Ricardo Sevilla

Seriously. I need to stop considering shoots that require me to wake up at 6:00am in the morning to take sunrise photographs. No matter how hard all parties involved try, we just never seem to make it.

Regardless, I promised a friend of mine from work to re-do their beach shots as I was not satisfied with our first. Using available light, horrible light conditions....no, it did not work out. I did not like our first take.

I feel better and I hope they enjoy their new photographs.



Unedited photo of father and daughter :) She's so cute!

I did a second light test shoot with Angie. I was hoping to take some night-time shots and experiment with Downtown Miami in the back ground. I wanted to try something different than my previous two light test shoots. From a dirty scalawag pirate, to a teen beauty.

We arrived under the bridge that's next to Parrot Jungle. (Btw, note to Alex: while that Cobra is super sweet, don't mess with a Lamborghini lol). It was cloudy and the sun was no where near ready to retire for the evening. I was with Angie and her family and we decided to wait it out. I started to walk around the area while kicking debris out of the ground that may get into the shot or may harm Angie while she poses.  Stuff like empty Coca-Cola bottles, beer bottles, large pieces of glass, fish bait with hooks, a dead baby sting ray, latex gloves, red panties...you know..stuff you usually find under a bridge........!??!!!!

Shortly after arriving at the location, a family arrived and parked next to us. I'd say it was around 8-12 people. They all, as a whole, approached the shore of the bay and kept looking at the water. Angie's mom noticed that someone was carrying a steel box of sorts. It did not take long for us to realize what was going on, so we all moved to avoid being down wind. Ahh....the things that happen under a bridge in Miami. {0_o}

Our patience has run out, and we decided to just shoot...anything and leave ^_^


This was actually a test shot I took of Angie right after setting up my light. One of 3 I took, when a security guard kicked us out :(  While testing the light, I asked Angie to give me a quick pose, and she said, "Why, it's just a test shot anyways".. so she just stood there and I took the shot anyways. Angie learned a lesson here. POSE even for test shots as she regrets the fact that she didn't pose after seeing this photograph. I love the tone in this photo.


Ahh. A cold blue tone mixed with a serious expression. Luv it.


Here is an UNEDITED photo to satisfy those who prefer a more glamorous tone.


Another semi-glam pose.

Again, I'd like to thank Angie for being an excellent little test subject. I'd also like to warn her of what will happen is she eats my Tic-Tacs I often leave in my car >_< .

Notice the lack of smiles on any of these and almost 96.76234 %  of all my photographs? I'll blog about this soon.


-RS

Being that I am new to using lighting equipment, I have been looking for models willing to do TF. I asked Randell if he was interested, and he said yes.

I didn't know of what place to shoot at, I just knew I wanted to shoot something, anything. I proposed the concept of "Prisoner tied to a tree". I looked through Google Earth and found some decent looking trees at Tropical Park. Cool, got a location. Now I need rope. My wife and I stopped by Home Depot to buy some rope, but I made sure it was a natural looking rope, not one of those plastic ropes you see now a days.

I ordered 25Ft of this rope and it cost me $16.75. When we arrived at Tropical park, we scouted a bit for a good tree. When we found one, we noticed that there was some type of cheerleaders gathering several feet away. We ignored it and began setting up. Everyone kept looking at us, but for some reason it did not move me. Normally I would feel too shy to work comfortably, but I think  the reason why I felt comfortable was because my wife was with me assisting me with setting up the lights around this tree. Or because Randell looked silly in a pirate outfit so perhaps the attention was on him! lol ^_^

I tie up Randell to the tree with the 25ft Rope and an additional 50ft rope that's 1/3rd as thick as the 50ft one. I learned that we needed more rope to make the scene look realistic We began to shoot anyways. This is after all practice for me with lighting equipment anyways. While shooting, a guy with his wife and kids came up to me and said something along the lines of, "SO you're a photographer too? nice! What power lights are you using? Ohh 800...nice! Oh man, what lens is that? I want to buy that one. That's the 5DMark II right? I have one of those and a 7D at home. Hey, can I see the lens? Can I hold it?"

I lost concentration. I declined his offer of letting him hold my camera so that he can see how my lens works, but after several more attempts, I gave in. I wrap the strap around my fist and let him try it. "whoa that's cool!" was his response, followed by "OK, I'm going to bring my 7D from home right now. You just wait". Sure enough he comes back hows shows me his 7D with a battery pack, along with a lens that proudly wears the red ring.

I wasn't sure how to react other than to say, "that's a very good lens". After speaking with him briefly, he goes his way and I loose focus of this tree and decide to move on. We stumble on some rocks and decide to shoot there. Was pretty straight forward from there on. I have decided not to publish the tree shots, as I feel I can shoot the concept at a better location, so those will be placed on hold.

Anyways, the results from my 2nd attempt at shooting with lights is above. Images are unedited save for some coloring and removal of the bar code from the bottle.

I'd like to thank Randell for being such a great sport about this shoot. Very cool guy to shoot with and I'd recommend him to any photographer.

Hope you guys like the pics, mi mateys! Arggg!

-RS

It seems that the Miss America Pageant has caused some stir with the addition of a "lingerie" section to their event.

I looked at the photographs and I must must admit, they were done not only in good taste, but they were done very artistically.




And besides....their Bikini Portion shows WAY more skin than this. I am not sure what the big fuss is all about.


Click here to view the CNN Video