Aloha!

I took some photos for my friend and Kumu Hula of Hälau Hula O Wailehua hula school, Kekoa Yap for the school's first annual Hula recital. It was a great show and the dancers danced from the heart. Here are some photos from the gallery.

For Sale: 1958 Ford 1/2 Ton Short Bed

Last month, while I was setting up the booth for the Palm Springs Corvette Club Fall Classic Autocross, a gentleman walked up and was admiring the two 18 x 24 posters I had up. One was a blown up photograph of my truck on the autocross track from the last event and the other was a poster I had made up with information about my services. A light bulb when off in his head and he asked if I could do the same for him. He has a 1958 Ford 1/2 Ton Short Bed pick up that he had recently restored and is currently taking it to different car shows in the Southern California area. He wanted to have a poster that he could show in front of the truck with a list of all the specifications and what he had done to the truck. He also wanted to be able to use a smaller version for fliers he could hand out.

When we first met to go over the design, he just wanted me to create the poster and use one of the snap shots he took in front of his garage. I'm no snob but I suggested that for a few dollars more we could take the truck out to a barely driven road in the desert in Whitewater California and get some really good "buy me" photos.

Whitewater, California is about 20 minutes west of Palm Springs and I still consider as part of my Coachella Valley travel limit before I start charging extra. It's a spot that I've taken models and customers to before. He was up for the idea and after we spent about an hour photographing the truck. He was very surprised by the amount of time but I think he was impressed that I tried to cover every detail including underneath the chassis. I did minor touch ups to the photos to remove random telephone poles and to enhance exposure but what you see is what you get, one really nice truck.

I charged my normal fee for a vehicle portrait but instead of getting digital files or photos, I am providing the posters and added a few hours of graphic design. To add value to the package and for no additional cost, I suggested adding the web gallery to the bottom of the poster so that potential clients could easily go to the site and look at detailed photographs I had taken. The entire gallery can be seen at www.imagesbydemeglio.com/1958ford.

Adorable

I recently had the opportunity to take photos of a long time client and friend, Caroldean and her six week year old baby boy, Declan. I admit I was a little nervous, although I shouldn't have been because he's not the first infant I've photographed. It probably had to do more with me worrying that the photos won't be up to par or that Caroldean would be disappointed. It is very important to me that the experience and the photographs exceeds the expectations of my customers.

We did have a good time and as I tend to do, I went a little over time because I wanted Caroldean to have more than one pose and clothing change to choose from. I also attempted to apply some of my theatrical lighting to some of the photographs but unfortunately towards the end of the session, Declan decided he had had enough. That was OK though because he gave us some great poses earlier in the evening.

Thank you Caroldean and Declan.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween isn't usually my cup of tea. After high school, getting dressed up just seemed to be too much work although last year, I managed to pull off what I hope was a decent "Joe the plumber". I know, too easy, but that was the point :-)

This year, I didn't get dressed up but I did go out shooting. I had a blast taking photos and seeing many cool costumes. You can see photos of BB's 25th Annual Halloween Bash on the Palm Springs Metromix website. The party was enormous with several of the main ballrooms at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort hotel packed with costumed party goers.

Experimenting

I recently came across some event photos taken recently at a local club by photographer, Kyle Hendrix. He had taken photos in a way I never thought to for events and I was curious to find out how he did it. He never did get back to me with all of the details but I was surprised when he told me how long he "dragged" out the shutter speed, sometimes to over 1 second. Knowing the space he was shooting in, it explained why he was able to get the background to look the way it did and his flash(s) took care of the subject matter just great. The rest of the look, I'm assuming, was done while post processing.

So last Friday night while shooting for Metromix, I decided to experiment a little. So I kept my ISO down to about 500 (which can be low at the Red Barn) and set the time to about one second, aperture at around f/10 (which is REALLY small for the Red Barn) and snapped a few. Well, I'm sure shooting a portrait of people standing still would great but when you're photographing musicians who are all over the place... not so good. I of course got the ghosting I expected but I did get a little bit of a sharp subject matter. I didn't give up there though. I had always wanted to try a zooming technique. Basically, as the shutter is opened, I would change the zoom. Well all I have to say is, "way cool", especially when you have neon lights behind your subject! That's how I got the photo of "D" singing.

The next photo is "Mondo". I'm posting that here because, while I didn't deviate to much from my usual shooting style, I did have the shutter set at 1/10 of a second, where normally I'm at about 1/60th.

This allowed me to catch the ambient light behind him nicely. What I really like about this photo though is that I feel I captured "Mondo". He's got that big smile on his face and it's genuine. He loves performing and B Movie Superstars as a whole love being on the stage and singing their hearts out. The last photo is Martin, their lead guitarist. Here's a guy who would never look up while playing and when he does and I've got the camera ready... lol. I get the meanest looks but it's all in good fun (I like to think we're pretty good friends).

By the end of the night I already had what I needed for Metromix so I decided to have some fun and pulled the flash off the camera and attach the wireless trigger. I shoot with a Gary Fong Origami Fold Flat Diffuser attached to my flash and held the flash pointed so that the diffuser reflected light up towards Martin and slightly towards the wall. So even though the light was primarily an up-light, the wall acted as a reflector and filled in nicely from the side, still giving me the shadows I wanted on his right side.

Here are the rest of the photos from that night. The very first photo is an example of the first technique I tried.

Take care for now.
-A

-B Movie Superstars website-

Good Times

Once and sometimes twice a week you'll find me wandering around the local watering hole camera in hand taking photos for Metromix Palm Springs. Metromix Palm Springs is THE local internet entertainment website guide to find out what's going on in the Palm Springs area. It's a website that I wish existed 8 and a half years ago when I first moved to Palm Springs. Then again, there wasn't much going on for folks my age.

I truly enjoy going out and photographing for them because I have an opportunity to catch people having a great time out on the town and many times I get to see talented local artists performing or attend some of the coolest after parties.

These past two weeks I was at Shakerz in Palm Springs and captured everyone enjoying the Afro Classics, Provoked, Three Strykes, Jack Patron and DJ Odysey and then "One Night Only", a show put on at Confession Night Club in Palm Springs to benefit the Desert Aids Project.

If you see me out there, say hi and don't forget to smile for the camera!

Work Life -vs- Personal Life

Yesterday, I went mountain biking for the first time in a really long time. Something I've been promising my brother I would do once I got a bicycle helmet (The last time I really rode bicycles, there weren't bicycle helmets). Well, my cousin visited last month and was nice enough to purchase a helmet and left it for me. You would think that for my first time we would go for a nice easy ride. Yeah right. The climb up was painful. I thought I was going to pass out, throw-up, and or have a heart attack... several times. The ride down, painful, but only because I crashed into a bush that happened to be on the ground. I'm not really complaining though. I had fun and while I probably walked most of the time, I spent that time with my brother. Something that I take for granted. It's always work work work and now I've realized that work is just something you do to pay the bills. What is important is the time you spend with your friends and loved one's. If only I realized that eight and a half years ago, I may have not devoted as much time to my job as I had.

After my ride, I took some time to help my friend, Richard Byford of Byway Entertainment, out and take some photos of him for a website he is working on. Richard has been making a large effort to show that even in the event industry, they can do their part to help the environment. It was nice spending time with him and catching up on things. Richard is a very hard worker and you would never believe how, eh hem, how old (or young?) he is. Sadly, as hard as he works, I don't feel that he gives himself enough "Richard" time and I wish I could get him to realize that it's ok to put the phone down after normal work hours, sit down, grab a drink and relax for a few hours. The work will be there tomorrow.