Here is a portrait I did of Football player Robert Woods a few months back. I couldn’t post it until it was printed.

I was very happy with how the shots turned out on this shoot. Robert was a real class act to work with and even told me about Sand Dune Park! Where he works out…along with a bunch of other athletes including Kobe Bryant. You might remember that guy from the NBA Championship he just won. Alas, I did not take a portraits (or even see him) on this shoot.

The first photo was at Sand Dune Park in Manhattan Beach CA. When you first step up to it, it looks simple but I was surely winded after just walking (at a fast pace) up the hill to a little over the half way point and I was training for a marathon!

I used one light with an octabank (held by my assistant Jake) with a battery pack. It was on full power to over power the ambient and make the clouds look dark and stormy.

My assistant Kicked sand in the front and I throw it to the back. We only did a few before it turned out like this. He is actually standing still and posing.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 15
ISO: 200
Aperture: 5.6
Shutter: 1/250

This is what the hill looked like. Had tons of people on it and It was VERY sandy as you would expect. My assistant Jake looks very displeased with the amount of sand in his shoes.

I also dump out enough sand to fill a childs sandbox after getting done with the shoot.

This shot was naturally lit! GASP! I used the light coming through the upper windows and set my white balance to 10k.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 48
ISO: 250
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/640

Two side lights with strip boxes and large octobank in the front.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 125
Aperture: 11
Shutter: 1/200

Two lights with strip boxes pointed in towards him for each side. I shot this on a dark grey background with no light hitting it. So it turned black.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 125
Aperture: 9
Shutter: 1/250

A set up shot. Dark Grey back ground.

Thanks for stopping by!

One of the baseball players I took pictures of for the cover of ESPN rise just graduated high school and was drafted 5th overall by the Orioles! Im really happy he went so high. Hes a great guy and I wish him the best.

Here are some photos.

Model: NIKON D3
Serial #:
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Frame #:
Lens (mm): 56
ISO: 250
Aperture: 10
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
Flash Comp.:
Program: Manual

Lighting: Two hard side lights, one front light with a 20 degree grid slightly under so his glove casts a shadow on his face.

Model: NIKON D3
Serial #:
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Frame #:
Lens (mm): 34
ISO: 250
Aperture: 8
Shutter: 1/160

Lighting
One light, with only a reflector hand held by my assistant straight in front of him.

Model: NIKON D3
Serial #:
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Frame #:
Lens (mm): 24
ISO: 100
Aperture: 10
Shutter: 1/320

I used hard side light by using two strip boxes but I took off the diffuser in the front for a higher output. Also, my assistant (Ric Tapia) is holding the light up towards him so its gets under his hat.

Thanks for looking! I will should have another one pretty soon. I promise.

I had the privilege to photograph a boxer a few weeks ago and here is one of my favorite shots from the short session. I had to place black stretching mats behind the ropes because there were large mirrors surrounding the ring. I placed them behind the ropes so I wouldn’t get a lot of reflection from the light and so you wouldn’t see me in the frame.

For the shot I used a ABR800 ring flash at a very low power to fill the front (I find it very harsh at higher settings) I also used an Alien bee B800 with a beauty dish above him pointing towards his back for separation from the background.

Settings:
Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 24-70mm at 24mm
ISO: 200
Aperture: 18
Shutter: 1/200

Here is Jake and his friend Matt helping out by being a boom arm for me. They are holding the beauty dish above and pointing toward his back.

So, its been a long time since my last entry, I know. I have a few excuses! I swear! First, the magazines I work for have to print the photos before I can post them. Second, I’m lazy. OK, well I’m not lazy, but over the past few months I have been neglecting my blog. That is going to change. I am going to try and blog a lot more often. I have a few blogs I am going to try and post this week starting with this one, so please stay tuned.

For this shoot I was in Hawaii for one of my friends from highs schools wedding. He asked if I could come by and bring my camera and In return he would pay for mine and my wife’s plane tickets and condo stay for a week. Not a bad deal if I say so. He also gave me a little cash

Every day we drove by this sugar cane field on the way to the beach I wanted to stop and take a photo in, so finally on the day of there wedding the brides hair and makeup was late so I had an extra hour to kill. I took the my friend and his best man out to the field and did a few shots. This is my favorite one.

