My kids love to go swimming. They’d go every day, all day and then stay overnight if they could.
Here are some Diana moments:
Beyond our professional relationship, Dani and I are close friends. So it made perfect sense that late at night on May 19th, Dani called to see if I’d be available to shoot the very next day. She needed some shots of an outfit before she had to return it to its designer on May 20th, the night of our shoot.
I want to mention something in passing.
I love Dani (big surprise, huh?). It’s no coincidence I’ve worked with her seven times with no apparent end in sight. She’s impossibly fun to be around, easy to work with and endlessly talented.
And about that talent, I remember taking those first few shots thinking “Man, I don’t have to tell her anything. We’re in perfect sync. She just moves exactly the way I’d like a model to.”
This last one isn’t particularly good, it’s just a pre-cursor to something I’m shooting next week 
By far the oddest request I’ve had for weddings this year was from this couple.
Cliff & Jjana: “Could you NOT shoot pictures at the ceremony?”
Me: “No pictures at the ceremo–…” THUD! I fall to the ground.
When I finally came to I was in a hospital and was told I’d been in a coma for 12 years. That’s weird… I must have traveled back in time during my coma.
But as much as I tried to convince the beautiful couple to let me take pictures during the ceremony, they insisted that as actors currently living in DC, they’d become too aware of themselves with a camera clicking away to be natural during the part of the wedding they didn’t want anyone to remember in any way but in their hearts.
I respect that. They knew what they wanted, they knew what they were giving up but felt that what they were gaining was greater.
Cliff & Jjana were an absolute dream to work with. Very laid back and the coolest personalities. And their guests were too (see?).
Hope you enjoy the photography and Happy Memorial Day!
Trying to be a bit creative with the title variations for weddings
It’s already been a month since this awesome couple was married in beautiful Las Vegas. How time flies!
Like I mentioned before, this wedding was so amazing it made it my first ever truly positive trip to Vegas. And what made it so? Essentially, this awesome couple, that’s what.
The New York New York hotel (I was right next to the roller coaster listening to people scream! hahaha!), the Loews hotel with crickets chirping at night as I overlooked Lake Las Vegas, the awesome guests, the touching ceremony, all the fun everyone had, the partying; everything stemmed from just these two.
John, Amy, if you guys are reading this, I can’t thank you enough for taking such great care of me during my stay, and more than anything, for allowing me to be part of the truly beautiful celebration of your union.
I had a roll of undeveloped film from back when I was in NYC, so I finished it on Wil & Ashley and my boys.
First, the really touching picture of Wil & Ashley:
The gorgeously simple Guggenheim museum:
A bridge in Central Park:
Back home, my oldest, Gabe:
And a little something different to finish off.
I hardly have any pictures of myself. I think that’s true of most photographers actually, and although I can’t speak for all of them, I know my share, myself included, who don’t like their appearance. Maybe that’s why we prefer to stay behind the camera. I know it’s the main reason for me.
Anyway… Enjoy a rare little glimpse of myself in pictures.
Mason took a shot of me with my Holga:
And yesterday evening at a wedding, a guest took my camera and decided I should be in this group picture. I wasn’t about to object to being surrounded by six beautiful women! What I wasn’t expecting however, was the girls deciding they’d pick me up!! Why OH WHY didn’t I just smile?!?!?!
This wedding was such a blast! I’ll be posting more of it soon (I still need to post the pictures from the Vegas wedding). At the end of the evening when the party stopped, the bride just said “You’re off the clock! You can go home if you want, but we’d love to have you stay and hang out with everyone.”
So I did
I ended up mingling with a whole bunch of cool people, playing a few exciting games of foosball and then finally calling it a night after being invited to take one of these beautiful stones home with me:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
I LOVE my job.
This is Alisha.
Actress, model and long-time friend of mine, she came to me with a request to shoot pictures of her acting crew. They’re all headed on a cruise to perform a play! How cool is that?!
I do have a question though… If the ship tilts significantly to one side or the other, is it customary to shift the performance in the opposite direction to keep people from getting motion sick?
Hmm…
Anyway, onto the headshots of all the beautiful/handsome people. Everyone except Alisha was getting the star treatment, because… Uh…
Because all the actors are playing actors in the play.
Most. Redundant. Sentence. EVAR!!
But so, all the actors needed headshots to print out and actually use during the play, so what it means is that they needed to be in character for their headshots.
Jeremy plays Hugh Lockwood, Veronica Vicious’s lackey husband.
Mary plays Glo Star, the desperately untalented actress trying to reach the top of the food chain.
Tony plays Brent, director and host of the awards show.
Tonia plays Ravishing B. Yuety, the up-and-coming ingenue.
Heidi plays Veronica Vicious, the talented but mean actress.
And Alisha plays Sally White, Veronica’s stalker…
And here’s a few of Sally White’s stalking exploits involving the highly irritable Veronica Vicious:
Just look at that mathematical equation up there in the title!! Can you tell that it means Wil and Ashley are engaged?
