softbox saturday.

i’ve been doing some more lighting experiments lately. this friday i found myself in peace camera downtown buying way too much expensive equipment. now i have to lug around all my equipment in geoff’s wheeling catcher’s bag in order to carry it all. but now i have lighting for every possible scenario ever!!… for now. :)

so this weekend i am doing 3 portrait shoots that i’m super excited about (images will be posted later this week). the lighting will be vastly different from the majority of my work but vastly improved (in my opinion). i am pretty much always learning when it comes to photography (and everything else)… and am looking forward to getting some new material in my portrait section.

we unfortunately had to reschedule the trash the dress session while we wait to get a shooting permit at american tobacco, but it should still happen before the end of the month… and i am so looking forward to that!

so some of this lighting equipment is basically like a giant play tent for cats that you put a flash in and hoist upon a light stand… a very expensive play tent for cats. needless to say, we were hesitant to take it apart and put it back together frequently (because we all know what a pain assembling and disassembling a tent is) so we had to lock the giant thing in several different rooms to avoid the kittens shredding it to pieces and/or mistaking it for some sort of foily litter box.

playing in the street at midnight:

052come into the light, carol anne.

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geoff… being a good assistant and standing in the middle of the road. “car!”….

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“…game on!.”

slash… eternally shredding for les paul.

les paul died today at the age of 94 from complications from pneumonia. he made some awesome guitars. i play acoustic guitar (poorly) so my dad’s les paul feels like picking up a small car or boat. but apparently this dude was totally having concerts in his 90s. how rockin’ is that? way to go, dude. you pioneered some awesome stuff and were rocking in your 90s. so here’s to you, eternalized forever in this plastic statue of slash playing one of your guitars.

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woah oh, sweet les paul of mine…

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i love macro photography because you can make relatively uninteresting things look so cool. not that this plastic statue of slash isn’t cool or anything, but in real life it looks very much like a tiny, frail, plastic statue. in macro photography slash looks like he’s having himself a good time – and i like that. my favorite part of taking pictures of weddings or engagements it the tiny details in the rings and dresses. composing the shot is my absolute favorite part of photography.

i know that in this blog i write about everything…and most of the time it has little to do with photography although it contains a lot of photography. i use this blog to showcase photographs that i take on a daily basis that show a different side of me than those viewed in my portfolio. sure, if i do a shoot i really love i will post extra pictures in here, but i mainly keep it for topics, updates for family and friends, and showing interesting every day things in a slightly different light.

most photographers have a blog that soley showcases their everyday portraits and work that doesn’t make the cut into their portfolio. however, i have come across several who do what i do – blog about their everyday life and post random pictures. i like that. i can see their best regular work from weddings and portraits in their portfolio, but i love seeing beautiful photographs of random things they have lying around the house that they’re blogging about. a picture of a slash statue is never going to make it into anyone’s portfolio, but doesn’t his photograph deserve to be displayed somewhere too? :)

vintage suitcases, lemmy and sully.

ran around, had a consult, got hopped up on caffeine, and visited the best thriftstore ever where i finally found an unending supply of awesome vintage suitcases. i couldn’t choose so i bought 2, but i really could’ve bought 5 or 6. they are old school samonsites from back in the day. you know the type, hardcover with metal fasteners and probably a small trace of asbestos. also got some other cool stuff for props… exciting. again – best thriftstore ever!  i also need to go to father and son’s sometime to have a look around too. they’re a really great thriftstore in downtown raleigh and i know they’d have awesome stuff, but they’re slightly more “upscale” as they get a lot of their things from auctions and are genuinely vintage, so i like to look at cheaper thriftstores first before i spring for the expensive thriftstores, hah.

can’t wait for this trash the dress session on saturday. cross your fingers that it doesn’t rain.

finally getting around to all of the pictures of lemmy (logan lemewski) and sully (sullivan), my sister’s kittens. i took them when she first got them so that she could remember them when they got big. about a half a year later i am finally getting around to editing all of them. sorry, laura. :) typically the shooting, editing, delivery turn around time is 4-6 weeks, but it’s 4-6 months if you’re my relative. :) unfortunately in terms of editing priorities they get the short end of the stick. :(

but cute as buttons, here are some of the kitties. also, i think that my ratio of kittens to everything else i write about is really out of proportion at this point. oh well.

lemmy:

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sully:

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