Assassin Jacqui: A Black and White Series
Photos
Maxine’s Curves.
Anything can and will go wrong on a shoot, it happens and it happens to the best of us. On a recent shoot with Maxine things “went wrong” in that we couldn’t find the intended location, the area we were in had terrible weather and we were losing light pretty fast. When things like this happen it’s important to keep the spirit up and roll with the punches. With the initial idea being scrapped we drove down to Old Town Albuquerque to try and make up for a shoot that didn’t happen and the results were well worth it.
In the car ride (that got extended) Maxine, my assistant/girlfriend, and I had conversations about shooting women with curves (as Maxine obviously does) and how to get the best images out of it and we specifically talked about how it’s not hard to get great images with curvy models. Essentially when working with curvier models you don’t want to hide the curves, you want to highlight them and use them to your advantage. Curves can be incredibly flattering and work very well aesthetically but in order for get them to work you need to know how to pose the model. Posing is important for any model, it’s the basis of modeling in general and every model is different in what works but I’ve noticed that curvier models are very specific. You need to know where their curves are, where they look the most flattering and extend those areas out so that they get more of the attention than anything else.
Shooting curvier models is a lot of fun. It’s not nearly as challenging as you would think it would be and to be honest is more visually interesting to look at. If you want to get better at directing and posing I would recommend working with more models with curve because it makes you more attentive to what you are doing with your directions.
Short and Sweet with Sam.
There are a couple of things that I take pride in as a photographer. One of those things is just always doing constantly solid work but there are a lot of other qualities that my clients and model friends appreciate when I work with them. Those would be my fast turn around times on edits and the fact that my shoots don’t last to long. On average a shoot with me probably only last about 30 minutes. In that time we’ll take well over 100 images and when I get into editing around 20-30 will make the culling but and then only a hand full of those will be posted, that’s just standard. This recent shoot that I did with Samantha was just that where, we met we shot, we got some solid stuff, I took it home to edit and that all took just about 3 hours in total work time (not including travel time too and from location.) Doing great work doesn’t have to take weeks to do. Simple locations, poses, edits and good work flow can offer a lot to making great images on a short time table and it always impresses people when you can do great work so quickly.
BTS Shooting Before the Shoot.
Candid Photo journalistic work is my jam, it’s more of what my background is and I feel like the photos just come out better when I take them in a much more natural setting.
Portraiture, though, has a much bigger market and people enjoy being part of that process a lot more. So in my great big reunion with my friend Tara we came up with idea for her to get temporary corset piercings done by Scott Self of Evolution Body Piercing out in Albuquerque New Mexico.
What was so impressive about Scott was how professional he was about what he does and making sure he used a sanitary work environment. We even had a brief conversation about the States broken licencing practices and the issues he has seen with it. Needless to say if I ever decided to get a piercing one day I now know who to go to.
Tara of course being true to form was an absolute trooper and a joy to work with. She got through the piercing process in no time at all and with no complaints what so ever. You also have to appreciate that she had just gone through lasik eye surgery the day before, which was something I was concerned about going in and it turned out to be a complete non issue.
The resulting photos came out amazingly and the photos from the actual portrait shoot are some of my new favorite images in a long time. Stay tuned for those. 
Group Shoot in Down Town Albuquerque
This weekend I got together a couple of friends who aren’t that camera shy and made a big shindig in the downtown albuquerque area. This was one of the first planed theme shoots and it was the first time that I had any kind of vision going into a shoot…
and as a result I just ended up being one of those shoots where I just wung it as usual. I guess it’s just and old habit that I have but no matter how much pre plan and production in mind I always operate best when I’m just going with the flow and overcoming the challenges.
The big challenge was trying to handle all the different peopled what were present in the shoot and dealing with all their personalities meeting all at the same time. It’s not so much that they were difficult to deal with it’s just that “Too many cooks” problems you deal with when you try to get stuff done.
It was rather fun getting a bunch of people together for just an hour or so to just get together but the over all drawback of having to play a game of Model Carousel and getting everyone in enough.
When all is said and done we headed to bar, had a drink and just fucked around like normal human beings.
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Live Music Photo Editing
By request of a close friend of mine I went to shoot a live performance of his band. Concert photography can be complicated and difficult because it backs you into corners and the lighting is usually sub par. So with careful edits you can make or break these photos. Watch my Lightroom editing process in the video.
Fitting in time for photography.
Trying to be creative during a college semester can be extremely difficult, especially when all the classes you are taking are the University core requirement and you have a part time job that are not exactly designed to stimulate your need for creative production. This becomes incredibly prevalent for photographers who think to themselves on a regular basis, “I would rather be out shooting.”As opposed to whatever political science class that you’e sitting in. If this is the situation that you find yourself in the only advise that seems plausible is to make time to go shoot every once and a while. This can be fairly hard to do sometimes but if you can pull it off it can be extremely rewarding.
