Celebrities, Parties, and Concerts. Ode to the Vegas Photographer…

So this past week has been a busy one. Got back to Vegas on Tuesday night, caught up on much needed sleep.

Friday was an adventure and a half. Dixies Dam Bar then on to Gavin Rossdale at LAX nightclub. If you dont know him, well you have been living under a freakin rock. Gavin used to be the lead singer of hit alternative band, Bush. And now known to be the 2nd half of one of the worlds most attractive couples. He is married to Gwen Steffani. Gavin is back to his music career again, and he performed a special acoustic set for the fans of LAX, in Las Vegas.

However before Gavin was Dixies Dam Bar, i must say this place could be my new chill spot. Something to do when i want to hang out and listen to good rock music and just have some all around wholesome fun. The Open Bar flavor of this night was Grey Goose and Smirnoff Vodka, as well as Budweiser and Bud Light. If you dont know what Open Bar is about, its a weekday event that my company throws for all of Vegas. We choose a different venue every weekday and treat Vegas to some free booze. Its the perfect after work get away. 6-9pm every weekday. Visit SpyOnVegas.com. ok end Plug… lol on to the pics… oh yeah did i mention that Dixies Dam Bar has beautiful, cowboy themed, women working there??

Then Red Carpet with the Queen of Media, Perez Hilton and Gavin Rossdale

Gavin Rossdale

close up

Then he performed in the club, a four song set that included:  “Come Down,” “Love Remains the Same”, “Forever May You Run” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.”

Flash was allowed for use, but friend and Awesome photog, Erik Kabik (www.retna.com) and I decided we wouldnt use it much when we were up in the Pit, mainly because it may distrub Gavin. Just FYI, it is not typical for Flash to be allowed at a concert, actually its typically FORBIDDEN.

Singing "Come Down"

Now im not one to bad name anyone, but Gavin is quite possibly the one of the most arrogant stars i have come across. I heard froma  reliable source he was not very cooperative when he was asked to take a PR image after his show, and was very rude.  Eff that noise. When celebs are being paid for appearances and/or performances, they should be gracious and courteous enough to take the photos that are required. This is not “stalkarazzi”, we are hired in to take posed photos. but i digress.

On Sunday i was contracted by the PR folks at TAO to come take some Press photos of Matthew McConaughey and his girlfriend Camila Alves.  I must say that this couple is stunning. And quite possibly the most laid back celebs i have ever come across. They were super cool, and just plain awesome. They didnt really want to do “posed” style photos, but rather wanted tom walking and smiling photos. Of course i was more than happy to oblige them. They are quite the good looking couple,i shot them walking into the venue.

Matthew and Camila as they enter Tao Nightclub and Restaurant

Next was the oh so stunning Marisa Miller. Now i have seen Marisa on television and Movies, but WOW, she is a different kind of beautiful. Very elegant and classy.

Beautiful!

While shooting Marisa, i had the scariest thing happen. A Photographers nightmare. For some reason or another my Offshoe cord failed. I use a bracket for all my Press shooting, so i freaked, Marisa was already late for her plane, and needed to get out of there. With a spilt second, i took off everything and went with on camera flash, bounced into my Lumiquest MidiBouncer, and thank god it ended up working out, the side light from the MidiBounce worked out great for the Portrait Orientation shot. It added just enough.

Crisis averted! 🙂

I know i say this all the time, but expect more blog entries, i really am planning on some tutorial posts in the next month or so. I plan on adding 1 tutorial a month, along with 1 personal entry and 1 photo entry. Keep watching because i plan on adding some juicy celeb gossip on here as well.

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Red Rock Federal Park hates Photoshoots…

Ask me how i know….

So today my friend Brenton and I set out for a photoshoot for two of his friends for a standard TFCD. It was more of a favor then anything, no biggy. Helping a friend is always aplus in my book, and if i get to shoot too, thats just gravy! Also I wanted to try out my Softlighter II outside anyway, so off we go.

The meeting time was set at 9am at the local Starbucks, seems easy enough right? Apparently not for this group… I ended up at a Starbucks a mile away, the girls ended up at different Starbucks, and Brenton made it to the correct Starbucks… It was bad, I was waiting at my location for atleast 15 min, before i decided to call and find out where the heck everyone was. Obviously after i spoke with Brent i felt like an idiot. But when do i not feel like an idiot atleast once a day.

So we meet, i figure i would go with a minimal lighting setup this time around. 1 b1600 and vagabond, and 2 580exs. 1 54″ softlighter and an umbrella. Yea you may say that still alot of light blah blah blah, but i was preparing the b1600 just in case we had to overpower the Sun, so there… there is a method to my madness.

