Ricardo Sevilla

Couldn't go to sleep tonight. Not sure why. Decided to do something until I pass out or something.

I'm always calling my wife "my angel". So I grabbed a photo I took of her earlier today and played a bit since I couldn't go to sleep.

Tomorrow Later today I'll blog about my second and third day with MojoKiss.

Today marks the first day I received training from one of my favorite photographers, MojoKiss. We were unable to get the right lighting gear we originally planned to get, so we had to resort to renting the equipment. Who'd of thought that renting lighting equipment would be so expensive? >_<

The rental places closed today at noon. Due to the fact that MojoKiss is a late sleeper, I drove to a rental place at around 10:00am. I called up Mojo and he spoke with the person in charge of getting me equipment that I will need. This consisted of two simple lights, some stands, an umbrella and a portable battery pack to power the equipment.

This day we also had difficulty finding available models. As a results, I decided to get one of my fav little models (who's currently on bad terms with me, so she was lucky I even chose to bring her along) for testing purposes.

Starting to shoot at around 6:00pm, MojoKiss explained some VERY important concepts about lighting. I was simply amazed and awestruck by how fluidly MojoKiss controlled the set and the environment, not to mention his ability to quickly determine the proper settings for the right shot.

I learned a new term today. The term is "chimping". This means that photographer just tries settings over and over again, until he gets it right. Similarly to how a chimp will EVENTUALLY get something right with enough trial and error. I guess you can say, I am a "chimper". Hopefully not for long.

Above is an unedited sample of one of the shots I took during today's training.

Tomorrow the plan seems to be to try some Bikini Beach shots with two models. This will be interesting.

A friend asked the following question on Facebook. “If hate is such a strong word, then why do we toss around love like it's nothing?”

I responded by saying, “Because words hold little meaning, only actions hold meaning”.

A few days later this same friend who asked this question broke a promise very important to me. What to make of this? I mean, broken promises are expected every once in a while from people. It gets hurtful when it’s people whom you’d least expect to break promises made to you. Does this mean that you cannot trust these people anymore? Does this mean that your own words mean little to them? Does this mean that this person is just not whom you thought you understood?

I suppose I need to remind myself that actions do speak louder than words. I was just hoping that these actions would go along with the words, not against.

Two weekends ago I was out in the Everglades doing a photo shoot. Now, alligators are abundant in this area, so one needs to be careful about their surroundings and make sure to keep safe distances from areas in which alligators may reside. The models and I noticed a family, fishing at the edge next to a canal where alligators are known to be at. The models and I were shocked to see children standing directly on the shore line, also holding tiny fishing poles. Just wow.

The following weekend I took a good friend of mine to the everglades to do some scouting with me. What I found particularly frightening was that we found a medium sized alligator resting directly on the grounds where this family was fishing, just last weekend.

Is it a cultural thing?

I then began to think about the family. They did look pretty ethnic to me. I wonder if they were some local tribe, like Miccosukee or another like it. They could have been of Hispanic descent too.  If they were indeed from a tribe, then could it be that they are just teaching the kids a lesson? To perhaps not fear your surroundings? Be one with nature?.....still plain stupid to me though. :( Who would, despite any cultural differences, place 6-9 yr old kids near these waters.

Small video clip of us finding this alligator. She was camera shy. I was giving her some driving lessons. "Yeah. He gave me some driving lessons, right in the middle of the freakin everglades!!!". That's win and more interesting than learning in a boring abandoned parking lot!