Spot News

As I was driving last night, I saw that there was a fire. I decided to stop by and see what was going on. It turned out that a sushi restaurant, Fujiyama, had caught fire off Central Avenue, west of San Mateo Boulevard. There were at least four fire units at the scene and many cops securing the area. Since my camera was handy, we hung out in the area for a few minutes.

My last major spot news event was when the basement of Zimmerman Library flooded after being renovated due to the fire prior to that. I got my feet wet in the midst of the scene and it was exciting. This too gave me excitement, and sharpened my photography skills, as I had to think on the fly about my settings.

If I were to do this over again, I would have been more assertive about finding a place to park so I would not miss any moments unnecessarily.

Rodeo and Rodney Atkins

Last weekend I had the opportunity to photograph my first rodeo at the New Mexico State Fair followed by a concert with Rodney Atkins. It was a great first experience of a rodeo. These are some of my favorite images of the night.

YAFL Action

Here are some YAFL action photos I've taken over the past month for Kim Jew Sports. Action is something I enjoy shooting because moments are always coming and going and using a camera is an opportunity to capture these instances. Someone once told me that "If you saw it, you missed it." Meaning that if you saw the play, then you probably didn't capture it in your camera. This phrase rings through my mind as I shoot. The other important aspect to action photography is paying attention. You never know what will happen during a game, even if it feels routine. This is true in life as well, because sometimes you may just miss something amazing and not even know it came and went. 

All images shot with my 70-200mm f/2.8 and a hand-full of them with a 300mm f/2.8 thanks to my boss.

Julia

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of photographing my friend Julia. She is one of those stylish girls that is always wearing something new and trendy. I knew she would be fun to photograph and give me the type of images I wanted. When I got to her house she had an outfit concept and we went with it. Giraffes. She got her giraffe tights and made an outfit based around that. Her second outfit was more vintage.

I decide to make most the giraffe-themed images black and white because the first image reminded my of the wildlife photographer Nick Brandt. He takes amazing images of the wild and they are all b&w, so I wanted to follow. I felt the b&w also reflected the dry tone of the desert typical to the environments of giraffes.

The last image was created during the second part of the shoot. At this point we had little-to-no light, yet I wanted to capture the natural colors of the light while using my external flash. My solution was to slower my shutter speed with an increased aperture and lower ISO with a rear-synced flash to get what I wanted.

Julia leaves to college tomorrow and I want to wish her the best of luck!

New York Moments

Last week I had the opportunity to go the Big Apple for my first time. During this trip I felt very selective on what I wanted to photograph. At certain moments I did not want to take any photos because I felt it was important to enjoy the moment as it was, without any interferences. This was a strange feeling because I usually feel obligated to make images since I am a photographers... It's in me. So I practiced enjoying the scenery completely and when I knew an image was worth making, I whipped out my camera that I've rarely been apart from. Below are a few moments captured in New York.

In the background is construction for Ground Zero.

Couldn't help including this image of Naked Cowboy. 

The Scholls'

Today I wanted to share a few photos of the Scholls'. I've had the privilege to photograph the couple over the last 8 months. I met them through a friend and have been photographing them since. The most recent time was at their wedding at the Tamaya. They have been a great couple to work with because it is obvious that they are in love and dedicated to each other, making my job easy as the photographer. 

On a technical note, all images except the last two were developed in CS5's raw converter. The others were done in Adobe Lightroom, which I am starting to like more than previously.

Congratulations to Scholl & Carissa!

Beautiful Storm

As I was on my way home last night it became stormy. It was clear to me that this was a perfect opportunity to capture the beauty of the storm. I stopped at the park near my house and set a long exposure on my faithful 7D. These are my favorite images from the shoot. The last image has an ethereal quality to it that reminds me of the movie Powder. All images have minor color adjustments use the CS5 raw converter.

Enjoy!