Today was planned months ago.  The image ideas and how to execute them had been thought about over and over.  It was going to be tons of fun and hopefully produce some really awesome images…images of some really motivated and exceptionally fit individuals hittin the Appalachian Trail…

…looks like we’re going to have a few more months to plan that out.  Doh!  Someone in the PA government decided it was time to close Winter’s Trail (one of the on-ramps to the A.T. in NEPA).  Yeah, we were confused… but mark one down for scouting!  This past Tuesday morning Mike D, Mary and I got a super early jump and headed up to the A.T. to be in position for sunrise.  The plan was to be ready when first light hit, assess what we’d have time to do and come up with some shot ideas based on the possible…with a touch of the nearly impossible.

So that WAS the plan.  When we drove up around 5:30 and found Winter’s Trail closed.  Lots of fences and chains and a whole bunch of ‘go away’.  With some quick goat thinking we moved on to two other locations that Mike and Mary knew of.  Unfortunately nothing was really working for what I was hoping to shoot…and least not like the A.T. would have.

Feeling slightly less that satisfied with my early morning adventure, I headed back to the ‘Wick to figure out what to do.

Relief was found near the bottom of  beer (I know, how many times has that happened, right!)  The fine folks at Bandit’s Roadhouse came to the rescue and let us use a warehouse they own to get the shoot done.  Having just shot there on Monday, ideas were fresh and ready to go…albeit COMPLETELY different ones from what we wanted to do on the A.T.

Yesterday, less than 24 hours before the shoot, it hit me that I might try something a little different this time.  Rather than get right into the workout shots, I thought we’d work into them.  The warehouse has some awesome old offices, relics of workdays paste.  It was begging for a shoot.  I dropped Julie, Seth & Andrea the news and asked them to whip together a look for the office.  They rocked it…with very little notice they all put together some great looks.

Kat came in on makeup for everyone and the rest of our team for this shoot (Connie, Erin & Steph) played key roles in making sure it all worked.  Thank you Julie and Matt from Brandit’s Roadhouse for helping on location needs.  And major props as always to the rest of the team today…thank you all for kicking ass!

Basically I was trying for a linear progression in the images…a story board sequence of sorts.  From the dulldrums of the office to the energy and excitement of LIFE being lived.  As this was my first attempt at it, there are some obvious deviations from the time line that could have been done better.  But all-in-all I’m pretty satisfied with that part of the shoot, and I’m really stoked about the images.  We’ll take what we learned from this and give it another shot on another shoot some time soon.

Rock On!

…is this ASAP enough?

Joey & Jamie’s Vegas mind-melt gave me some time to work up a couple of posts I’ve been wanting to do.  Nooooo, not WHILE in Vegas…you can get a lot done on a 3 hour flight!  Here’s a few from Connie’s most recent modeling shoot.

How much does she ROCK for getting the hair dyed dark just to do this shoot the way I’d pictured it in my head?  Every shoot seems better than the last with her…and that’s a damn good thing!  :D  Once again, thank you Kat for rocking the makeup & general shoot assistance.

And here’s a few from the most recent band promo shoot I’ve had the opportunity to work on.  1 Hot Mess is 1 rad crew of people to have on the opposite end of the lens.  Connie and Kat rocked out the back end of this shoot as well.  When the 3 of us are firing on all cylinders, life is GOOD!  Thank you to everyone involved!

Spending this rainy Sunday editing and getting things around for next week; the last few have been a whirlwind of activity.  I think summer showing up early put things into high gear before I was ready.  Oh well…”here’s to being busy” I guess!  :D

The Berwick Mural Project got underway fully this weekend with the start of Alley Art.  I made it for about an hour and a half of painting, but Connie and a few others put in some spirited 6+ hours of constant painting.  The wall is fully primed and things are moving on that.  It’s cool watching this come together.  Connie has put a tenacious pile of effort and time into making sure this moved forward.  Congrats to my main homie!

