photoshoot

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Yes, this is very random for me but I thought it was too fun not to share.

A few weeks ago, I offered to take engagement/save the date pictures to my cousin, Brian who’s getting married to Mona in September. If you know anything about Brian, you know his favorite food are donuts. So he said he wanted to do a donut photoshoot theme. So once he told me that, I went onto Pinterest and searched the web and couldn’t really find anything that had couples donut theme for inspiration.

So sitting on it for a few days, I randomly thought of American Beauty, with the scene of the girl who’s just surrounded by rose petals. I brought up the idea to Brian and Mona and they loved it. Obviously, we would have had to have A LOT of donuts in order to replicate that, so this was the best we could do. LOL.

I think it came out so good though! HAHA

My camera settings for this image are F9 at 1/15th sec and ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime lens.

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I’ve already started to scout out cherry blossom trees for next year. I’m committing to the idea of photographing the cherry blossom trees around the city and staying away from the Tidal Basin. I’m sad I came up with the idea too late to do it this year because it was such a great bloom, but at least it has given me time to think about other locations.

For example, Hains Point. It’s just east of the Tidal Basin and you sort of get the same feels as being at the basin since they are close to the water, but I really liked this location because there were a variety of cherry blossom trees. In this image you can see the Yoshino trees that you see at the Tidal Basin, but then you also get the weeping cherry blossoms as well as a peek of the Kwanzan trees. I love the variety of whites and pinks and it’s a great location for some cherry blossom portraits. The flowers are just as abundant if not more but it just doesn’t have as many people around.

When I was there I saw at least 3 photoshoots going on with professional photographers on a Saturday morning but these two girls had the right idea. From the moment I got there, they were having a blast with their own photoshoot. It reminded me of things my girlfriends and I would do when we’re on a trip together. Just having so much fun doing crazy things to get a fun shot. But I think the pulled out perspective really gives you an idea of just how much is blossoming in the area. I loved the rows and rows of trees.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/125th sec and ISO 2000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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Happy Valentine’s Day! <3 I’ve been holding on to this image since last summer a for a day like today. I wanted to wait for the right time to share it because I love the way that it turned out. I captured it when I first got my 70-200mm lens and was just walking around the reflecting pool to try to capture some different types of images. The purple tones of the sky and environment goes so nicely with the outfits these gentlemen are wearing. It’s as if I planned the photoshoot myself. LOL.

Anyways, hope you all have a great day today. Andrew and I will be having a quiet night in. We never really go all out for Valentine’s day. Just an evening together is the best way to celebrate. And chocolate. I hope there will be chocolate tonight. LOL. What are your plans?

Be sure to check out the blog tomorrow. I have some really exciting news that I’ll be sharing and I hope some of you guys will be as excited about it as I am.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/200th sec at ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Love is Love.

 

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I saw the lady in Japanese pink komono. She was walking around with this weird looking umbrella and it immediately got my attention. I mean there is no way that umbrella can protect you from rain, sun or anything. It’s really just there for decoration right? What is she going doing with that? Then I noticed the man following behind her and it all made sense. So between the cherry blossom tree trunk I was watching (stalking) this group of people as they walked towards the Japanese Pagoda.

I usually like to mind my own business, especially when it comes to other people and their photoshoots but there was something about this one that I couldn’t ignore. Maybe it was the weird umbrella but it could have also been the perfect light and environment for this photoshoot. I mean how could you go wrong with such a pretty outfit during peak bloom of the cherry blossoms at sunrise? It was something I could not pass up.

My favorite part about this image is the out of focus cherry blossom branch right in the front of the image. I think it just creates so much more depth to the image that would have been difficult to communicate if it were in focus. I don’t know why but I love looking at that one branch. My second favorite part of this image is the photographer in the mid-squat. LOL. I know I’m guilty of this stance. Sometimes you just need to get a little bit lower to get the shot and he is doing it perfectly. LOL. I would love to see how that image turned out but I probably never will.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/100th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, 2018 is the year of the FOG. Forget the dog. LOL. It’s all about the fog and this past weekend did not disappoint.

Holy cow did we have fog on Saturday morning. There was a dense fog advisory all night so obviously that meant that I had to wake up super early and capture it all. It reminded me of driving in San Diego because at times while driving into the city it was difficult to even see the highway signs.

I met up with my friends Albert and Austin to shoot around the Lincoln Memorial. It was so great to meet up with them because there were points in time where the fog was sooo thick that you couldn’t see anything and if we were shooting, it was into big, grey nothingness. So we basically just stood around and chatted. But once it lifted the fog created this great atmosphere around the monuments.

This was taken right before the fog was about to cover the Lincoln Memorial again. It’s crazy how fast it went in and out. I like this image because its so monotone without me having to do anything to it. This is basically what you saw if you were there. You can see a little bit of the brown in the Canadian Geese butts and that’s it. That’s not true, there’s a little more color than that. I just wanted to say Canadian Geese butts. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/500th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom lens handheld. To be completely honest, I find myself still carrying around my tripod all the time but using it less and less. If you’re interested, I can talk more about that in a future blog post.

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An image that didn’t make the 2018 Dynamic DC Wall Calendar cut.

I love this image. I think it sets such a nice tone for the cherry blossoms, but I wasn’t sure if you all would want to be staring at a lady’s back for 31 days. So it didn’t make the cut. LOL

I think my favorite part of the image is the little reflection you see on the bottom right hand corner. It’s definietly obvious that it’s there, but the reflection is so subtle that I don’t know if you really think about it. I like how it gives the vibe that she’s being surrounded by cherry blossoms.

To be honest, I don’t even know how this lady is. She was just there with another photographer and they were having a cherry blossom photoshoot. Totally normal if you’re ever at the Tidal Basin during cherry blossom season. I usually try to stay out of the way and I was in the middle of walking around them when I saw the scene from behind. Now, I don’t know how this lady’s photographer’s image turned out, but I’m really happy with mine. But even if she walked right past me, I would not even be able to recognize her. I completely forgot what she looked like from the front. She will now forever be called ‘Cherry Blossom lady’ to me. HAHA. But if I did find out who she was, I’d totally gift her with this print.

The settings for this image is 1/100th of a second at F/8 and ISO 160 with my 100mm macro lens. See, you can go beyond just macro images with that lens however I’m not sure why I did that. I was probably busy shooting the flowers and just happened to have that lens on my camera.

Now that I think about it, this whole image sounds like one happy accident 🙂