Have you noticed this lately? Every photographer posting pictures of couples feels compelled to write some basic equation, like “Wil + Ashley = Engaged”.
Well, I decided it was time I took this to the max! So the equation goes like this:
The sum of Wil and Ashley multiplied by love minus four fifths of a carrot equals seven eights of pi to the power of four.
YEAH!!!!!!
And just for good measure I added in a Trademark and a Copyright symbol. Why?! ‘Cause I can, that’s why!! Although I’m sure this is the least likely title anyone will ever steal. In fact, go ahead and take it. Heck, I dare ya to expand on my bogus mathematical equations!
Anyway… So the point is, Wil and Ashley’s engagement session was awesome. Can’t wait to shoot their wedding!
We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing. – Charles Schaefer
I was standing steady in the corner of my son’s bedroom, NERF gun in hand, cocked and ready to fire, silently waiting for my two boys to fall into my trap and come to me. My oldest, Gabe, took the lead. “Ok Mason, you take this room, I’ll take that one.” I didn’t know which of the rooms he meant.
I press my finger on the trigger more tightly. Gabe walks in.
I fire. Direct hit!
He screams, laughs and runs back out. Mason in the other bedroom is screaming and running to his brother’s aid. All out war! I reload, fire again, chasing them now.
Oh man that was a fun afternoon. Thought it might be worth sharing
Back to my work, here’s a headshot I did recently for a terrific actor and all-around great guy called Matt Mascaro. He was in NURF Wars, which I’m afraid is still in the works. Anyway, here you go.
Wedding, engagement session and model shoots coming up next, either today or tomorrow.
It’s midnight, I just came home from the premiere showing for the premiere showing for Every Day the Same and it was an absolute JOY!! A huge thanks to all who came, it was a blast hanging out again
I’ll be posting the movie online soon…ish…
I’ve been excited to show you these for some time and now, I finally get to!
The images below are photographs taken with a Holga camera.
The Holga is a film camera. Medium format, which is larger than the 35mm film cameras most people remember. And it’s also listed under “toy camera” anywhere you look to buy it.
Why?
Because it sucks, that’s why. You laugh, but it’s true.
It sucks.
A lot.
It’s manufactured in China with exactly zero quality control, so if you and a friend each bought your own, you’d still end up with two completely different cameras, it’s made entirely of plastic (yes, even the lens) and it’s incredibly primitive in the control it offers.
Oh and don’t lick it either, there’s the slight possibility you might get lead poisoning. Remember; it was made in China! On the other hand, what the hell are you doing licking cameras?!
Anyway, but that’s also why boatloads of photographers love it so much. It’s primitive and unpredictable.
I can’t speak for other photographers, but my experience with the Holga has been liberating. That’s what I love about mine. The freedom. I go into any new shoot with two things on my mind.
1. Film is expensive and I only have 12 shots per roll. I better get this right.
2. This camera sucks. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’ll come out interesting. Still though… Get it right…
Whenever I get started on a shoot with my current digital camera, I have about 1,200 images worth of space. With a Holga, I have almost exactly ONE HUNDRED TIMES fewer shots at my disposal.
So I friggin’ pay attention.
So yes, it focuses me like digital cameras can’t. To me, that is liberating, because instead of focusing my energy on telling similar images apart, I get to pay closer attention to what I want to do NOW, with the camera in hand. But there’s the added bonus of not knowing what you’re gonna get, especially with a Holga, until you get your roll back from the lab.
Here’s why.
With professional cameras, your view is bounced around through a series of mirrors so you can see exactly what your lens is seeing. You see how far you’re zoomed in or out, what your focus looks like, there’s even an indicator to tell you what your exposure is gonna look like before you take the shot.
With a Holga, forget about mirrors; you look through a hole. You don’t have a clue what your lens is seeing. You have to literally guess what your focus is gonna be like based on some stupidly vague icons at the front of the lens. And you have two aperture settings. Sunny and cloudy.
And that’s it. Go take a picture.
And when you do go take a roll full of pictures and get them developed, you find that your Holga did a number of things you didn’t know it was doing. It leaked light onto the film in this frame but not on that one because the construction of the casing sucks so much, it missed focus because you can’t tell exactly where your focus is anyway and even where focus magically falls in your lap, the camera’s construction may be such that the bottom right corner of your images are out of focus regardless. I say “may be” because remember, no two Holgas are alike. I just know it does that on mine, with some frames where the issue is more pronounced than others. Oh and of course the thing Holgas are most famous for: vignetting. The corners of your images are darkened, not by choice like we do now digitally, but because that’s how your Holga came out of the factory.
The sheer unpredictability of the thing makes the results all the more exhilarating.
So I hope you enjoy my little collection so far. These have been shot between around November when I got it and during my trip to Europe, which by the way means that I had three cameras to juggle; the iPhone, the Canon and the Holga. And I had a 4-year-old. And it was cold. And the French have nukes.
What?! It’s more exciting when I put it like that!
