I was contacted by an Arizona based company to make headshots for two employees here in Albuquerque, New Mexico following a very specific setup. Well, my usual lighting and shooting style matched the sample they sent exactly, save for the specific Westcott gray background they wanted. I ordered the gray background, which to my surprise felt more like freeze rather than the usual cotton material other foldable backgrounds are made out of. I really liked it as it was virtually wrinkle free right out of the box! The clients paid for and took the background with them, but I may order one for myself. This style gray background looks fantastic to me. It is bold and full of contrast. It also helps when Naomi and Noelle were on point in front of the lens.
I have been waiting a long time to get a photograph of a roadrunner, the New Mexico state bird. In Florida, I regularly photographed birds. There are far fewer birds in easy sight in New Mexico, but in my new neighborhood in central ABQ, I regularly see, I believe, this particular roadrunner when out walking my dog. I do not tote around a 70-200mm lens on those walks usually, so I never get a chance to photograph this roadrunner.
If anyone asks me how did I learn photography, I tell them, by walking the streets of Tokyo for hundreds of hours with my very first DSLR camera, a Nikon D80. What is great about living in a city with wide spread public transportation is you can take a train to one area, walk randomly to where your eyes take you, then just hop on another train and get back home without having to worry about returning to where your car is parked. This is how I went about finding one of my more famous photos, at least in Japan, which I titled, “Last Green Leaves Before Autumn.” I submitted it to Metropolis Magazine (the largest weekly English magazine in Japan) and they featured it in the Photo of the Week section. Picking up a copy of the magazine the Friday afternoon it came out and seeing my photo featured inside, I was stunned and even stopped strangers passing by to say (in English), “that’s my photo!” It was a moment of exhileration I have rarely ever felt again.
A third trip in 6 weeks to Valencia County, New Mexico where I met the enemy of the landscape photographer, i.e. a cloudless sky. However, these agave plants volunteered to be in the foreground of my photo to add some visual flair to what otherwise would have been a mediocre HDRsunset photo. Want to look at this view at your home? Use the buttons below to get a fine art print. Want to own this view and build a house on this land? Check out Hemingway Land Company.
Long-time photography client Noah Starer has made the transition from ceramic artist to glass artist in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It took me some time to figure out the technical aspects of photographing his ceramic work to his desired style outcome, but that time compared to how long it took me to figure out how to photograph this new series of glassware was well, incomparable. It took hours and lots of trial and error to get a shooting setup that minimized glare first, then reflections second. Most of the pieces were glossy and made of reflective glass, so you can imagine the challenge involved when you need to use off camera lighting to make them pop, and then stand in front of the piece of glass to actually photograph it. You can see the BTS shot of what I finally settled on as a shooting setup at the far bottom of this post.
Dr. Singh wanted new commercial portrait photos for his website so we met in downtown Albuquerque at the Albuquerque Convention Center. I thought we would mostly be using the Civic Plaza area as I had for another portrait shoot, but that was taken over by setting up for an outdoor concert. Part of being a professional photographer is being able to improvise right on the spot, so instead of starting outside, we went inside to the convention center. Having photography many events there, I knew a few spots that would work well. No one told us we could not make photographs inside, so we just went about it!
The BMW Car Club New Mexico Chapter got invited to a very unique car show right at the top of a mountain at Santa Fe Ski Resort! We actually drove from the Sanat Fe BMW dealership on to the foot of the ski slope itself! Yes, that means my M3 along with a host of other sports cars and classic cars actually went off road. This could not have been a more stunning setting and a fantastic day overall. It felt like a whole different world up there. We capped the day with a hike up to the summit of the mountain, some 11,000+ feet of elevation! To top it all off, they had great veggie burgers grilled right before us with green chili and homemade cookies. In a side note, from the photo below you can see that Jessica and I are living in two totally different temperature zones!
