It’s been a rough and eventful week. I’m headed out on another big model shoot this afternoon at the Salt Flats. It’s gonna be awesome!

Day 55/365

This is the model shoot I’d been talking about. It took me a little bit to get it done, but I was finally able to get to it late last night. This was an important shoot for me and I had something pretty specific in mind. I think it turned out pretty well.

Madi:

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Day 57/365

I am a citizen of Belgium. Something the day during which I took that shot reminded me of.

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Day 58/365

A turning point in my life, March 9th of 2009. More on that in a few days or so…

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Day 52/365

The last shooting buddy I had was Sabrina, with whom I went out and shot at Mt. Olivet Cemetery. It was a ton of fun and the photos turned out pretty good too.

But Sabrina left for Brazil… And believe it or not, arranging to shoot together from a continent away is friggin’ hard.

So it was back to just me, going out to random places and taking pictures.

It wasn’t until I did the Salt Palace Bridal Show in January that I met Natasha Roos, who was just a few booths down from where I was. We stayed in touch, talked about shooting together out in some random run-down area of town and finally settled on today to do just that.

Problem was, she couldn’t find a sitter for her girls… So we just took them with us, and before long, the shoot was much more about them than it was about anything else.

Rightly so.

Why take pictures of messed up alleys, dilapidated walls and stationary trains when you’ve got a couple of hyper kids around?

It was enormous fun.

Here are Natasha’s girls, Amelia & Lucie:

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Ladies and gentlemen, Tinaaaa Feeeyyyyy!!!!

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Oh man I love that shot…

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Lucie was upset her sister wouldn’t let her hold the stick…

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So to cheer her up, I chased her around.

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I love the message this conveys! NO TRESPASSING. “Oh yeah? Watch me!”

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Natasha wanders between the trains.

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This reminds me so much of the shot in Slumdog Millionaire where the kids are jumping between the moving train cars, I just had to show you.

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I love this. The focus is on Lucie in front, but the composition leads your eye to Amelia in the back. There’s a life to this shot that I love. Hard to describe but I feel strongly about this one.

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And finally, the view from just beside the trains.

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Day 51/365

So ok, yesterday I was supposed to shoot a model. Forgot to mention that… But yeah, I had another cancellation, this time from a male model. I was leaving taking the pictures of the 5×5 cards for today, as kind of a short breather between the many more model shoots I’m planning on doing this month.

Instead, because of the cancellation, I was left scrambling for a picture today… so I shot my other keyboard.

I love that little thing.

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This is a little 25-key MIDI keyboard. It doesn’t generate any sound on its own. It has to be plugged into the computer so that it can trigger sound from within a music program.

Day 49/365

Sue and Adriu are both models I’ve worked with before, separately. I knew I could count on them to do the basics, like… you know… showing up. But more importantly, I knew I could count on them to work hard and give me some killer results.

In this case though, I felt the results would depend on me. And that’s because I’ve never really done a shoot with 2 models at once. Actually no, I did one a few years back, but I meant that I hadn’t done a shoot with 2 models at once since I’ve been any good as a photographer.

I also wanted to tell a basic story with that string of photos. This was just a “fight and make-up” idea. Not that complicated, but man I had a hard time doing it right… I’m pretty happy with the pictures individually, but there’s a lot of room for improvement in terms of telling the story.

Anyway, here you go:

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Day 50/365

And then today’s shoot. These are just the little 5×5 cards that I use for my wedding price list (now). I just got those the other day and thought I’d share. Right side is the front, left side is the back.

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Day 48/365

I finished Photoshopping these very late last night and just didn’t have the energy to post a blog about them. I have another shoot in a couple of hours, so this is gonna be very short.

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This was technically a model shoot, but this outfit made it look more like an edgy prom shoot to me…

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Day 47/365

Dani is a terrific model I’ve had the privilege of working with before. We’ve been trying to schedule a time to shoot together again, but our schedules haven’t been too kind to either of us. Anyway, here’s the stuff I’ve done with her before:

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Last night, I worked with her on a slightly different project than I’m used to.

She invited me to shoot alongside another photographer, so I said yes. The concept was body paint. Now, I’ve seen some body paint work in the past (online only – never in person), so maybe that’s spoiled me and given me unrealistic expectations for last night’s shoot, but I was disappointed with the results there… Dani did fantastic as usual, I think I did alright, but the body paint…

You be the judge.

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Day 46/365

Shooting pictures of male models is something I’ve been meaning to do forever. I tried starting it up late last year, but October 1st was the last time I ever did a male model shoot. Here’s what I ended up with on that shoot. I was pretty happy with the results.

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After that shoot however, the effort to book male models completely died. Female models were coming to me with almost no effort on my part and I had many, many other things to tend to. So the male model “project” was dead.

Until now.

Because now, I’ve got 10 male models to look forward to shooting with, not counting the female models, weddings, engagements, etc. Oh and the avalanche of emails from other male models that I’m still trying to keep up with and book.

All in all, I’ll probably end up with about 15-20 male models between now and April. That’s a lot for me to handle given an already heavy workload, but it’s been getting pushed off for far too long and I’d forgotten just how easy, stress-free and just plain fun it was to shoot with good-lookin’ dudes.

It’s just a completely different dynamic.

I don’t have hair and makeup to worry about, I don’t have a giant wardrobe to choose from (models bring a selection of clothes with them – girls usually bring everything in their house), I don’t have as delicate a balance to walk when talking to my subjects, and on and on.

And when male model shoots work, they make me very, very happy. Like the one below did.

My personal favorite:

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Looks like a young Robert Redford to me:

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I’m going to be shooting both an engagement session and a model session tonight. So I’m going to be a day behind again.

I’m far too tired to post today’s pictures, but I did shoot a male model today, for the first time since last year in October. I’ve been meaning to shoot a lot more male models since late last year and just haven’t gotten around to doing it until recently. Now that I have started however, I’m looking forward to about 15 models, not counting any of the other photo shoots I’ll have going on

It’s gonna be a crazy few weeks…

Anyway, today’s shots turned out amazing. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Day 45/365

“Every cloud has a silver lining”, and here’s what it looked like for me today:

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Ironically, these pictures would mean more to me by the end of the day when I was forced to search for that silver lining.

Day 43/365

Unless you are a very close friend, an actor, a model or a family member, you will never see this in person.

Never!! :D

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I just put up a couple of my recent(ish) model shoot prints to finally replace the old shots I had in those frames. I’m about to do the same in another room in the house (though they’re not pictures of models).

Oh and one last thing…

I officially declare this blog’s picture THE worst picture so far in the 365 day project! It’s a picture of work I care deeply about and think is pretty good, but the picture itself is absolute crap.

Tune in tomorrow, maybe the photography won’t suck :)

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