I used one Strip box with a grid on the front. The box was set up in the front right vertically. There wasn’t much going in the photo so I decided to have his best man throw up his tie to make it look like it was flying in the wind. I later added a plane in photoshop. There were planes coming and going over that location but we had very little time to shoot and he really wanted it in there.

Settings:

Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 24
ISO: 100
Aperture: 9
Shutter: 1/160

About a month or so ago I shot a few portraits of Jane Rah, a high school golf rock star who has already played in the LPGA tour. Here are some of my favorites and a few set ups. Sorry, I dont have more. It was a rush to get all the photos we needed in before the sunset. We met around 6:30 so we wouldn’t have to deal with such harsh light. I brought along my awesome assistants Chris and Brian to help trek the gear around the golf course. Luckily when we showed up we had a golf cart waiting for us to load up. (This was the first time I ever drove one of these bad boys and I must say I just may take up golf after driving this thing.) We brought along two alien bees AB800 lights with a beauty dish and a softbox umbrella (brolly box, I think is what they are called, I may be wrong) I used the beauty dish for the majority of the shooting. I also had my trusty Alien Bees Vegabond II battery pack. (which is awesome, I just picked up second one.) We had to make five different photos for the magazine so I already had some in mind because I scouted the course before hand. Our first location was with the golf cart on the first fairway but later I wished I would have taken the first photo with out it because I feel it distracts or maybe just move it so there is more separation between the two. (that maybe just me)

-1D Mark III 16-35 at 22mm The beauty dish was the main light (off camera right) and the sun acted as the rim light (notice the warm glow on her arm and face) Settings ISO 50 1/250 F10

-1D Mark III 16-35 at 16mm Sun was main light. Alien bee with just a reflector was rim light. It was behind and to the left of the golf cart. Settings ISO 100 1/320 F6.3

-1D Mark III 16-35 at 16mm Beauty dish main light off camera right, sun rim light Settings ISO 100 1/320 F8

Canon 1D Mark III 85mm 1.2 Natural Light Settings ISO 100  1/5000 F1.2

Next I went to the hole on the course that overlooked the ocean. Canon 1D Mark III 85mm 1.2 Beauty dish main light (and sun) off camera right. Alien bee with a brolly box camera left behind her for a rim. Settings ISO 100  1/125 F7.1 On the way to the sand trap I wanted to go to I noticed the sun was almost done and thought it would be a great silo of Jane if we stopped and shot it.

Lens (mm): 35 ISO: 50 Aperture: 8 Shutter: 1/160 Temperture white balance 10k  (in camera) Once we got to the sand trap I started I hustled to get the lights in place not only was the sun almost 100% gone Jane’s parents were waiting for here. Oops! I dont remember taking this shot, but Chris is standing in with a “flag” (black cardboard from walmart) and Brian is standing there forgetting to turn on the other light (beauty dish).

The other light is off to the left cross lighting Jane. This is the shot I envisioned the entire time and was waiting for unfortunately they don’t always turn out like you want them to. Turns out its hard to hit sand up and someone and not blink every-time, but its OK. I still like the photo. I also had the coach throw in the ball from the side so it didnt hit me in the face.

Lens (mm): 16 ISO: 200 Aperture: 10 Shutter: 1/320

I laid on the ground side ways and shot underneath a small piece of plexiglass so the sand wouldn’t hit my camera (and face!) I also had a towel over my head. I looked pretty sweet Im sure. Next, I got up to shot the same shot but this time of her coming out of the bunker.

Canon 1D Mark III with a 70-200mm 2.8 Lens (mm): 95 ISO: 200 Aperture: 9 Shutter: 1/320 Two lights cross lighting, one in the front more than the other to hit the face better.

I had a lot more good ones but will put them up later if anyone wants to take a look at them. Thanks again for looking and like always feel free to ask questions! *UPDATE* This article is now featured on www.askthephotographer.com

I have been doing a lot of portraits lately (as you can see) and after Jamie (my boss at Icon) sent some of my portraits to a few magazines I got a email from the editor at Rise with three upcoming assignments. Here are a few images from the first assignment.

For the shot my two assistants and I hiked up the side of a hill to try and get away from the “school feel.” The girls were nice and once they got the “giggles” out of them they were awesome models for the shoot.

p.s. Thanks to Jake and Brian, who are awesome for hiking up about a mile to the spot on the hillside with 7 lights about 60 pounds of extension cords, battery pack and extra lightstands and modifiers and we only used two, oops. Thanks!

