Sunday Veronica drug me out hiking, something you won’t often find me doing, OK, never find me doing, to do some progress shots.  Her body is really starting to transform as you can see in these photos and I’m excited she asked me to do this series with her, leading up to her fitness compeitition.

After a great lunch (thanks Veronica) we headed to location number 2, the Whitehall Parkway, where I have shot before and always provides a great backdrop.  Veronical wanted to show off her new bikini here.

This is the view from inside one of the old foundry buildings that Veronica was standing in the windows of.

This here is Veronica’s for serious face, you better show up for your next workout sesh!

Several months ago friend and fellow photographer Alison Conklin contacted me about being a shooter for an unusual upcoming wedding with her.  The wedding was to take place prior to the start of a home game for the minor league baseball team, Iron Pigs, and Alison wanted me to take some unique shots.

Alison is known for her unique, cutting edge, playful and masterfully shot weddings. Shooting with her means that my A-game wouldn’t be enough, it would have to be better than that.  After some discussions with her, her plans for what she wanted from me, I agreed.  What I agreed to involved me getting on the roof of the stadium and shoot aerial photographay.  Let me clarify, this doesn’t mean I would be on the top deck in a plush box seat, this means I would actual roof of the stadium, about twenty feet above the viewing deck below me.

The wedding day was this past Friday, August 8, 2008.  A beautiful morning lead to some quick thunderstorms early in the afternoon and quickly followed with what couldn’t have been a more perfect day.  Bright blue sky, white puffy clouds and virtually no humidity, very unusual for an August evening here in Pennsylvania.

I arrived at the stadium a bit early to ensure I could meet up with the staff that were to get me access to the roof and scope out some shooting angles.  Being in a brand new stadium while it is empty is a unique feeling.  While waiting for one of the staff to get back to me with what time we would actually get onto the roof (as the ceremony kept getting pushed back), I captured this still in the empty stadium seats.

Shortly after that I headed up to the roof, seriously an amazing view from up there.  The wedding started right on time and happened much faster than I thought.  During the ceremony I switched between three lenses, one of which was new to me, an uber wide-angle lens that Alison was really excited about.

As a point of reference, center field is exactly 400 feet from home plate.  Huge stadium to be captured all in one shot.

For the first wedding shot in the Coca-Cola Iron Pigs stadium and to mark the start of their new life together, Scott threw the first pitch of the game.

A special, warm hearted thanks to Alison for asking me to be apart of this experience.  Wedding photography is not my strongest of skills, but I had a blast and will always remember it, as I hope Tiff & Scott do as well.  Below is one of Alison’s images showing the happy new couple.

View more photos and the slideshow from this wedding here on Alison’s blog.

Veronica contacted me about doing a series of photographs over the next few months that show her body transformation as she prepares for a fitness competition.  Body building has always kind of intrigued me but I don’t have the discipline to do it myself, I totally respect those who do it.  Always game for a fun shoot, especially one I’ve never done before, I jumped at the oppertunity.  Last week we agreed upon this evening, so we shot a few hours ago and I got a few edited.

Reviewing the photos in camera should be a crime, I totally hated the images we first started to shoot based on the histogram and LCD monitor, I load them in my Macbook and I’m pretty happy with the lighting.  Veronica wanted to shoot in her local gym, a true gym, no fancy nautilus stuff you’d find in a country club.  Patrons here use real weight, sweat and power to get big.

We moved to a cement brick wall for a few more shots and some posing.

And the bathing suit shots.

Next progress shoot will be in about three weeks, I’ll be bringing more strobes with me, my laptop for better image review and possibly doing some location work.  I’m real interested in how this series and Veronica’s training will progress for the upcoming competition in November.

Thank you to Veronica for contacting me about this series and the Key Lime Rita’s, and Mike for letting us shoot in his gym.

My good friend Mune celebrated her birthday Friday night along with some other friends at a club slash private house party in Manhattan. She invited me up and who was I to say no?

First time taking a bus to the city, I usually drive. Wasn’t so bad I guess.

Apparently, even if you put on a private party, you need a flyer to promote it.

And on with the party pictures. This was seriously the must nuts house party I’ve ever been to. Barely any room to move, hot as hell and the floor was moving a good two inches vertically from people jumping.

Home around 4.30am, bed by 5.30am just as the sun was coming up, awake around 1pm. Motley looking crew in the morning.

Leave a camera lying around with a wide angle lens for too long and Emery’s bound to pick it up and start snapping photos.

