December Cover for Hispanic Business

The year started with the cover of SLM magazine and now it ends with the cover of Hispanic Business. That makes for a nice feeling of completeness for the year. Goal for next year: a cover for the other 10 months!

very cold fun at the beach

Latina Bloggers

I recently photographed a couple of Latina bloggers in LA for the cover and story for Hispanic Business magazine. Ana Flores founded  www.Spanglishbaby.com and Monique Frausto created www.blogsbylatinas.com. Spanglish Baby is a blog for parents raising bi-lingual and bi-cultural children. Blogs by Latinas is an online directory of Latina bloggers that Monique started just a couple of years ago and now has over 900 blogs from around the world!

I photographed them before a conference of Latina bloggers that Monique was hosting. Somehow amidst all the madness we were able to get some pretty good shots which I attribute completely to both Monique and Ana being such great fun to work with.  I wish them all the best of luck!

Waves-Pismo

New Promo Piece

The life of an egg.

sometimes there is color

A walk around the neighborhood

  

more can be seen on flickr here

Dear Sarah Connor

This is what the actual Terminator looks like!

Actually this is a robot sculpture created by Charlene's very talented roommate, Amber Von Felts. It was made from a Diana F+ camera for Gallery 86 in Ventura, CA. It was auctioned off at a charity auction where apparently Amber got to meet Elijah Wood. Perhaps it is more appropriate to say, "Dear Sarah Connor, This is what real hobbits look like!"

Fog Drenched Sunsets

The weather in Santa Barbara has been pretty weird all summer. The "may grays" and "june gloom," as they are called in these parts, lasted through july, august, september, and never seemed to go away. Then as "summer" crossed over to fall we began getting giant mounds of fog rolling in around sunset. This, of course, was all before our week long heat wave of 100 degree temps the last week of September. Now it's back and forth between rolling blankets of fog and mist and 80 degree temps. Which all makes for some dramatic and mysterious scenes. These are some seaside images I took during one of the fog drenched sunsets.

Rori's Artisinal Creamery

Recently I've started shooting for a local newspaper called, The Daily Sound. What I like most about it is the challenge of walking into a situation blind and having very little time to get images that are visually interesting. Well, that and all the different people you get to meet and glimpse into their lives for a short time. Really makes one feel sort of part of the community. Anyways, I digress, you never know what the lighting situation will be like when going on an assignment. Sometimes it takes a little (or a lot!) of working within the elements of an environment to learn what it will give you. Other times you get really lucky as was the case in Rori's ice cream laboratory. There was a ton of non-directional natural light pouring in. It was like having a giant soft box built-in, a lighting set up that would run into the $10,000+ range. And all, right there occurring naturally which meant no setting up or breaking down of equipment, just shoot and go! I suppose the other thing I like about shooting for the paper are the little perks. Rori sent me home with three pints of her ice cream, which is some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted. I suggest a two scoop combo of the Salted Caramel and Serious Dark Chocolate! Though the Lemon Curd is outta site too. You can visit to her web site here.

Just for the record, I think my favorite image is the one in B&W. I really like the ballet that is going on between Rori's movement in the foreground and the man mopping the floor in the background. It was one of the first shots I took, just a text shot checking the lighting and exposure. It wasn't until I looked at it later did I realize, hey that's pretty nice!

Product and Food too

Taking a break from the art photography I've been posting lately as well as taking a break from preparations for my new web site now under development, I thought I would leak a few product shots out unto the great blogosphere and see what happens! A couple of these images are from the most interesting product shoot I've done. They were for a company that sells products for plastic surgery. Needless to say, they had many interesting products that I never dreamed existed let alone that I'd be shooting one day. Anyways, the new web site is coming along and should be up shortly. I'm sure I will let you know as soon as it's done.

Bringing the Outside In Pt. 2- The Dark Side

In these shots I return more to recent themes. Same day, same objects, just changed the light. In the earlier shots the only light I used came from the living room windows which created a soft even lighting allowing the objects to stand on their own in a sort of quiet meditation. For the images in Pt.2 I used artificial lighting from an off camera flash. Here the lighting becomes a much more obvious, and some might consider obtrusive, element in the story telling and meaning of the photographs. There is more of a tortured struggle, or play, between the forms created in the lights and shadows. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other, just two different stories being told.

Bringing the Outside In

Calming things down a bit from my recent experiments. The idea behind this abstraction is to quietly capture natural objects I find interesting, and have character, outside of their usual context of the outdoors. These are all things I find as I am, again, walking the walk from where I park my car to my apartment. All and all I think it is a study and documentation of where and how I currently live. Goleta, CA July/August 2010. More of the series can be found here.

"I see figures, strange figures, weird figures, Steel 186, Anaconda 74, American Cane 138..."

Shot on a recent trip through Joshua Tree. These, indeed, are strange trees. Nightmarish and other worldly. The "flipper babies" of the tree world. I still have trouble sleeping. Other shots from Joshua Tree can be seen here. BTW if anyone knows what the title of this entry is quoting I am most impressed! It is from one of my all time favorite movies.