A few weeks ago in Albuquerque it finally felt like winter had fully kicked in with overcasting clouds and a light amount of snow which at first doesn’t seems too conducive for photography but I though to myself that if the overcast kept up it would be perfect for a mid afternoon shoot downtown. Sadly I misjudged New Mexico’s ability to stay consistent weather wise and it went back to being in the mid 60’s with bright sunny skies. However that didn’t stop me. I put out a post on facebook if anyone wanted to take part in a impromptu photo-shoot down town and like most statuses it go a handful of likes but not a huge response. However one person did happen to respond.
Tara, a friend of mine that I have done photos of several times in the past was the only one who responded to the call so we arranged to meet up down town to snap off some shots in some of the back allies, parking grarges and other interesting locations in the down town area.
One thing you’re always going to find in any downtown metro area is various degrees of street art and graffiti which can always be a great back drop for urban style portraits. Whether they are just a bunch of random tags some hooligans put behind random buildings or if they were beautiful works or art by a local artiest it’s always a great scene to add to your photos. The thought of shooting in back alley’s can seem a little bit sketchy but if you play it smart and don’t draw a whole bunch of attention to yourself you’ll be just fine. People will often leave you alone if you leave them alone. Especially when you’re shooting.
One thing that should be kept in mind at all times is lighting. Being that this was done in the middle of a bright day it was important to find shaded areas to get nice even lighting. There are of course other techniques and styles you can use to manage the light but the important thing is that you do what you feel works best for what you want to do.
The most important thing with being out on a shoot is to have fun really. If this was in anyone a more professional shoot with the photos having a more distinct purpose I would have taken in more seriously but this shoot really was for the sake of having fun. Tara is a relaxed and easy going person to be around and it made shooting with her all the more simple. You don’t have to get into insane director mode and you don’t have to be picky you just have to shoot.
I’m not only doing random portraits over the semester either I’m also doing freelance work with my universities independent student news paper so I also get to do that kind of photo work which is really exciting. Hopefully I get to do more photos in the near future.
Convention Photography Tips.
Well the annual Albuquerque Comic Con (ACC) is right around the corner and chances are if you are attending (assuming you live anywhere near albuquerque and you’re into that kind of thing) you’re going to see a large number of photographers and regular patrons out with their DSLR’s, Smart Phones and point and shoot cameras taking pictures of everyone in a costume. I’ve shot quite a few of these comic book/anime conventions like the Albuquerque Comic Expo (ACE) and smaller ones like Con Jikan, and have seen other peoples photos from said conventions and I have noticed some trends in the photos taken at these events. Some of them good some of them bad and others are in the grey area of photography that is personal preference and style. So here I want to give some tips on how to get some of the best images at these conventions. (Note: These are all personal opinions on what you should do. I am in no way an authority on Con photography nor do I claim to be and the thing about photography is that we all find our personal styles and vision in the craft. I’m just giving you guide in what I like seeing in my personal images when I cover events like this)
Tip #1 Shoot Candidly.
Candid photography at these kinds of events is one of the most underrated styles of photos and people miss out on the opportunity of capturing rare moments that you’ll never get to see in regular day to day life. Where else are you going to capture Members of the Justice League mingling with the Avengers, Joker and Harley Quinn going up an escalator dressed as Batman and Robin or Rick from the Waking Dead eating a cheeseburger in a dining hall? The answer is nowhere else.
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If you aren’t looking for candid shots however I’m going to let you in on a little secret: You don’t necessarily have to pull the cosplayers over. In my experience if you go around shooting at a convention if a cosplayer sees you have a camera pointed at them they’ll stop and pose for you. I know, crazy right? It’s quite the change of pace from candid shooting in public where if someone sees a camera pointed at them they get skittish and shy or sometimes even paranoid. It’s actually rather gratifying to know they want to have their photos taken. If you choose to shoot this way I would recommend using a short telephoto like and 85mm lens of even a 70-200 so you don’t have to be getting in their faces. It’s not a nessesaty, just a suggestion.
Tip #2: You don’t have to get the whole costume in frame
This is just a personal pet peeve of mine and I realize that not everyone agrees with me but I get annoyed when I see people get a mediumly wide shots of a cosplayer to get the entire costume frame. It throws off the composition, You’re getting a lot of things going on in the background that are going to be distracting and over all you just don’t get a very good photo. I might be guilty of overusing tight shots I will admit but once again a tighter shot helps keep your composition clean and makes it easier to blow out the background. Now I know many cosplayers will spend weeks and sometimes even months putting their costumes together and they want to show off their work but if they really want to show off they’ll get a photographer to do more professional portraits in them as opposed to just getting images done on the convention floor.
Tip #3 Publish and Share
These days copyright and having images stolen or appropriated is a problem, and sharing them online on places like Flickr or Facebook can be a little risky but in my experience putting the images up and letting people find and tag themselves in their photos has been a huge help in getting my images out there and letting people see my work, and more often than not the response has been incredibly positive. Sure a lot of the times people will only praise the subject in the photo and not the person who took it but if you do quality work people will recognize that and appreciate that and that leads to networking and establishing credibility.