After some discussion and clean-up time, we decide to head to a Peruvian joint that is supposed to have the most amazing roasted chicken. Turns out, it’s true. If you are in Brooklyn, hit up Luz.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who were starting our day late. Luz didn’t open up till 3pm, Andy wasn’t happy.

30 minutes later they open up and Andy is once again happy, drinking something that resembles slime.  He swears it tasted good though.

Pretty table thing things.

Random balls hanging from the ceiling.

You know it’s summer in the hood when someone cracks open a fire hydrant.

Food was great, but we had to bust out and leave Brooklyn, bound once again for PA.  Can you imagine how long it took to tile the Holland Tunnel?

Thank you Mune for the invite and hospitality, shout-out to all the amazing people I was introduced to and met, and everyone who was celebrating a birthday!

I heard this quote last night and it kind of stuck with me, so I wanted to share it.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up and knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up, you better start running.

Best I can tell, it was first quoted by Herb Caen, but I could be wrong.  If you know different, please share.

Mune hit me up this morning to meet for breakfast slash lunch and we originally intended on going for sushi, but being Sunday every place was closed at noonish when we went.  I grabbed my camera for the outing, having just bought a new 5d, I wanted to start shooting more and figured this would be a great way to do some street photography, something I rarely do anymore.  While waiting for Mune to finish getting ready, I snapped their neighbors front porch slash office setup.

We had heard that there was a Belgian waffle place not far from where we were so we hit that up.  I’m always a bit leery of ordering espresso at new places, but seeing a pair of quality grinders and a for serious espresso machine, I figured it couldn’t be that bad.  I was wrong.  I ordered a double espresso, I didn’t see the chick behind the counter dose from the grinders, so I’m thinking it was pre-ground, but who does that?  I also saw her grab a latte cup, not an espresso cup, even though there were two dozen of them on top of the machine.  Who pulls a double espresso into a latte cup?  It was slightly bitter and the cup wasn’t pre-warmed, so the espresso turned cold about twice as fast as it should have.  This is how it was served to me.

Mune ordered a regular coffee and I also got an Orange Pellegrino, something I usually wouldn’t get but was somehow in the mood. At least Mune seemed to enjoy her drink.

I ordered an egg, cheese and bacon panini sandwich which came on a waffle, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was, never having a sandwich on a waffle before.

Mune forced me to share waffles and ice cream with her.  Something about it being a sin to be in a waffle place and not order it.  We got butterscotch ice cream with a dark chocolate sauce over a pecan waffle.

Look how happy she is!

YUM!

We decided to do a short lap around the downtown Bethlehem area, feeling guilty about what we just ate.  This gave me a chance to do some street photography and shoot some stock stuff as well.

While walking around we saw a new second hand shop.  Oddly enough, their window display showcases a t-shirt from a South Side Bethlehem skateshop owned by our friend Andy, Homebase.  After all, Homebase is where the heart is!

The following shots of the peeling brick wall I had spotted a few days earlier but did not have my camera with me.  The texture really drew me in and I wanted to show the punch colors off in post processing.  I’ve also started to really appreciate a good vignette on a photo, so added a thick one in around the shots.

It felt good to walk around and just take photos, even if it was a bit muggy outside.  Hopefully I can continue to do this on a more regular basis.  Thanks to Mune for spending the afternoon with me, great company and even better model!

Borrowed a camera for the weekend that shoots 9 frames per second along with a super wide angle lens.  The result is Kyle doing a blunt slide on a picinic table below.  This animated file is made up of 16 individual shots and then laced together with a 0 second delay between them.  Props to Homebase for putting on the skate jam.

Here are a few of the 16 shots that make up this series,

Tuesday night Christy met up with me for some shooting after work.  We had intended to shoot along a river but due to the thick wooding, couldn’t get to the spot we wanted and quickly headed towards the back-up location.  Upon arriving we new that it would only be a short time before we got wet from the storm that was rolling in, but it did give us some great cloud cover.  To add to the madness, part of my gear broke as I was setting up remote flashes and I didn’t have a spare with me.  Lesson learned.  I’m still very happy with the photos though.

From a series I did earlier this year with Jean.

Download the high-resolution royalty free image here.

Download the high-resolution royalty free image here.

Download the high-resolution royalty free image here.

Download the high-resolution royalty free image here.

Met up with Christy today to do some shooting, first at the covered bridge in Orefield and then at the Whitehall Parkway that I scouted out last month.  Overall things went pretty smoothly, hopefully we can work together again soon.

Right at the start of the shoot Christy found a caterpillar that she had to play with, don’t think she saw it long enough to give it a name though.