We arrive at the Red Rock location that Brenton scouted the day before, “Lost Creek”, we park, and the girls then relaize the “Lost Creek” is a weee bit of a hike. But no worries the toughed it out. We get to teh location and are immediately greeted by what seemed to be an endless amount of children running around. It was quite the buzzkill. We wait a bit till the kids clear out, and try and setup, and yet another wave of rugrats come strolling through, however this time there is a very grumpy old woman with them.

After conducting some test shots, this woman decides to confront us and throw out the “Do you have a permit” line. And i of course fired back the “No, we are students on a photo project” line. Because obviously i dont have a permit. She muddles something and walks away. We continue. Not 30 min later, some official looking woman comes up, and say we have to pack up. We decide to oblige, when we are almost done packing up, another official looking man walks up and says, “This is a great spot for photos”, “Are you guys leaving already?” I explain that the previous officla told us to leave, he whispers to me, “Dont worry about it, just wait until we disappear” So we wait and sure enough we continue.

The shoot turned out nice. I learned the softlighter produces a very, very soft light that really cant be described. I believe its due to the nature of the design, It diffuses already reflected light. So its sort of like the same light you get with a beauty dish with a diffusion screen on but not as directional. Very good quality light. Almost too soft for some things. But for this particular type of shoot “Glamour-esque” it was perfect.

We tried many different concepts, though Brenton explained to the girls to bring multiple wardrobe changes, they failed to do so, so sadly we tried multiple concepts with the same clothing… eehhhh.

One of the girls was very natural in front of the camera, And for some reason this girls name escaped me all day. I only got it right once thorugh out the day. It was something fancy, and out of the norm. Naomisomethingoranother.  She was a natural beauty, very little make up and though it was her first time posing, was very natural in front of the camera.  Jenna on the other hand seemed very nervous, and took awhile longer for her to finally loosen up, but she finally got there. Just took a little more coercing then normal.

Here is one of the images from the shoot, about 5 min worth of post, just to update the good ol’ blog. I will post final edit later this week.  When im finally done with it.

5d with 50 1.4 USM. ISO 100, 1/100 @f10

Lighting setup for shot above

If you have any question abotu anything on this blog, feel free to email me at al@powersimagery.com , i am more than willing to help anyone that wants to learn.

Razor Rob McCullough Instructional MMA sequence

So yesterday i got a call from my friend Ryan over at Triumph United, http://www.triumphunited.com, the best MMA gear around, to shoot an instructional sequence for him with  Razor Rob McCullough (http://www.razorrob.tv). I said no problemo, since Ryan is a friend, and always helps me out with gear. Rob and I set a 11am meet time at his gym, Xtreme Couture, Xtreme Couture Web, to do the sequence. These type of shoots are not too flashy mainly make sure there is a good amount of fill on the fighters faces and have a nice sharp image. So all i used was my 580ex on my bracket bounced upward in to the ceiling, with a 5d with my trusty Sigma 24-60 2.8, and went to town. We shot three different types of combinations.

Here is one of them.

Right outside leg kick transition to flying punch and end with left body kick.

Razor Rob showing technique, as well as sporting some T*U gear. (click on the image for a larger size)

Having shot both MMA and Boxing events, and dealing with fighters, i must say that MMA fighters are so much more humble and nice. Rob was very kind, courteous and very cooperative. Make sure to watch his next fight in the WEC at 155lb, he is a beast.

Joaquin Phoenix, Superstar gone RAP?!!

Well People Magazone picked up one of my images of the horrific Joaquin Phoenix’s trainwreck. It was sad to see someone who had such a lucritive and amazing career in acting turn to this road. I barewitness to the entire performance, it was truly awful. It also made alot of us in teh industry rethink, it was so awesomely bad that it has to be some sort of spoof.  A sick joke he is playing on Hollywood. Perhaps making fun of al those actors that turn to their music careers. Who knows? All i know is that it was definately a sight to see.

Joaquin Phoeinx performs as LAVO nightlcub in Las Vegas, NV

As an example of how bad it was, here is ayoutube video of it.

Please note this is not my Video, it was found on youtube.

Mariah Carey is a red carpet robot…

Wow. just wow… So remember how i said i had to shoot Mariah Carey last week. Well it went terribly. We waited on the red carpet for her for nearly 2.5 hours. Press release said promptly at 10pm. She arrived and walked the carpet at 12:30. Then she didn’t even go inside for longer than 5 min before dashing away. All the while she was supposed to pose and get some shots for a press kit. She didn’t bother to stay for that. I still got paid but still what a freakin DIVA!!!!

While on the carpet she posed very awkwardly. It was weird, hands on waist and Panned her body as if on a specific axis… It was quite strange.

She was like a water sprinkler head.

She didnt have a personality at all on the carpet, not a word from her.

Mimi’s a Red carpet Robot