This past weekend we cruised down to Ocean City, Maryland to do some family portraits.  We put in the time Sunday evening and Monday morning getting what we needed for ‘work’, then took some time to hang out and enjoy a little of what going to the beach has to offer.  Watching Jazzy & Nora playing tag with the surf will never get old; and when the weather turned a little south we ran inside to do some underwater shooting in the hotel pool.  I love documenting the girls being girls…it’s what being a parent is all about!

…Jazzy also wanted me to make sure I mentioned that they were catching jellyfish too.  Sadly, I don’t think I got any shots of them as they were doing this while I was working with the family we were there to shoot.  Regardless, I can confirm that she actually did catch some…and yes, I think she’s crazy!

Love you girls!

The ‘Short Story Stills’ section is something I’ve been working on for a few weeks now.  Each entry is a new series of images that I’m using to stretch myself creatively, both behind the camera and from a production/direction perspective.  In 20 images or less I’m trying to tell stories that have a beginning, middle and end.  And everything is fair game; they can be complex, sexy, funny, adventurous…you name it…if the story can be thought out effectively, I’m going to try to shoot it.

Here’s a few stills from the first three shoots in the series.  Each idea is a collaboration.  The basic concepts for each shoot are planned out ahead of time, but are also completely malleable during execution.  Everyone has a voice; photographer, models, makeup artists and any production assistants we have on hand…the more input, the better chance we have of making something awesome.

Gotta tip the hat to Chantel, Beth & Casey for being on the business side of the lens for these first sets.  A major thank you to Daniel Oz and Chelsea for the backside production on shoot’s two and three…and of course Connie for helping make these ideas realities LONG before I ever pick up a camera.  With all sincerity, everyone of you have been crucial to the success of these shoots and I appreciate your help in a way I’ll never be able to explain.

Thanks for checking them out!  Hit the link in this post or at the top of the page to see each story in its entirety.  And, if you feel so inclined, share them with your friends and cell mates.

Now, time for me to get back to my brats, sauerkraut, cheese curds & funny speaking friends.

Peace, eh!  Yah-sure, ya-betchya!

More fun than the Oscars!

Havin a blast…

Rock on!

There’s a lot I can say about this place, but for now I’ll just let the pics show you what we’re starting with.  I’ll do some progress and finished(ish) shots along the way.  As we get closer to the end it’ll be more clear what each space is, or is intended to be.

A quick kudos to the Donlin Girls; they really got to dislike looking at house after house, with Mom & Dad never seeming to make a decision.  It was obvious that they’d lost the love of the hunt a little over a year ago…but they always hung in there.  Thanks homies…you helped Mom & Dad keep our sanity a tad longer.

…and to Connie…I thought you’d never decide dude! Of course, in hindsight your patience rocked harder than ever and we scored big.  I’m super stoked to be hitting this one head on together.  Do what you do and rock this canvas out babe…I know I’m not the only one waiting to see what you can create!

…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!

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!

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!

READ THIS FIRST

A quick thank you to everyone that stopped down for the www.300AlmostNakedPeople.com teaser video we shot last week at A Perfect Blend.  Between the test shooting on Wednesday and the real deal on Thursday we got a pile of cool footage.  Annie B. rocked the editing and the vid is currently with Andy Z. for audio and sound effects.  The plan, right now, is to have it posted Sunday morning for anyone interested in checking it out.  We’re getting to work on a 90-120 second promo piece in the next week or so…drop me a line if you’re interested in taking part in that.

I really appreciate everyone that’s been getting involved in this.  It’s all about having fun and putting to use the amazing skills and talents of the people I come into contact with every day.  It doesn’t take much to make life way more interesting…get up, get out and DO IT!

READ THIS SECOND

The images linked here depict artistic representations of nude bodies.  If this type of art offends you, please DON’T look.  I respect that it might not be for everyone – to each their own, right?  Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Every once in a while I get to stop working and try something different.  These three shoots definitely fall into that category.  I’ve wanted to do some body paint shots for a while now, but the logistics of getting willing participants, at least a partially baked idea and of course an artist all together at the same time makes it a tad challenging.  Again, with just about everything I shoot, I learn a TON of stuff when we’re pushing the boundaries a bit.  Like, make sure the room is TOO warm…cause people standing around naked will get cold after 3+ hours, pretty much for sure.  Ellie and Steph are total champs all the way, and a HUGE thank you goes out to Olivia Jacobs for her rockin paint skills and patience.  Working with all 3 of these awesome people was a great experience.

And Kat was back for more makeup fun, this time on the ‘human discoball’ glitter shoot that Courtney and I have been hitting around for a while.  We rocked a totally awesome set of images and everyone walked away pretty stoked about this one.  And lastly, thank you to Connie and Corry for all their help with Courtney’s shoot – it is mucho appreciated!

…and yes, the studio DOES look like fairy’s exploded here…gotta love me some glitter!

Enjoy!