Albuquerque New Mexico Food Photography at The Acre vegetarian restaurant

November 08, 2018 in Commercial

Vegetarian Comfort Food Photography in ABQ

I have been vegetarian for over 22 years. It is much easier being vegetarian now than it was then, but a fully vegetarian restaurant is still a rare thing to come across. Thus, I was extra excited to get a UberEats food photography assignment for The Acres which features comfort vegetarian food, as they describe it at their Albuquerque, New Mexico location. Shawn and his staff were very prepared and helped out, with one waitress even hand modeling in the above shot1 And the topper, I got to take the green chile veggie cheeseburger to go! Thanks Shawn!

Filling Philly's UberEats Food Photography in Albuquerque New Mexico

November 01, 2018 in Commercial

Views and Mac & Cheese!

Filling Philly’s has a great downtown location in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I made these professional food photographs for UberEats as I did some people watching through the huge floor to ceiling windows as I waited for the five dishes to come out. Thank you Branden for letting me take home the mac & cheese balls!

Albuquerque Food Photography at Poki Poki

October 24, 2018 in Commercial

Poki Poki is just fun to say!

Back out on food photography assignments for UberEats in Albuquerque, New Mexico taking me to Poki Poki, an Asian-Latin fusion restaurant. You build your own bowl of food starting with a base and ending with toppings. This allows, as you can see above, for a wide variety of Poke Bowls you can create. My thanks to Julie for having everything ready and making this the absolute smoothest UberEats food shoot I have done so far!

Women's Summit 2018 Albuquerque Event Photography

August 14, 2018 in Event

A great debut event in Albuquerque!

I have known Aleitress Owens from many networking events in the past year and a half in Albuquerque, New Mexico. When she asked me to sponsor her event, Women's Summit 2018, I said I would be glad to and donated a headshot session. She also asked if I would attend and take a few photos, which I also gladly did. The venue, called The View, had great natural light and very stylish decor with a fantastic layout. This, combined with the women and men in attendance, made for very easy candid event photography!

1-on-1 Canon 5D Mark III DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Dan 2

November 25, 2013 in Photography Lessons

Dan learning how to shoot in natural light with his Canon 5D Mark III during our St. Petersburg Florida photography lessonIt has been five weeks since I met Dan for our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg and he has decided to turn that single lesson into a 4-pack of lessons. He told me he also basically forgot everything from the lesson and we changed our plans of him photographing his dog to having a refresher on the process needed to shoot in manual mode with his Canon 5D Mark III.

We began by him showing me some photographs he took at a chalk festival to see where in the 5-step process of getting a well exposed and sharp photograph he went astray. While he was getting the meter to show neutral before pressing the shutter on some shots, it was not the ideal way of doing so, i.e. with a high ISO and super fast shutter speed rather than a minimum ISO and slower shutter speed.

After getting things sorted out with the workflow for when to increase aperture, shutter speed and ISO, we then walked around the downtown area putting it into practice making a few natural light portraits and starting to introduce some composition tips too. I look forward to seeing Dan's improved results next time we meet!

1-on-1 Nikon D5100 DSLR Photography Lesson 2 with Bob in St. Petersburg Florida

October 11, 2013 in Photography Lessons

Bob returns with his Nikon D5100 for a second 1-on-1 DSLR photography lesson in downtown St. Petersburg FloridaBob returned to downtown St. Petersburg with his Nikon D5100 for a second 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson after traveling around the southeast of the U.S. this summer. He told me he kept shooting in manual mode (great) though now had some questions about what and when to change for getting exposure just right. I have written a photography tip blog post on this very subject, where I state you should change your shutter speed first. So what happens once you run out of shutter speed (i.e. hit 1/60)? This is what I went into the most detail on with Bob at the start of our lesson refreshing him on shooting in manual mode and letting him know my thought process for why I adjust shutter speed first, then aperture, then finally ISO if necessary. In this way, there is never a question of what shutter speed one should use, you use the shutter speed necessary to get the exposure you want. Then it is a matter of what you need to adjust if you reach the handheld shutter speed limit of 1/60th (for wide angle lenses).

After that exposure chat we walked around the downtown skyscrapers practicing it. By having Bob make adjustments while looking through the viewfinder, I was teaching him to be not only efficient in changing settings, but also accurate as the camera has to be pointed at the actual subject in order to get a proper meter reading. I feel confident with more practice Bob will be able to manually shoot in any lighting conditions and get the exposure he wants. Now what to do about shutter speed once he gets a tripod . . . ?

Canon T3i Natural Light Portrait Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg with Elizabeth

July 17, 2012 in Photography Lessons

Elizabeth photographing her boyfriend who thankfully modeled during our natural light portrait photography lesson in St. PetersburgFor our second of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons in St. Petersburg, Florida Elizabeth brought her boyfriend and his brother to model for our lesson on natural light portraits. This was great for me as otherwise I would have had to of been the one in the shots as I am most of the time when students want to practice portraits. Bringing your own model also has the benefit of at the end of the lesson you have portraits of someone you know that you can share and display rather than twenty forgettable shots of yours truly.

Elizabeth will soon be investing in some strobist gear, so instead of bothering to use the almost useless popup flash in portraits practice, I had her put on her Canon 70-300mm lens and just use natural light and over exposing techniques to make some creative portraits all over the place, from under a shaded hall of columns (see above) to the interior of the Baywalk parking garage to the front steps of a museum.

Indeed we also practiced making silhouette shots atop the parking garage utilizing a railing high up in the air to create some rather cool images. Thanks to the models' willingness to go wherever we asked Elizabeth not only learned the technique for using natural light in portraits, but also actually ended up with some great shots of her boyfriend and his brother.