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We are currently in Mexico shooting the Girls of Rocky Point Calendar. We’re three days into the shoot and so far we’ve shot on sandy beach, cholla bay, al capitán, the lighthouse and spent yesterday afternoon on a yacht. These are a couple shots from the first night in Puerto Penasco. Later this afternoon we’ll be at Chango’s to shoot the calendar cover photo.
Earlier this week Jazmin and I officially launched the web site for her jewelry company, Jazmin Riley Company. Earlier this year, while we were creating her modeling site, Jazmin started discussing the possibility of taking her business online to reach a larger audience. We both agreed that it would be a great move for her and set out to create the site a couple months ago.
My initial thought was that the site wouldn’t be that difficult to create. I had managed many projects just like this one when I was a web development project manager. Though that thought lacked the realization that in those projects I wasn’t the team member doing the actual development portion and I was now developing on a product I hadn’t previously worked with. Even so, the project went pretty smoothly and the site started to take shape.
Time came to photograph the products. I had the lights setup, camera in hand and started shooting a few frames. Jazmin had something in mind, took the camera and ended up shooting all the initial product shots… and they turned out pretty good. It was a running joke for a while that she kicked the resident photographer in the house to the curb and did all her own work.
This weekend Jazmin finished entering the product inventory and flipped the switch. We’re both really happy with the initial site. We have a few upgrades in mind, including a spanish translation for all our friends in Mexico. Watch for that and a few new features in the coming months. For now, go check out the site, and buy something! Many of the pieces are one-of-a-kinds… and the girl needs to fill her shoe-fund!
Jazmin will have a selection of her jewelry line at the Girls of Rocky Point Calendar shoot this weekend in Puerto Penasco! Her jewelry will also be featured in many of the photographs that make it into the calendar. If you’ll be in Puerto Penasco this weekend and see something you like on the site, let her know to avoid the international shipping fees.
The big day is almost upon us. This weekend marks the first ever Girls of Rocky Point Calendar photo shoot. Not only do we have a weekend packed full of sun, beaches and shooting beautiful models… we’re throwing a couple events at Chango’s Bar and Grill.
Friday night is our “Last Chance to be a Model” contest. We have selected most of the girls for the calendar, but there are a few slots remaining. This is your last opportunity to compete to be in the calendar. Plus, come out and meet the beautiful contest winners from our previous contests.
Saturday night we’re throwing the “Girls of Rocky Point Cover Girl” party. Be there when we announce the first ever Girls of Rocky Point cover girl.
We look forward to seeing everyone out there. For more information, check out www.girlsofrockypoint.com.
The other week while Neli was visiting Phoenix, Jazmin and Neli were cast in the student designer fashion show at Mesa Community College. While in hair and makeup, they met Makeup Artist AdrianVarela at Macy’s. From what I heard, they had a lot of fun and and he took great care of them. After the event, we shot a series of photos of them to send back to him.
It’s one thing to publish your work online. It opens up your world, gives you exposure and connects you with people you may never have met. It’s entirely another thing to give those same people a glimpse into your unique creative process that created that work. I am a huge fan of taking a look behind the curtain, being able to see the bigger view, the how and what that went into creating that artwork.
Back in April last year, I spent a weekend down in Puerto Penasco at Don Giannatti’s first workshop in Mexico. For me, it was less of a workshop and more of a weekend full of inspiring conversations pushing me to break out of the photography box I had placed myself in. Don was always carrying around a little Flip video camera, talking about all the video he’d been shooting. First thing I did after returning home was to go out and pick up my very own Flip. It was small, shot mediocre video and had a bare essentials interface. Pretty much a red button to start and stop the video recording.
Armed with my new video camera, I slipped the Flip into my camera bag, brought it to all my photo shoots and started putting together behind the scenes footage. As the photographer, you can only be holding the video camera up to that point you need to pick up your still camera. More realistically, if you want to be in any of your videos, you have to hand it to someone else more frequently. The Flip’s simple interface was the one feature I love about it. I could hand it to anyone and they could push the button and record what was happening. That’s about where the love affair stopped. I wanted more.
Shortly after purchasing the Flip, I picked up a Sony HD Handycam. I fell in love with it’s small form, HD video, image stabilization and they even had one that ran off a memory stick instead of a bulky hard drive. I only shoot an hour or two of small snippets, there was no need to record 60+ hours of video at a time. It had everything I wanted, fit in my camera bag, it was perfect. Or so I thought. With higher end gear comes complications. The image stabilization on video cameras like the one I purchased, works great, if you’re standing still. Put in the hands of any non-photographer on the set and you get zoom-crazy video. So essentially I was shooting most of my own video or ended up with zoom-crazy, shaky video with a few usable snippets here and there.
What to do? You have a couple options. If you plan to shoot behind the scenes video, you really need to think it through. Depending on the size of your operation you might have the opportunity to have someone on staff shoot your video. Chase Jarvis puts out great videos. He has a talented videographer with him all the time. Most of us aren’t so lucky. The other option is to bring some help to the shoot. That could be in the form of hired help, a friend without an itchy zoom finger or even a college film student. If you’re interested in creating videos, making friends with someone looking for experience or exposure is a great way to up the video quality.
After a bit of trial in working with HD video, last night I finally edited the video from my birthday photo shoot. It took ten months to get around to doing, but I’m happy with the results.
Vimeo doesn’t allow me to embed HD resolution, so to see the full-res version check it out here.