This Wednesday night is also the first of the Small Group classes we’re holding in the studio in the coming weeks.  There’s 1 seat left in each of the 3 evenings if anyone is interested.  Connie and I are pretty excited to be doing these.  She gets to host, I get to jibjab about photography all night – it’s like when peanut butter & jelly first hooked up!

Here’s a few band shots from recent…always enjoy working with musicians.  Mixing arts is becoming a new hobby for me I think.

Like these guys do – Rock on!

Hey…just a quick post asking for help from anyone with a few minutes on their hands. This Thursday evening starting at 6:30pm a couple of us are getting together down at A Perfect Blend during their Open Mic Nite to shoot a little footage for the 300AlmostNakedPeople.com project teaser video.  We need people willing to stand still for a few seconds.  We’re shooting body parts for a montage clip that we’ll be posting on YouTube and on the project sight.  If anyone is interested in being part of this, show up!  Shoulders, legs, hips, feet…etc.  That sort of thing. (Just to cover my butt, you gotta be 18 to play along…thanks for understanding)

Connie (who can be reached at 570-578-9412) will also have some info about the Berwick Mural Project, and an opportunity for you to paint something THURSDAY NIGHT @ A Perfect Blend in support of the project.  Painting starts in Euclid Alley on Saturday, April 24th.  Hope to see you at Open Mic Nite on Thursday for more info.

That’s about it…if you’re interested, we’ll see you there…if not, thanks for reading anyway!  :D

Rock On!

Anyone like painting – REALLY HUGE things?  Connie has been interested in getting some murals in Berwick for quite a while now.  She’s working with a small committee of local people to get it done.  They have the support of the borough and building/location owners as well.  What they need is help.  If anyone reading this feels like getting creative in a BIG way, drop Connie a line at 570-578-9412 and let her know.  It all starts on the 24th of April!  THIS IS HAPPENING this spring/summer…might make for a nice creative outlet project!  :D

The Nationwide Insurance building wall

Prime location for some public art (decent photography on the 2nd floor as well, I’ve heard )

Berwick Theater wall

Another cool spot with a lot of viewing opportunity

BIDA wall on LaSalle  St.

I’m excited for this one.  LaSalle’s already got a lot of character…this could really go a bunch of cool ways!

Euclid Alley (The Start of Alley Art)

This is the spot that started it all for Connie.  She’s wanted to do ‘Alley Art’ since back in the day.  Alley Art exploded into the Mural Project as more and more people wanted to help.  If you spend any amount of time downtown, you’ll probably hit up Euclid Alley.  Another really exciting wall waiting for some paint.

YMCA Retaining wall

Looooooooooooong and narrow…visually interesting possibilities here!

If you’re from the area and can visualize each of these spots, think about all of them done up in murals.  What a cool, creative and interesting picture of Berwick that is.  Come be part of something fun!

Just taking a quick second to say thanks again to Carla & Billy for having us out last fall to cover their big day.  Connie and I had a blast with both of them, their families and their great wedding party.  A little different than the normal post, but quite a few of these are Connie’s shots.  She doesn’t shoot a lot, but when she can it’s always a treat to see what she does.

This is a wedding party that knows how to ROCK!  Sun up to sun down they made sure this was Carla and Billy’s BIG DAY!  THIS is the kind of wedding party you want!

Obviously this is from a a bit back.  My hat is off to everyone involved for their patience while I got these done the only way I know how.  Thank you! Congrats & ROCK ON!

Also, thank you again to everyone that has emailed, txt’d, facebooked and otherwised me about the photography classes.  Your responses and enthusiasm have been very inspiring!

