Photoshoot went great!

So if you remember, i scouted a location for a photoshoot. Here is the outcome.

Photo collaboration: Al Powers and Cody boor | MUA/HAIR: Liz Prado-Emery | Model: Jmac |

Strobist:
-580ex at 1/2 with blue gel shot from upstair pointing at the painting and stairs
-580ex at 1/4 with 30degree Saxon grid for kickerlight
-47″ AB octabox feathered from the left

Thats right i drank the kool-aid. Flip Mino HD vs. Flip Ultra

Got a deal too good to pass up on a Flip Mino HD online from Chris Pirillo. And recently purchased an Flip Ultra from some guy online.

Spent around 210 for both, got them for a fantastic deal, but really do i need them? Nope, I have a g10 that has great vid capability, and a Canon HD camcorder. But they were too good of a deal to pass up. Why do we do these things? I do this all the time. I wonder how many of you out there buy on impulse when you see a “deal” even when you dont need it.

I will review them both in the upcoming weeks, but it wont be the typical side by side comparisons. It will be running them through the paces of a nightclub as well as building some sort of support for it to mount on the side of my flash for red carpets. 🙂

I plan to start Video blogging photoshoots as well as tutorials for you folks out there. So stay tuned!

TRV$ and DJ AM performance at LAX Nightclub, Las Vegas, NV

TRV$/DJAM perform for the first time back in Las Vegas, NV since their horrific plane crash. Travis Barker and DJ Am compliment each others style so well, and created an overwhelming force of energy through out the night club. It was probably the coolest thing in a nightclub i have ever seen. I used a 5d and 17-40L for most of the shots.  Flash used was a 580ex with a Newton bracket bounced into a Lumiquest Midibouncer. With the drummers shots I used the exact same setup, however i added an additional 580ex high camera left to add a bit more flare to the performance, triggered with the 580ex on camera.
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Promotional Photoshoot for Tao Nightclub for their SuperBowl event

So i get a text last week, asking me to do a promo shoot for Tao Nightclub for an upcoming SuperBowl event. As long standing clients of mine i rearrange my schedule to suite the day they need. I get the gist of the shoot stating its for the promo ad and electronic bill board yadda yadda yadda. But i ask what they have in mind they explain we want club environment but have the girls looking sassy in football costumes. I say ok cool i have a couple ideas.

Sooooooo i bring what i feel is necessary, I wanted to do something cool upstairs in the beach area, and maybe utilize a huge Buddha they have. But when i get there, the coordinator(a good friend) says we will need to shoot the girls and our designers are gonna cut them out. i think darn it!!! Tao nightclub doesn’t have a blank wall anywhere, or any real big curtain or anything, i told him he should have told me i had a backdrop with seamless paper so it would have been so much easier. He says he forgot and told me not to worry about it, just do the best i can, and try to find a plain area. No biggy.

So i wanted to try a beauty setup with the new ringflash, where i use my 5 ft octabank high above camera angled down to get that kinda beauty look and they use the abr800 to bring out the shadows a bit and rim/kicker on both sides….

well that idea did not work well at all in test shot, so i scratched that. Went with my very trusty setup ring fill with octabank high cam right.

they needed individuals and group shots

Link to the full set is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38283834@N00/sets/72157612613596536/
here is what i got.
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De La Hoya vs Pacquiao Fight Day!!!

What can i say, im sooo happy i got to do this. I thanked Ed for letting me assist him on this major event. Got to meet some of my greatest sports photogs of all time. Jed Jacobson, Jae C Hong, NEIL LEIFER!!!!, Gene Blevins, Will Hart, Thom Hogan and sooo many others. And of course Ed Mulholland and Chris Farina.
I even got Ed to sign my video game, Fight Night Round 3 (he did the cover photo)

I arrive at the Grand Arena Press room at 12:00, get my credentials and walk over to the press room. Ed’s already there waiting for me, we chit chat a bit, and we decide to go check on teh remote camera, because both of us had a feeling we forgot to tape down the focus ring. While we were there we decide to make sure it fired. Low and behold it didnt… So scrambling we go talk to some officials and get a cherry picker crane to hoist Ed up there and double check everything. Turns out the PW II Transceiver we used to fire was not Transmitting and only receiving, so we had to change them. Also while up there Ed noticed that something happened to the zoom lens, it had be turned out and was OOF. Took about an hour to remedy the situation by checking focus, troubleshooting the wizard and gettign teh crane up… but crisis averted.

Sadly we were unable to get Ringside access this time, as Ed was shooting for HBO and they brought out Will Hart as well, so they wanted one up top in Auxiliary and one ringside, we got auxiliary. Ed was told that a 200mm was going to be fine, so he only brought his 300 2.8IS to make sure. Turns out the AUX position, while pretty close) still requires a 400 to get in nice and tight. Didnt have teh 400 on us, we were told we didnt need one. We were SOL…. he had to shoot with a converter, and well I was screwed.. I only had my 70-200 with 1.4 with me. Most of my fight images are cropped atleast 50-60%. And for the people who say the 70-200 with 1.4x is still just as good and sharp as without are retarded, its really soft.

It was a great time, the excitement from teh crowd really got you going. Every blow you can hear teh crowd just go nuts. I was only able to shoot some undercard, and 2 rounds of the Main event (security guard told me i couldnt shoot, because my pass didnt say shooter on it) i still controlled the overhead cam so no worries 🙂

Ok now my story is over, here are the pics, they are rather crappy, especially in comparison to the people i was with this week. Im still learning this fight game, and i hope to continue working with everyone and get better. Im no where near the level i want to be with this stuff, but i have my lifetime to keep trying.

1 From our AUX position

2 Seats all laid out

3 Undercard

4 Undercard

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12 OOF fuck… 1.4 + 70-200 2.
8 IS = shit af for fast action

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Ed, if you read this, thanks again for everything, i learn so much everytime, Hopefully ill see ya in January!