Commercial

Florida beach bikini model commercial photography

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Model: Monica Location: Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/3200th 

If you are looking for a place to warm up this winter, Sunset Beach on Treasure Island, St. Petersburg, Florida is a great choice.  In this collection of natural light photographs bikini model Monica makes a strong case for Florida tourism if not out right relocation!

Model: Monica Location: Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/2000thOne does not swim in the ocean on the west coast of Florida, but rather the Gulf of Mexico.  This means much warmer water year round as well as calm conditions out on the water.  Dolphins are a common sight.  In the above photograph Monica emerges from the Gulf in dramatic fashion.

Model: Monica Location: Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/2000thThose warm and calm conditions also make Florida's gulfcoast beaches ideal places to put your beach towel down on the white sand and just enjoy the tranquility.  The end to most days on the gulfcoast is punctuated with a fantastic sunset like the one Monica is watching above.

Model: Monica Location: Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/1250thIf you live in a cold place and have to suffer through a harsh winter, well then I hope these images have helped to warm you up a little and that you visit Florida to thaw out on your winter vacation.  Be sure and contact me for great Florida beach portraits while you are here.

VIP Eye Care St. Petersburg Interior Commercial Photography

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VIP Eye Care St. Petersburg - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR mounted on Induro CT214 tripodI have been a contact lens client of VIP Eye Care every since I moved to St. Petersburg nearly three years ago.  I chose them as my contact supplier since they were an independent local business, rather than going with one of the chains or an eye care place in a department store.  They recently moved to a new location and had a ribbon cutting with St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, which I attended and took a few photographs of.  That began my business relationship as a photographer with Dr. Henri and her staff.

Granite countertops on the reception desk - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR mounted on Induro CT214 tripod

By networking at the ribbon cutting event I learned that there was interest in having professional interior shots done.  A few weeks later, the shoot was scheduled and VIP Eye Care returned the favor by helping my local business by hiring me to do the commercial photography work.

Right on 4th St N & 22nd Ave N - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR mounted on Induro CT214 tripodThe focus of the interior shoot was to highlight how many pairs of glasses were on display while also showing the exterior view of 4th Street North.  To accomplish this I used the HDR photography technique.  

VIP Eye Care exterior at night - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5 sec mounted on CT214 Induro tripodThe lone exterior shot requested was a night shot showing light trails from passing cars.  Since cars passing straight across blocked much of the ground level windows of the boutique, I decided that traffic making left hand turns was better.  However, it took quite a few signal cycles until there were enough cars heading in both opposite directions to be able to make the desired shot.  After making this long 5 second exposure, I took another faster exposure so that the signs on the building and the signal post were not blown out.  I then blended those two images in Photoshop CS5 using a layer mask to reveal the signs on the long exposure image.

I look forward to continuing both my eye care customer and commercial photographer relationships with VIP Eye Care and its friendly staff.

Business Headshot Photography Maria in St. Petersburg Florida

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Headshot done right in the client's St. Petersburg Florida office - Nikon D300 with Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 to frame right @ 1/4 power & SB-600 @ 1/8th power to frame left both pointing backwardsI met Maria in her office on 4th Street near downtown St. Petersburg for what I aim to be a "quick and painless" headshot.  My goal is to be in and out in less than 30 minutes so that making the headshot photograph does not take up much of the client's time.  On this occasion it went about as smoothly as it possibly could go because Maria was very well prepared and a great model for her headshot!

The headshot, or rather upper body headshot, was made right in her office using a blank wall as she wanted a plain background from which her graphic designer could easily manipulate the image to be used in various PR materials and on her business website.  This final image was delivered to Maria less than 12 hours after the shoot. 

TownePlace Suites Marriott St. Petersburg Clearwater commercial hotel shoot

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TownePlace Suites by Marriott St. Petersburg Clearwater outdoor pool - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-bracket HDR mounted on Induro CT214 tripod with Nikon MC-30 cable release

Continuing my partnership with area Marriott hotels (see Historic Courtyard), last week I photographed the exterior & interior of TownePlace Suites St. Petersburg Clearwater.  This hotel is designed for long term stays with the rooms featuring kitchens and additional living and work spaces within the suites.  To my surprise, this hotel is also pet friendly, so your dog or cat can stay with you!

Lobby area features of TownePlace Suites - snacks & front desk are HDR; gym is single exposureI really liked the "In a Pinch" snack shelves for some reason, maybe because of the clever name or the fact that you can just grab a back of chips right from the lobby.  It was the hotel management's decision to photograph the front desk with no people.  The photograph mine will replace did include people.  What do you think, should a hotel lobby/front desk shot include people in it or not?