These have just been a couple of tips that you can take to heart if you ever find yourself shooting at a convention. Feel free to try them, or ignore them as you see fit but remember that the important thing is to go and shoot. These Conventions can be fun, exciting and even exhausting but you can get amazing images and meet unique people that you won’t find anywhere else. I look forward to seeing what ACC has in stores for me and am looking forward to getting more images to add to my portfolio. If you are attending I hope to see you there and if you ever get the chance to shoot at a convention I would encourage you to do so. It can be incredibly rewarding.
Craziest Photography Weekend Ever.
This last weekend I had one of the most hectic weekends photography wise that I’ve ever had to endure. To give a little context to this story we have to go over why I was shooting. My tattoo artist had came to me earlier in the month of October asking if I would do photos for a costume contest he was hosting asking people (females particularly) to submit photos that he would do sketches of, and was offering free ink and piercings to the best ones. Being that many of the submissions were mainly going to be iphone selfies he wanted to contract a guy who could do quality photos and since he had seen my work he offered to do some free ink in return for my services. I’d done other shoots in previous weeks but this weekend is where it got crazy.; luckily a good friend of mine had a warehouse space that she was willing to loan out in return for some photos of herself.
Francesca Hone in catsuit. The owner of the warehouse that let me borrow the space.
Normally I would like to do photos at more candid locations to give a different graphic quality to the images- however some of the girls outfits weren’t necessarily appropriate to have out in public. For example one of the girls came dressed as a Playboy Bunny. Not quite something you want to be wearing downtown in the middle of the afternoon.
She was a bit frosty in the personality coming into it but she had been on camera before and so she knew how to do simple posing. The bunny ears proved to be a bit problematic when it came to compositions but over all I think I did a good job with them.
The second girl on Friday arguably had the more creative outfit. She had put together a peacock costume that was extraordinarily colorful and extravagant which opened up a lot of fun opportunities for what I could do in Lightroom when I started editing.
Other than the two girls that came in that day I also did a shoot with Francesca’s friend Monica who never been on camera before, but her significant other was going out of town and wanted some nice photos to remember her by.
Being that she had never done photos before it was nice having Francesca there to direct. Because god knows that directing models is not my strong suit.
So upon wrapping up the busy Friday I just went back to my place and dumped all the Raw files off the card so I could get editing in Lightroom. I like to get all my editing done very quickly and efficiently. It’s something I picked up in photojournalism. Get em’ in, get em’ toned and get em’ out.
On Saturday my friend Tyler (Who is one of the awful people responsible for me being a photographer) asked me to do some promo pictures for her cosplay group. I of course obliged and went with her up to a village in Placitas by a church to get some shots of her in her cute witch outfit.
Tyler is arguably my favorite person to work with. She’ll never admit it but her photos always come out amazing and she is incredibly good on camera. Also what she does with putting costumes together is nothing short of mind blowing. Once again got them done got home and got editing. I’m gaining a reputation of having incredibly quick turn around times on my work.
Now Sunday is when shit got real. Random shoots kept coming up and I didn’t know what to do or where I was going to take them but luckily Francesca came to the rescue. Now I originally didn’t want to ask her to use her space again mainly because I didn’t want her to feel like I was abusing her. But she had messaged me saying that she was having a photographer with a full lighting set up come in and do photos of her and some other girls who have never done modeling before and asked if I would tag along I said of course and asked if I could use the opportunity to get the other girl who needed photos done in on the same day.
Now before I did that I had already scheduled a shoot earlier that morning with a girl dressed as Rosie the Riveter. I took her down to the abandoned rail yard out in Albuquerque. If you ever look up photographers from Albuquerque you know the one. The shoot was very short and sweet. I didn’t want to spend too much time in a condemned building but the location did offer a lot of personality.
The later shoot at the warehouse where things got a little intimidating. Being that the other photographer that Francesca had over had a more complicated set up it didn’t give me a whole lot of room to work with. Especially when you consider that I shoot with prime lenses. None the less, it was kind of fun to get play with studio lighting and professional flashes. Granted flashes are a bit overwhelming at times but it gave me a few new challenges that I was happy to overcome.
The first girl Francesca had was quite the firecracker. She had a lot of energy and even though she had never done photos before she took direction very well and wasn’t afraid to play around.
Now when the last of the girls who did photos for my tattoo artist came in things got a little more difficult to work with. She was very stiff and didn’t emote very well. It was really just one of those situations where we just had to persist till she warmed up and we could get something out of her. Not every model is going to be easy to work with but you do what you can.
However the last of Francescas friends didn’t have this problem. In fact she had a very warm smile as was able to take direction quite well and it resulted in some very impressive photos.
This was indeed a crazy weekend of photography but it was a great experience and I got to deal with a handful of new and sometimes frustrating situations that photographers have to deal with all in the course of one weekend. That being said, I could use a vacation.
TCK-Media 
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