Wednesday, March 07, 2007

black shoot

Sara Black is one of the best young photographers in the country and one I wanted to work with (the other one is Jake Versoza whose eye for mood is incredible). She's fun, professional and easy to work with. Last weekend, we had a shoot for Red Box (yup, my favorite videoke place is a client of my design agency) and it was very interesting considering I had less than two hours of sleep before the shoot (that's what I get for burning the night and early morning singing with friends - at Red Box, of course). I tapped into my inner reserves and coordinated the stylists, make up, hair, photographer and client with a lot of help from my Kestrel staffers Nina and Paolo. The results of the shoot will be seen in the upcoming Red Box website (if you want to see the latest site Kestrel did, check out The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf).

What I like about Sara is her easy way with the models (and her uber cool name, which makes for great branding). I've worked with many photographers because of my business, but she wins the prize for helping the talents get comfortable, which made my job as art director less stressful.

Being a fashion shoot, it was also a bit different from my usual work. Just the other week, for example, I shot a bank interior as well as several portraits for a company's board of directors. For SM, I shot talents across every main area of the mall (department store, supermarket, toy kingdom, skating rink, etc.). Sometimes, I go on location (once with Vin in tow, and he ended up riding one of the horses we were supposed to shoot). I also do product shoots (and products are the hardest to motivate). I rarely get to do fashion-type shoots, so this one was quite cool, with all the styling choices and poses and such.

As a beginner-level photographer, I always take the opportunity to learn and ask questions (who else to ask, after all) and Sara was kind enough to answer my inane queries (mostly about how to take shots of my whilring dervish of a daughter when she is running all over the house). I still have a lot to learn, especially about lighting, but someday I think I'll get there. Sadly though, photography isn't something I can commit dedicated time to (and the associated expenses for equipment are a major consideration).

Before we called it a day (and believe me, I was more than ready to collapse into bed by then), Sara and I had a little fun:

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Dean approaches mike coyly

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Dean finds his key

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Dean channels Chris Daughtry

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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

old friend

It was a pleasant surprise to have dinner with an old friend from Cebu. Benjie Ordonez is now a kickass photographer with magazine cred as well as international exposure (yes, I took a look at his camera and was consumed with intense object lust as well as unhealthy envy).

He sat in on the LitCritters panel at the RODCon last Sunday (which was a lot of fun; the organizers refused to let anyone else in the full capacity room), then we were off to Lasa at The Podium for a much-needed wolfing down of good food.

It's been two years since we last saw each other (he took the shot that I use for this blog, up there on the upper left side) and had a lot of catching up to do.

"You overshot Cebu - again," he said with a frown, referring to my recent trips to Dumaguete.

I told him we'd try to visit Cebu, but how much we loved Dumaguete's charm and low prices for hotels and food.

"We have those too!" he protested.

Indeed. I remembered that one of our favorite hotels is there - the Montbello.

We talked about family and kids and friends and work, and how we've grown and aged. I'm really delighted at his skill with the camera (he's also an independent filmmaker). It's something I aspire to be decent at.

Okay, Benj. I will visit Cebu sometime...as long as the food is on you haha!

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Friday, December 22, 2006

photo fun

Recently, Nikki and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary in conjunction with Alex and Kate's 1st. With Andrew and Vin in tow, we rented a hotel room, played games, had dinner at a fancy resto (the bill was more than the hotel room but worth it), critiqued stories, talked about writing...and had a photo shoot. In formal wear.

I'm still learning how to use my camera but that didn't stop my ambition. Besides, the best way to learn is to try. I donned my photographer/art director hat and proceeded to command my poor talents/models, filling up my big CF card, chasing the natural light around the suite. When it was my turn to be snapped, my wife and friends took turns with the camera, exacting revenge (Andrew had me on the kitchen counter) and desperately seeking light. We ended up with a lot of photos, some of them quite good. Here are some samples, headshots:

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Alex

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Kate

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Andrew

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Vin

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Nikki

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Me

Now I really have to learn Photoshop so I can tweak all these pictures I've taken and stored in my hard drive.

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