Mmm, Halloween

Happy Goth Christmas everybody.   If any lil kids are reading this, I hope you're going over your haul with your folks right now, finding out which candies you can chomp on tonight.   If any of you are in SoCal, I hear Kimberly Tia has pop rocks.

I was hoping to spend the day shooting portraits of kids in costumes, but bad weather combined with my laziness nixed that idea.

Above is a photo from my Ghost Story essay, with Austin and Mitsukai.  Shot outdoors, two alien bees and two octaboxes, and a white reflector just to the left and out of camera view.

I should've posted something about my old haunted apartment, but those stories have been heard by just bout everybody.  Anyone reading this want to tell me one of their personal ghost stories?

BW

Going through the RAW files for my shoot with Afua several months back.  We did maybe five looks? in the short period of time.  The trick is that there are so many good shots from each look, I'm having trouble going through them all and weeding out the shots I want to work on.  Don't be surprised if my next few posts are of a familiar face.

Rome and Tito

These two are a perfect match. Both in looks and personality. Rome is the facilitator. the middle man. You come to him with a situation, and he connects all the dots necessary to make it happen. So when an opportunity arose to hang out at his house for a weekend, barbecue and shoot whateve walked through the door, I couldn't pass it up.

Tito is a new addition. Amazing freaking dog. Attentive, independent, affectionate.

Such a positive environment:)

editing away

nothing special to say here. Just slowly working my way through a bunch of editing. Jada Cheng.

Maria and Ordie

After lil Oliver's birthday party (I still owe that kid a present), I grabbed these two for some photos. They're so comfortable together, so relaxed. I've known Ordie for years and years, now. And Maria just fit right in.

I think I'm burnt out a little bit. I'm finding shots like this, and the shots of my niece and nephew, incredibly satisfying. Just grabbing my camera, no lights, no reflectors, and just shooting.

Maybe it's the need to try different styles and refresh my batteries again. But it's interesting that my normal stuff is so relatively complex, and what I'm wanting to do is go back and improve the basics. Like I should have gotten this out of my system years ago.

On the other hand, i was never much of a photographer...

Jaunty hat.

My brother wanted to name his son after Filipino revolutionary leader and Katipunan founder Andres Bonifacio.    

While watching Heroes, his wife saw the name James Kyson Lee and Kyson won out.  

So i give you Kyson Andres Mendoza:)

He has such an easy smile.   

Malaya avec Capri Sun

My brother showed me some photos earlier of my niece.  He let her play with his digital camera, and there's a sequence of like ten photos where she's taking self portraits, each with a different facial expression.

While celebrating my brother in law's birthday at his place, we spent a lot of time in the backyard, enjoying the day.   Which of course gave me the opportunity to take some photos.

Here is my lil niece, acting EXACTLY the way my lil niece acts.  She's so much fun.  I was sitting shotgun on the 2hr. drive home and every time I thought I'd fall asleep, she'd ask "Uncle!!!! do you wanna play dress up in my room?"

NO title for this post.

Actually, a title was suggested to me, but we won't be using it.

I spent the weekend at my buddy Rome's house. Essentially an entire weekend of eating, drinking, and occasionally picking up the camera. It was a lot of fun, plus Joe got to shoot after a huge break, while i fell back into the supervisory position. It was nice. I got to take the few shots i wanted, when the idea hit me, without the pressure of being the primary photography.

The model here is Sherrein, during a break from a set with Joe. Joe had the great idea of using the Christmas lights that were up in the spot, and i spent a minute trying to figure out the best way to capture them.