Mary Beth & Bryant at Brittlebank Park

I’ve been looking forward to meeting Mary Beth & Bryant for a VERY long time! We finally met up this weekend, on a gorgeous spring day, to capture some beautiful engagement photos for their up-coming wedding. 🙂

Starting off at Hampton Park, I was quite surprised at how many flowers were already in full bloom! With vibrant colors from the flowers, huge oak trees, a black iron bridge, and long wooded walkways, we came away with some absolutely MAGICAL images! But to top it all off, we zipped over to Brittlebank Park to capture the last rays of a gorgeous setting sun over the Ashley River… and of course the beautiful twilight that followed.

I had such a blast getting to know Mary Beth and Bryant. I can’t wait to be there for them to preserve all the special moments of their amazing wedding this summer!!!

Headshots for Siemon Whiteside

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of photographing more head-shot for one of my favorite clients! As Siemon Whiteside continues to grow and expand, they bring me in to photograph the newest members of their awesome team of professionals.

Setting up my portable studio in their conference room included the following: Savage seamless black background, Nikon D5, Sony XQD Card, Nikkor 70-200, Nikon SB-5000 (Master) flash, Westcott Apollo 50″ softbox with 3 SB-800 flashes (main light), two Westcott Apollo Strip Lights with 1 SB-800 each (rim lights), RadioPoppers (to sync all flashes), and Lenovo Yoga Laptop (tethered to camera).

I always enjoy working with this awesome team of wonderful human beings!

Comcast Conference

Over the course of the two-day Comcast Conference, held at the North Charleston Marriott, I had the pleasure of photographing head-shots for over 150 executives, managers, and team leaders. It was hard work keeping on schedule and maintaining that pace. But everyone was so kind and gracious, and each individual was so full of energy. They kept me pumped up!  And I had so much fun! What a great group!!!

Sunrise Shoot in Cartagena, Colombia

While in Cartagena, Colombia, I had the opportunity to photograph an AMAZING sunrise photo shoot with my good friends and gorgeous models, Heidi and Stella!
Arriving on the deserted beach in front of the Hilton Cartagena before dawn, I saw a bunch of birds circling overhead in the dim light. Rounding the rock jetty, I saw they were keen on picking off the remnants of a boat full of fisherman. It was fun watching the men work the nets and show off their catch with glee. The egrets, herons, and frigat birds fought for the scraps around the perimeter.

When Heidi and Stella arrived, we headed over to the rock jetty and the dilapidated lifeguard stand. One of my favorite shots is the one of them in the doorway of the faded structure up on its wooden stilts. Shooting with a Nikon D850 and a Nikkor 16-35 f4 VR, I placed a Nikon SB-5000 flash behind them inside the room, and covered it with a CTO warming gel to create a warm silhouette against that electric blue sky. The great white heron perched on top was just icing on the cake!

The rest of the shoot was done with a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRII, often mixing in the SB-5000 flash, mounted on a Manfrotto 5001 nano stand as either a rim light, kicker light, or an off-camera main light. I love Nikon’s new Advanced Wireless Lighting (AWL) system, which allows me to control the flash directly from the camera’s menu.

I had an absolute BLAST with Heidi and Stella as we enjoyed our final morning in Cartagena together! These two adventurous ladies were heading out to an island off the coast later that morning, as Cami and I boarded a plane for our flight back to America. 🙂

Colorado

The Pomona-Pitzer Women’s Water Polo team has its sights set on a three-peat for the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championship in 2019.

The Sagehens are coming off of a historic season in which they repeated as SCIAC Champions and went a perfect 14-0 in conference play. The Sagehens went 22-11 overall and had impressive regular season wins over the Chinese national team and Brown before falling in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament to UC Irvine.

Many of the experienced players from The Sagehens return from seasons past with a total of eight seniors to lead the team, including star goalie Morgan Stockham. This season, Morgan appeared in 29 games with an 18-8 record and 125 saves.

I had the distinct honor of photographing Morgan at the team’s training center in Claremont, CA. Many thanks to her amazing mother, Sarah, for inviting me on this shoot, and capturing the behind-the-scenes shots as I worked!