Thank you to everyone that stopped down with envelopes and ideas on Saturday night…and of course to all the email/blog/twitter/facebook/myspace/txt’s….? entries that can’t be counted.  I really dig meeting and knowing creative people, and all the entries we received made it clear that lots of people have something inspiring to show.  I still haven’t figured out how to announce the selection yet though.  I’m thinking I might just contact the person, shoot it, and post it when it’s all ready to see…not sure…if you have an opinion about it, let me know…

On to the next adventure!  I know I want to do a few of these a year, but I’m pretty sure it’s NOT going to be on some kind of schedule.  I can’t see that working for how I work.  It’ll probably be whenever the mood hits…

…that was last night.  Connie and I spent the evening chatting about how hard it was going to be to think of something fun and creative for round 2.  Then she said it.  ”Have everyone send in pictures of their most creative and expressive costume/makeup combos.”  Doh!  That was easy, not hard!

So that’s it – get a camera, get a light (a few might help) and get creative.  Do up some wild makeup and/or crazy costume/wardrobe idea, take a shot and send it to info@studio-d-photo.com.  We’ll be taking submissions until Monday, December 21st @ 9pm (why 9pm again…I have no idea…it’s a 3 hour buffer up against the next day I suppose).  The idea that blows are collective minds the most is getting a shoot…but this time out we’re giving away TWO (2) shoots, each to a different winner.

I’ll be posting later on how we’re going to make that work…

Til then…

It’s CRAZY windy this morning.  I’ll probably find the power out @ the studio when I get in.  C’est la vie!

Yes it’s been like 3 weeks since the last blog.  ’Tis the season of head down editing and not a whole lot else.  But sometimes you have to stop and realize that you HAVE to make time for taking a break.  Just so happens my break times consist of a lot of photography and editing.  Work/life/love – what’s the difference?

The ‘prohibition party’ Tara and friends through for the Frankles last month inspired Connie and Monica to put a shoot together.  We rented, borrowed and invented a few different things and just played around with it for a while.  Kat came in on makeup once again.  Turns out she DID have bigger eye lashes in her bag…who’da thunk it?  And thank you to Kendra F. for the pearls…it’s good to know good people!

This time out I wanted to see what the basement of Berwick Brewing had to offer.  Lots of neat stuff, but I’m a fan of ceiling height…I liked the upstairs (from the last blog) a bit more.  When you read a sentence like the last, realize that’s me whining to myself to stop whining and adjust accordingly next time – to just deal with it. Challenges are AT LEAST 1/2 the fun for me with a camera in hand.  When I can make it work…we’ll that’s just a good day!

Anywho, we had a lot of fun, added to Connie and Monica’s growing pile of images and learned mucho.  We have 4 or 5 more shoots planned for various locations around the Brewery in the next month or so.  I’ll be posting whatever I have time to finish.  For now, it’s back to the ‘work’…or was it life…or love…

Rock on!

Today was one of those lucky days where everything just went right.  I was supposed to be shooting some promo images for a local band, but as is often the case when multiple schedules are involved, I didn’t.  :\  Waste not the day!  I already had Chelsea lined up to assist on the band shoot, partly because she rocks and partly because we have plans for a killer concept shoot in this same location (as soon as I can get the logistics worked out).  So, when the band postponed I redirected my efforts to take advantage of something I rarely do – test shoot for something down the road.

This entire shoot was nothing more than a huge test covering the following:  What could we do with makeup on something a bit more extreme; shot options in THIS location for future shoots; lighting work for myself (ring lights can be a bitch to use) and to understand logistically what it takes to do something with a little more production value.

There’s A LOT of info zipping around the synapses right now.  I look at every image I take as a chance to learn something…and obviously this shoot provided TONS of thought provoking material to work with.

Kudos to the team:  Kat – excellent job on makeup and wardrobe; Chelsea – you rocked the looks and didn’t blink an eye while freezing your ass off for hours (that’s the REAL deal right there); and Connie – always awesome to have a chance to work side-by-side with you.  It’s rare on a shoot, so it was definitely a treat.  You make so much happen at the right times it’s truly mind-blowing.

Thanks for lookin…hope you enjoy.

Rock On