Products, People, and International Travel

It's been a little while since I last posted. I've been very busy with assignments, client shoots, and preparing for a few day trip to Mexico next week. I'll be posting some of the band photos I recently finished tonight so look forward to those. Otherwise, Sunday evening I'll head out for Laredo, TX in preparation to cross the border Tuesday into Nuevo Larado, Mex. I'll be observing operations at an orphanage and shooting a video and stills for promotion of a future trip to the orphanage. So look for those photos in a week or so too!

On to the assignment. Products. I chose the new Premium M&Ms because I wanted something to shoot on a dark background that needed some depth. It worked well.

Also did some flash shots with Hillary. These were great fun! I ended up using a photo where the flash was coming through a homemade diffusion panel for some softening of the light. Also, the flash was nearly level with her head. Interesting lighting patters about when you get your flash off your camera!!

Hope you like them! Tell me what you think!

Lightroom 2

Of late I have been considering an upgrade in my photo management and initial edits software. Currently, I use Apple's Aperture 1.x. I enjoy the ease of use and am comfortable with the interface and capabilities so I leaned heavily toward purchasing Aperture 2.x. I also was very excited to learn that Aperture has a new feature for tethered shooting; meaning that I would be able to see full views of shots on my MacBook within seconds of closing the shutter.

In spite of my loyalty to Apple and my already biased view of Aperture, I decided to give Adobe's Lightroom 2 a trial run. So a few days ago, I downloaded the 30-day trial and imported into my new temporary Lightroom Library a few recent shoots. I was at first wary of the interface and work-flow which is slightly more prominent in Lightroom over Aperture. Usually, I enjoy just being left to my own devices when it comes to flow organization.

After processing two product shoots, a headshot session and a shoot for a local band, I have fallen love with Lightroom. The newer features, which I am grateful are "standard" to me, impressed me beyond belief. Such tight integration with Photoshop and an amazing set of non-destructive editing tools deserve eager applause.

Here is the first photo that I have released since my conversion to Lightroom. I am very excited about a future spent in the lightroom!