The Shoeless

So this is going to be a 2 part post but I figured I would at least break-up a little bit.

If anyone knows me they know that I take a lot of portraits. They are actually my main form of photography. Now the other day I was reading about how boring and popular portraiture. From doing different kinds of web surfing I noticed that he was completely right, everyone’s portraits look the exact same.  It made me kind of said but it got me thinking on ways that I can get better. If you would like to read the article please take the 5 mins out of your day to… The Portaitist

On that note though, I took some portraits recently that I feel the need to show. No they aren’t amazing but they are getting better… I have room to grow and I know this so I am excited.

So my middle sister recently got married, a week ago, and for her wedding she had me take bridal portraits of her in her wedding dress. I took her to N.C. State’s Arboretum and the rose garden at Raleigh Little Theater. I haven’t been able to show any of these portraits because of the possibility of the groom seeing them.  I printed a nice 16″x20″ for her/the wedding which is where it was shown for the first time.

My sister in her dress at the rose garden

Smelling roses before they died for the winter.

As I have talked about in previous post, I have started (not yet finished) a 7 deadly sins theme. To take a new picture for one of the sins, I did a shoot with one of my friends. Once we finished, we just kind of fooled around taking a variety of different shots. The followed shot is a product of us just messing around.

Kathleen being light by a stray incandescent light

The following meet I met up with a new friend to just kind of mess around and shoot. I was still getting use to my new 35mm f/1.8 lens so I used it to pull off different feels. While I was in Washington D.C. in the portrait gallery at the Smithsonian, I saw a variety of head shots with this low depth of field, grungy feel. I kind of liked it so this one of Christian kind of mimics that sort of photography.

Christian studio shot

With Christmas in between now and my post, I took some pictures of my family.  I took some fun ones of my sister on Christmas eve.

Cheryl having fun on Christmas eve

For Christmas I got a set of pocket wizards and my friend from Maine came down to NC and I got a chance to visit with her. We went over to Duke Gardens and I got a chance to try out my new toy. After some frustration (from wind and the pocket wizards) I got everything set up. While I on one of the bridges I got to take the following photo.

Nyssa at Duke Gardens

I feel like my portraits aren’t great but I’ll soon get to where I want to be. Look for my next post on sporting and other events I’ve shot in the past 2 months.

So, I was going through my photos in Lightroom today, and I noticed that I did 4 photo shoots with the last 30 days. 3 of them were in the last week. I decided I might as well show my favorites from all of them as now that summer is coming around I’ve been able to start heading outside to take pictures.

The first of the 4 shoots, was a favor for a friend. She made/designed the Latin Dance groups dresses (she got a friend to help her make some of them).  So I took a pictures basically for her profile.

NCSU Dance Team Members

After that, I did another favor for a friend, this time it was taking a picture of her writing on another girls back. It turned out really cool. The model that she got I met that day and due to traffic my friend didn’t get there until after the other model got there. So the model and I took some pictures until my friend go there. This next picture is one that I took during that time.

Model posing with my bowler.

This past Friday, a friend invited to me to go take pictures with her. We decided to go to the Arboretum. We walked around and ended up in one of the green houses. She let me borrow her macro lens. I was happy I was able to get some some water droplet photos.

Plants in the greenhouse after being watered.

My friend, Rebecca, with whom I went to the greenhouses.

Forth and file photo shoot was a fun. I made a new friend, Michelle, she put on her Yukata and Obi and we went to Pullen Park. We found this really cool bamboo section that we cused to great some nice Japanese style scenary to fit with the apparel. Oddly enough when we were leaving the area we ran into a worker at Pullen. Really nice guy, he apparently used to go hang out over by the Design school so we had a nice chat about that and finding peace in Raleigh. In the end I was glad we had a talk with him, because it just goes to show you never know what kind of conversation you can have with strangers.

Michelle playing with the water while wearing her yukata and obi.

That’s all the new pictures for now. I’ll probably upload some of my renders that I”m finishing up tonight and in the morning. I will also be going to the Carolina Hurricane game on Wednesday night to shoot for the Independent, so I’ll probably post a picture from that.