The lighting is very simple. big Softbox in the front. (30×60 inch with an alienbee 800 inside) and an alienbee 800 with an umbrella on the right to give the background a little light.

About two weeks after the first set of basketball portraits another tournament came up, this time it was at USC with a lot less players. Some of them I knew from the last time I took pictures of them which was cool. They opened up a lot more specially after I emailed them some of their last shots.

This shoot I had three people helping me move stuff around which was nice because we had to move the set up twice. We had everything in place and we were waiting for the first player to show up when my arch nemesis the “event staff” showed up. I know they are just doing there job, but most of the time, they do it very poorly and they are given way to much power in these rolls. We then moved down stairs with 7 lights, lightstands, cords, camera cases…ect.

We found a nice red curtain for a background for the first few pictures then moved again outside to the outdoor basketball court which was fun, but hard to get the players out of the building.

The light set up with similar to the last. 2 background (rim lights) and one big softbox in the front. Also, I never thought that basketballs would be so scarce at a basketball camp.

The set up, and Brian standing in for the bball players.

Last month I went to Tucson AZ for the Arizona Cactus Classic. It is a tournament for all the top high school basketball players in the country, we are talking next Lebron and kobe here. My job was to get portraits of all the players.

I was first set up (by the tournament people) in a room with very little to work with. About three feet of shooting space, seriously. So I scouted around the arena and found a loading dock to take all the photos in. It was great because it a had a very gritty feel to it and I could get three differnt looks in a very short amount of time, which was good because I got between 1-5 minutes with each of the players. I was seriously grabbing them as they were walking into the gym to play.

The light set up was pretty  simple. I wanted to create a very dramatic light to go with the gritty-ness so I used to back lights (alien bees b800) with no modifiers, just reflectors for rim lights a small soft octa-box in the front for fill and another light hitting the background (on some shots).

I used a nikon D3 for all the shots with a 24-70mm.

Here are some shots from the event.

Remember to click on the photos for larger sizes.

(Wanted to mention these are best viewed in Firefox for some reason. Safari makes them look distorted when clicked on.)

Please feel free to ask questions.

I got to go on a road trip recently to the San Francisco bay area and shoot a basketball game and some portraits of Australian basketball players from Saint Mary’s college in Moraga CA.

To top it off, the night before I shot a basketball game at UCLA which ended at 10 then I went straight to san fran after that and didn’t get to my hotel in (scary scary) Oakland until 4am in the morning only to wake up at 9 to get ready for the portrait, FUN!

Seriously, I had a great time. I had the help of a pro and some fun guys to shoot.
Thanks for looking!

This is the one they picked for Sports Illustrated.

If you want one, leave your address! When there printed, Ill send you one.

This year, I wanted to do something fun for our christmas card. We always plan out one but never follow through with it. So this year I had to go all out. What better way to start, than with a crude 1st grader like drawing that took about a minute.

Then we add the models. This was a tough one because peanuts (our dog) schedule is very full and doesnt like to be photographed and Rachel gets tired of me taking pictures of her almost immediatly after I start.
First we started with peanut. To get this amazing poise Rachel held a treat above her head to make her stand up. The viscious craze in her face was just a bonus.
Then we added us. I had to place my camera on a tripod and use remote to trigger the camera. To light it, I used 4 alien bees, a large soft box for the main light , 2 lights behind to give some highlights, and one on the background.

I then took the photos and cut them out using OnOne’s Mask Pro 4.1 (free trial!) This is a really cool program and a huge time saver. I toned the images together and gave our legs shadows under to make the photos blend together better. I then took the head of Peanut and rotated it down. Then I put it on a green background (using a new layer and paint bucket) to clean up the rest of the pic.

Then I needed a background. So I found a sky picture on a free stock photo page on the internet.

We just moved to Los Angeles this year from washington so what better way to show that than the Hollywood sign. (courtesy of my friend and his point and shot camera) I obviously took the liberty of making the hill the sign sits on a little more rounded. I did this by taking the left side and pasting it at an angle on the side, then blended it.

I added some palm trees to make it more california like and birds cause we were flying and needed company.

Finally I changed peanuts paws in the rear to look more like she is not standing on something. I did this by copying her front paws and then transforming them and blending them in. Then I put a motion blur on us and peanut to make it look like we are going fast (and cause its fun)

Thats it! If you have any specific questions leave me a comment.
Thanks for looking! Special thanks to our dog for being a trooper.