Dawns at Beaches.

Every so often, a few of us take a random trip to the beach. It can be in the middle of winter, it doesn't matter - once the spontaneous urge hits, it has to be dealt with. We always leave around 2-3AM and get to Wilmington a little before sunrise. We don't get to have sunsets on the beach here, but sunrises are just as beautiful.

Of cappuccinos and chilly mornings...

Honestly, a lot of things in life are about timing - cappuccino is no different. There is rarely anything like two teaspoons of brown sugar, a sprinkle or two of cinnamon, and a foaming end result of warm espresso goodness on a chilly morning. I don't want to get up out of bed, but I have so much to do. In between juggling meetings, trying to spend time with one of my closest friends before he goes off to residency in Richmond for four years, and traveling with the Boss Lady, I have had no time to process pictures and to design the six albums I need to.


I decided to add some new things to the blog - one of which is "The Look Out". Every now and then, I'm going to put up some information on projects and ventures I have developing for the near future. It gives everyone something to look forward to and it keeps me on point with my plans.


In regards to upcoming excitement, as you can probably see, the blog looks a little different. I redid some CSS and matched the blog to the incoming business cards. They should be here within the coming week and as soon as they get in, I'll have some pictures up. Also, I'm working with a friend of mine to develop his portfolio - he's a videographer, graduated film school in directing, and works in LA - and yes, as soon as we finish a couple of upcoming projects together, I'll be featuring his work for all of you to see. We're planning on adding full wedding videography services by the summer and we're very excited about it.

Our Vacation

These batch of pictures are from our trip to Orlando this past weekend. We had an amazing time with my Uncle's family. On Saturday, we decided to go to Animal Kingdom and MGM Studios. I get motion sickness very easily, so just walking around looking at stuff at Animal Kingdom worked out nicely for me. My wife and her cousins are more adventurous, so MGM was definately a treat for them. By the way, if any of you ever go to MGM, plan your day around the stunt shows - absolutely amazing.

I absolutely loved checking out the wildlife and a lot of these pictures were taken on the safari while we were moving at 15-30mph over rough terrain. I think the truck stopped twice and both times for about 10 seconds. Also, another disclaimer - I'm not a wildlife photographer. So, here are the pictures (all of these are straight out of camera)...























And now for MGM...

My Wedding.

I know I've been absent for a couple of weeks or so, but I promise I have a very good excuse...

I got married!

The past few weeks have changed my life in a way that I can't put into words. The happiness, added responsibility, and the realization of growing up are just some of the welcomed aspects of this new beginning.

Now, the photography! Ayesha Ahmed was our contracted photographer along with two of my second shooters. All together, the number of the pictures taken is probably in the thousands. The team was absolutely amazing and the best part was that we were all friends. We laughed, screamed, and joked on each other while being a part of a beautiful day and wonderful photography. The wedding was a three day event and the following links show Day Two; the actual wedding day:
Part1
Part2

So, I hope this post makes up for my blog absense. Day Three was held in Brooklyn and I was in my home town of Staten Island for a little over a week. We just got back yesterday (I threw up on the flight due to turbulence).

Thank God, everything is settling into place.

Movies and Networking.

This past week was a very social week for me considering I'm always working or taking care of school work. On Monday, my best friend Adnan finally found time in between his rotations to go see a movie. He's been working shifts from 4AM to 8PM on the burn unit with no breaks - yet my boy always finds time to call me after a 16 hour shift. Props where props are due. Anyway, we decided to go watch Slumdog Millionaire and I must say, it is jaw-dropping good. Honestly, it is easily one of the best movies of recent years. Since both of us are from the Southeast Asian subcontinent, there was a lot of imagery that we can bear witness to. While a lot of people who have no connection to that area found it entertaining, we saw it as a testimony to the reality of some places and people there.

The Perfect Wedding Guide hosts the monthly Professional Wedding Guild Luncheon and I was fortunate enough to attend this past Wednesday. It was a great opportunity to meet many of the local vendors, venue owners, and wedding coordinators. For those of you who are starting out, you HAVE to network - getting to know the managers of Embassy Suites on first name basis and having top notch caterers as fans of your work really comes in handy. In the coming weeks, I'll be posting dedicated blog posts about some of my favorite vendors in the area.

Alright, no pictures for today. I know, I know - been busy with school ... and something else :)

I have a HUGE business project in the works, and yes, all of you will have the chance to be a part of it... more information to come soon.

=)..

Duotone and Rap

I get asked often about my duotone conversions and what process I use to get them the way they are. So, I thought I would make today's topic about how I address duotone pictures.

But first...

Rap music - I've never really been a big fan of the genre (due to the vulgarities), however, I came across these underground rappers and really took a liking to them...



Some of their other stuff gets political and it just seems that underground rappers have so much more significant things to say than the mainstream stuff you hear over the radio... I absolutely hate turning on the radio - rather sit there listening to the buzz of my heater.

Anyway, back to photography. First and foremost, I think that many people make things duotone (black and white) just for the same of making it duotone. Some try to hide noise, color fringing, or bad exposures and some just like everything to look like old B/W film. My approach consists of a more balanced outlook. The key element to developing a great duotone picture is to know what types of pictures "work" as a duotone. My criteria consists of two major points - lighting and essence. As far as lighting goes, I rarely ever make hard lit pictures duotone - only ones with soft gradations of skin tones and soft light (unless of course the clients specifically asked for something outside my criteria to be duotone). Next, I look for an essence to the picture - either a direct connection with the subject (like a deep eye contact) or an elegantly natural moment.

Once I find the pictures I'm looking for, I start the post-processing. All my duotone conversions are handled in my RAW editor - Photoshop is only used for sharpening or skin smoothening if need be. I personally like to have my conversions more on the high contrast side with deep shadows. Depending on one's taste, it either works or it doesn't - just like everything else.

First Shoot Ever - Favorite Baby Pictures

So, I was going through my archives of 2006-2007 and came across a few of my favorite pictures from a baby session I did when I first started. Actually, this was my first photo-shoot ever and armed with a Rebel XT and a Canon 50/1.8, I ambitiously went at it with hopes of bigger projects and larger ventures to come. Little did I know how much work was ahead of me and how far I would come. These might not be the most genius baby pictures in the world, but they hold a very special place in my heart - they were my first attempt at photographic portraiture art and these were the first pictures I was ever paid to take. The only thing I had back then was a fist full of hope and a heart full of vision - before the taxes, before the stresses of business, before the constant struggle to refine the art for the sake of staying competitive, and before the investments in advertising. These were taking for the pure love of taking pictures and being paid $80 for them left such a satisfying feeling in my heart back then. I had lived off of milk and oatmeal for two months to save for that camera and lens. Anyway, enough about me, here we go...

Brothers

This past Thanksgiving break, I went up to NYC to see my family. Luckily, my uncle from Delaware was over, too, and with him came the boys. I don't know what it is with us, but a lot of the boys in family have a thing with wrestling. My brother and I would go at it until we'd get yelled at or until one of us gave up - my little cousins are no different. 

First, have to load up on Oreos for energy...

Then we get to gladiator business...

The victor gets to warm up under the blanket. To this day, I'm surprised how cold the living room gets in the winter, yet, everyone still insists on chilling there (no pun intended).

And finally, the digital age - playing arcade games on the Blackberry.