Features of suite rooms at TownePlace - kitchen, bedroom, living room are HDR; bathroom is single exposure with speedlight in the tub!Photographing rooms is very hard.  You might think making a sunset portrait on the beach is harder, but to me, photographing a hotel room is because the lighting is more of a challenge indoors.  I use a combination of HDR and off camera flash techniques to produce the best results given the rooms windows and ambient light.

Commercial Photograph License by Silver Vine website - green leaves

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"Last Green Leaves of Autumn" licensed by Silver Vine graphic design & featured on the home page

Andrew, a graphic designer from Australia, contacted me about using my "Last Green Leaves of Autumn" photograph on his business website (view here).  This image has already been published in the largest English language magazine in Japan, Metropolis, as its photo of the week in October 2008 (see bottom of page).  I was more than happy to license the image to Andrew who I think put it to very good use on the home page of his business website.  

Andrew's request spurred me on to formally offer a single location for browsing and getting information about licensing my photographs.  All this information is now located on a single page:

LICENSE PHOTOGRAPHS FOR BUSINESS & PUBLICATION USE

I hope to be able to provide images to more great clients like Andrew sharing my photographs of Florida, Japan and more.

Tokyo Japan Skyscrapers - Roppongi Hills Tokyo Midtown Tokyo Tower

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Tokyo Tower (center) Tokyo Midtown skyscraper (right) - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/50th single exposure (not HDR)

Yesterday I was going through my photography archives searching for a shot (daytime beach) that might be usable for a potential client when I came across these shots of the Tokyo skyline.  They were made from the balcony of a Russian photographer friend who had an amazing condo in central Tokyo.  All these shots are the views he gets to enjoy everyday!  If I recall, his condo was on about the 22nd floor.  The time was around 4:30pm in February of 2009, when the sun sets not so long after 5pm, which is why it already looks like dusk on this overcast day.  None of these shots are HDR, which was just starting to get popular again around 2009.  It is possible to get vivid detail and color without HDR if shooting during the best light of day.

Tokyo Tower (left) Tokyo Midtown skyscraper (2nd from left) Roppongi Hills skyscraper (center-right) - Nikon D300 f/11 ISO 400 1/250th single exposure (not HDR)Just as my photography career was starting to take off in Japan, I was set to move back to Florida.  This was the last time I visited with my Russian photographer friend.  

Tokyo Midtown is the middle skyscraper in the above shot and at the time was the newest mega-office-entertainment-shopping building.  The shops on the lower floors were great, if you had at least $500 for the cheapest item seemingly.  Roppongi Hills is the right-most skyscraper, and was the previous title holder of newest mega-office-entertainment-shopping building.  Roppongi Hills remained the far more interesting architecturally, and is home to the best movie theater I have ever been to.  

Roppongi Hills in detail from up high - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/11 ISO 400 1/160th single exposure (not HDR)I am glad to have these photographs to remind me of my last visit with a friend I am probably never going to see again.  I still follow his work on flickr (Vladimir Zakharov) as he never ceases to find new roof top views to photograph.

St. Petersburg Florida Commercial Hotel Photography Courtyard Marriott

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St. Petersburg Commercial Hotel Photography - the Courtyard Marriott at dusk in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida - 7-bracket HDRMy commercial photography work for the Courtyard Marriott in downtown St. Petersburg continues with an exterior and interior shoot of the hotel itself (see commercial wedding shoot).  This job spanned mutliple days because day and evening exterior shots were desired by the client.  The HDR sunset shot of the hotel exterior at dusk was the very last shot to make.

St. Petersburg Commercial Hotel Photography - Courtyard Marriott historical lobby - 7-bracket HDRFormerly the Pennsylvania Hotel, the now Courtyard Marriott has a nearly 100-year old history.  The lobby retains the most of the original features of the hotel including the crown molding and tile flooring along with the marble wall accents. 

St. Petersburg Commercial Hotel Photography - Courtyard Marriott suite room - 7-bracket HDRNo matter how wide of a lens you have, photographing rooms, in particular hotel rooms, is still challenging as it is ideal to show as many features of the room in a single shot.  The challenge lies in the fact that not all these room features tend to line up in a neat row.  You can of course stitch multiple shots together, but then that would not look natural.  For a viewer to know this is a suite room, the bedroom and separate living space needed to be shown in the same shot.  

St. Petersburg Commercial Hotel Photography- indoor pool at Courtyard Marriott - 7-bracket HDRHere is a tip for pool photography, never show the whole pool in the shot in order to strategically leave the entire size of the pool to the viewer's imagination.  This is of course unless a hotel has an olympic size swimming pool they want to show off!

St. Petersburg Commercial Hotel Photography - office workspace at Courtyard Marriott - 7-bracket HDRAs you can see with all the above interior shots, I shot into a corner of the room which gives an image depth and dimension.  Very rarely is it best to shoot straight at a flat wall.  Shooting into a corner often naturally shows the most of an interior space anyway.