Ocho Tv finished production on a special hosted up on Ujena.tv. You can see a short interview with me at the 13:10 mark.

Ok, first to get your attention I needed to post a photo I edited last night of the lovely Caro. Caro is from Guadalajara and was just an amazing model to work with. One of those models who was enthusiastic in front of the camera and has a great spirit. She has also been chosen to be in Maxim Espanol, so you know she is a beautiful and capable model.

This shot was taken in Todos Santos, a small village about an hour north of Cabo San Lucas. It was the picture perfect town to shoot in, with the dirt roads and authentic architecture. It was pretty fun to watch the town transform as the photographers and about 15 models show up and start shooting. There is no getting permits, property releases and all that goes with shooting in the states. You show up, grab your camera and shoot away. I guess that’s what makes Mexico so much fun, plus they have amazing beaches to work with. We had every male from about 14 to 25 in town, circling in cars and motorcycles, as we shot. The girls were really rock stars that day.

Dan Heller is not quite as cute as Caro, but he is just as vital to Photographers as any good model is. He is a champion for the industry and is a very succesful author with three book on Photography. He just posted a great entry on his blog regarding copyrights and his idea that we should allow other companies to help facilitate the registering of copyrighted material. But the best part of his post is he explains the how and why’s of copyrighting your images. He is very detail oriented and his research and analysis is to be trusted. I have not had a chance to read the complete post, but will do so this weekend.

Here’s a snippet:

“The Role of Copyright
Copyright is the mechanism that provides accounting, accountability, and protection by way of copyright law. This is because only works that are registered with the copyright office can be protected in a manner that has any real, economic leverage and protection for a company to build a business representing such works. Under copyright law, only registered works are eligible for statutory damages. Here, if someone “steals” a work, fines start at $750, and can grow to $30,000, per infringement. In fact, they can rise to $150,000 if the infringement were deemed to be willful. (This particular deterrent will be important to remember later.) By contrast, the fines for infringing on a non-registered work is whatever the prevailing rate would be if it were properly licensed in the first place. (Ok, there are other values that can be calculated, but that’s besides the point in the bigger picture, since those are more rare than common.) Since we’re talking about micro-valued works such as songs and photographs, a “prevailing rate” of $.99 (or less) per unit is too minimal to justify the legal effort in pursuing infringements. It was for this reason that statutory damages were created in the first place; it’s the only way to give meaningful protection to micro-valued works as a disincentive to steal them. Without statutory damages, protecting the underlying asset is impractical, thereby making investing in building a business unlikely, if not impossible.”

A few months ago Dan and I had a conversation on the phone and I have slowly been transcribing the content, but I think for the sake of getting it to the net, I’ll post it as a podcast. That will be on my to do list for this weekend.

Tonight I was giving CS4 a good workout and thought I’d work on some portrait images just for fun. These both came out a bit better than I expected and you’ll see in the second image, I added a gradient to neutralize the skin tones as well as some textures on the outer edges. I was also going for a more creamier feel to the skin. Unfortunatly the web image just doesn’t come out with the right tone as a large .PSD file does.

I did a bit more work on the first image above, with Edna, shaping her nose and mouth somewhat but not wanting to make it look unrealistic. I also tried to maintain the skintone and pores when working with the skin which is always a challenge. This work can be tedious and there really is no way around it other than having a great makeup artist and lighting to get it right.

2008 has been an interesting year for our country and every facet of our economy and this year was the most memorable in all the years I can remember. But instead of pointing out all the negative news and future prognostications, I thought it would be great to do a year in review of a few images. A few of these images, normally would not see the light of day, but I thought readers would enjoy seeing them. On a technical note, these were created to be web ready through Photoshop at 60% quality, to allow for faster downloads.

Some of the photography highlights for me, were shooting in Mexico with the beautiful models from Guadalajara and being chosen as a winner in the travel category for PDN (Photo District News) Magazine.  I also had another image placed on a magazine cover, D’Antro Magazine.

I don’t make many new years resolutions, but this year I have a business idea that has been brewing in my head for quite awhile, this year my goal is to bring it to market, providing the numbers make sense in a down economy. As usual I will be shooting lots of models and am available for travel worldwide.

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The Beautiful Jessica of Seattle

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Photoshoot with Edna on the beach in Mexico

More bikini shots of Edna on the Beach in Mexico

Edna, from Guadalajara, was an amazing model to work with. These were shot in October 2008, in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. Primarily shot with both a 50mm 1.8 and a 180mm 2.8. I love the clarity and contrast in a prime lens and these photos were more than I expected coming out of my Nikon D300. I really like to hear any feedback on these images.

See more of Edna on my Playing on the Beach Post

Caro, Yamile and Edna

In October 2008, I had the opportunity to work with some amazing models for a week in Mexico. These beauties had such a fresh and positive attitude and were excited about being in front of the camera. One evening I asked Caro, Yamile, Edna, Paty and Ana to come down to the beach for a quick shoot. We only had about an hour, due to a busy schedule, but I wanted to get all these models together and capture some of their personalities without having to be “Models”.

I was inspired by Raphael Mazzucco’s Book, “Exposure”, that he had shot for Sports Illustrated. I just wanted the girls to play on the beach, roll in the surf and sand and have a fun time in front of the camera. I was able to get over 700 images in the short time I shot this and this is a sample of some of those shots.

In the next few weeks I will be including more HQ images from shoots with each of these models. Let’s just say they were all amazing to work with, from shooting on the beach in San Jose del Cabo to the narrow streets of Todos Santos.

Technical Info: They were shot with a Nikon D300, using natural light and ISO 200. Most of the shots were with my favorite portrait lens, the Nikon 50mm 1.8. The sharpness and contrast is simply amazing. For some of the wide angle shots, I used a AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED, lens. Not my favorite lens, but it gets the job done for the wide angle shots. Most aperture settings were from f/3.2 to f/8. White balance was probably custom or cloudy, to boost the skin tones.

Beautiful women on the beach

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