Behind-the-Scenes Fashion Shoot

Today’s photo shoot finds me at Pixel Studios, where I’m photographing a high-key fashion shoot for an upcoming style book called Thirty Classic Garments.

Follow along on this behind-the-scenes video. Created with the help of studio owner and fellow photographer, LeRoy, we discuss the high-key lighting setup, using gels to color the background, and switching to neutral gray for a different look. We also go through how to shoot tethered to a laptop. And of course we talk about Nikon vs Canon vs Sony vs Panasonic vs Olympus vs Everybody Else!

Look for Sarah & Julie’s new book, Thirty Classic Garments, in stores soon. In the meantime, check out their previous book, The Tunic Bible at: https://goo.gl/Dj4ahm.

Visit out Pixel Studios at: https://goo.gl/CAo4Sm.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I always respond. If you like this video, please give us a Thumbs Up, Subscribe to the channel, and Share with all your friends and family!

GEAR FOR THIS SHOOT: Nikon D850 (http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/…) Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 (https://goo.gl/HFXUgF) Alien Bee Strobes (http://www.alienbees.com/flash.html) Lenove Yoga 900 (https://goo.gl/YKyVN1).

Lawson’s Senior Portraits

Lawson is an incredibly smart, kind, and beautiful young lady! Her easy-going personality and naturally quiet demeanor has a calming effect on everyone around her. And when that infectious smile bursts out, you can’t help but be happy inside! Lawson plays golf on her high-school team, and is hoping to study law when she goes to college.

Yesterday I had a really fun mentoring session with my friends Geno and Tyler. They were kind enough to teach me how to fly their drones. So I returned the favor by sharing some photography tips. Lawson was kind enough to accept the challenge of being our super model for the afternoon as we worked on our techniques. What a brave girl!!! 😉

We started our fun fashion shoot off at Hampton Park…later progressing to Brittlebank Park for the sunset. It was a gorgeous day, and Lawson was absolutely STUNNING!!! It was an honor and a pleasure to capture some creative Senior Portraits for this amazing young lady!

Taylor’s Modeling Portfolio

Last night our friend Robin brought her beautiful daughter, Taylor, to model for me and a few of my crazy fun photographer friends!

All images were shot with a Nikon D4 and Nikkor 70-200 f2.8. I used a Nikon SB-5000 as a Master flash to trigger 3 SB-800 Remote flashes. Two SB-800 flashes were ganged together as Group A in a 24″ EZY Box as the main light. One bare-bulb SB-800 in Group A was used as a kicker/rim light. All flashes were triggered with the RadioPopper Px system. After sunset, I placed full CTO gels on each flash and switched the cameras White-Balance to tungsten, giving the sky that electric blue tone.

Many thanks to David for the use of his classic Porsche, and to Michelle for hosting the event and finding this incredible location. But most importantly, a huge thank you to Taylor for braving the mosquitoes and looking absolutely FABULOUS!!! 🙂

Nikon SB-5000 does Head-shots for Clawson & Staubes

After receiving the new Nikon SB-5000 a few days ago, I put it through all the rigorous paces to make sure everything was working perfectly, and that I knew what every button and menu item did. This is Nikon’s latest, most advanced speedlight…and it has a few new tricks over previous models. I’ll get into those in a later post! 🙂

Yesterday was my first assignment with the new flashes, and they worked BEAUTIFULLY!!! I was photographing environmental head-shots of new attorneys for one of my favorite clients, Clawson & Staubes.

The images were made with a Nikon D4, Nikkor 70-200 VRII, an SB-5000 on the camera, running as the Master in CLS mode, and two SB-800 flashes as remotes, firing through a 24″ softbox. Everything ran beautifully! The new flash recycles extremely fast…the size is smaller…and the design of the button layout is even more user-friendly than all previous generations I’ve worked with.  The best part is, it’s completely backwards compatible with all other Creative Lighting System flashes!

Next, I’ll be working with the new Advanced Wireless Lighting (AWL) radio mode. Stay tuned…