we had the bars for a backdrop set up and attached a painters drop cloth to it. This was to catch any extra spillage that didn’t immediately drop down into the little pool we had. As an added security we taped one of the drop cloths to the other to make it longer and extend into the pool so we could easily poor the liquid out.

For the lighting we had one strobe to the right of us and one strobe behind the model off to the left of us to catch the liquid. The camera was set at 1/250 shutter, 250 ISO and 13 f-stop which for me this is a usual “studio” setting.

Next was the fun part, so this shoot is only successfully able to be pulled off with a minimum of 3 people (a photographer, an assistant and a model). So to start this shoot we started with water because as weird as this sounds it’s not the easiest thing to throw liquid at somebody and make it land where you need it to. So we started with water to test our skills. We got fun and creative with the water because we didn’t have to worry about running out of it! We switched places so we could each get pictures and get the timing down because that can be tricky too! Everyone is different but the best way to be ready is have the photographer count down so that when the water is thrown the photographer is ready.

Next we moved on to the colored milk. For this we used a gallon of whole milk, a big thing of plain yogurt (for thickness) and dye. Mix all of these into a bucket with a mixer so that it is a nice smooth mixture. Then came the fun part, throwing the mixture on to your model. It was SUPER cold and she was definitely not expecting that but she was a trooper and continued getting pelted with freezing cold milk mixture.

We switched it up at the end, I was shooting the pink mixture and my super amazing photog friend Everett (who I posted about last week) was shooting the purple mixture. So we each had turns in the water round to get our aim right and then continued on to the milk mixture. After all was said and done we were ready for cleanup and our model wanted to take pictures of us in her position. We were a bit hesitant but we obliged because you shouldn’t make your model do what you wouldn’t. It was quite fun but in the end we ended up smelling like soiled milk which is why wherever you do it you need to make sure cleanup is easy. We were in Everett’s garage so we were able to mop everything up and spray it down with the hose. All in all it was a super fun shoot and I definitely want to be able to do it again with different colors!

Here are some other shots from this shoot! I'm just in love our model was amazing and was up for anything! The water portion of this shoot has inspired me to start a series of elemental shots so those will hopefully be on the way I have plans for fire, air and earth basing most of the posing off of Avatar the Last Airbender (because I'm a nerd and that;s how the idea came up).