Adnan | Portraits

Adnan came over for a late lunch and I had my camera nearby... go figure. We had some beautiful window light coming in so I thought we might as well make the best of it. Besides, he's leaving in a couple of weeks for residency at VCU as he's pursuing a very prestigious pathology program there. So, I'm sure he will probably need some fresh pictures for all the pretty doctors he's going to run into.

He has truly been a great friend - confidant, older-brother-wannabe, teacher, punching bag, etc. I know I care enough to be sad for a couple of days after he leaves, but I'm trying to gauge whether or not I care enough to drive 2 hours once a month to visit him like I promised to. So much for thinking before speaking... lol.

Here's to memories...

Julie | Portrait

I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE shooting at night time. It just so happens that whenever I shoot at night, it is always ridiculously cold. The temperature, at the time of this shoot, was something in the 30's (with a low of 28) and the wind was outrageous. You can't tell by looking at the pictures, but you'll have to take my word for it when I say it was snot-running-down-your-face-and-you-can't-feel-it cold. Julie was a true trooper and extremely fun to work with. Due to the weather, we barely shot for 20 to 30 minutes. I wanted to capture her smile as I think it's the most interesting part of her giddy personality. Here are a couple of highlights:

Ian | Portrait

It was extremely cold outside with really high winds. Ian is a local graphic designer and a good friend of mine, so when he told me he wanted a photo session, I was all up for it. As with most of my fly by shoots, we were limited on time as he had other engagements to address. I've actually become adept at working under pressure. I'm finding that the challenge of coming up with compositional ideas on the spot and under time constrictions is a really fun and satisfying creative exercise. We found a train yard downtown and I decided to go for a hard light look against the afternoon sun.

Whitney | Portraits

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. I met up with Whitney, a student at NCSU, for a photoshoot at the Duke Gardens on Duke University's campus. Due to time constraints, we didn't get a chance to go through all of the gardens and decided to just work at a couple of locations. One spot I chose is one of my favorites - the Asian bamboo area. I decided to go for a very natural session and focused on bringing out the bamboo in the pictures. Here are some highlights:

Donovan Williams+ Morris Ricks | Artist Shoot

I was approached to take some pictures of local hip-hop artists Donovan "Vash" Williams and and Morris "Mez" Ricks for some promotional materials. These guys, while being young, really have some excellent lyrical skills and while I'm not a rap fan, I was still impressed. Apparently, their CD hits the markets in a month or so on a national scale and these guys are really busy recording their last 4 tracks at a downtown recording studio in Raleigh.

Once we setup, I only had about ten minutes to get them something they would like. Over the course of a normal two hour portrait session, I usually have time to warm up and analyze my surroundings to get the creative juices flowing. However, they had to be at the studio and I had to come up with something fast. On top of that, we did this photo-shoot on campus and as it turned out, we were caught in a break between classes. This meant ridiculous amounts of student traffic getting in our way.

The following two are my favorites from the small session that we got to shoot:

Freedom | Documentary

Sameer is a good childhood friend of mine and a local graffiti artist. There was a 3 hour event at the NCSU's Freedom Expression Tunnel where various artists were making murals condemning the current war in the Middle East. Sameer called me up and asked me if I wanted to go and document him doing his thing and I agreed. By the time we got there, most of the people had finished and left - we stayed from 8:30pm to 12:00am. It started to get really cold really fast, but we managed to stay out there for the duration of the project. While he is capable of developing very complex graffiti art, this was a pretty straight forward piece.

Enjoy the pictures...

Sameer | Artist Shoot

Sameer is an Egyptian artist who is somewhat of a local legend in the community. We both grew up in Staten Island, New York City - where he had started his art at an early age. His specialty lies in complex graffiti art and murals - some of the work I've seen is truly impressive. Tomorrow, he'll be doing a session from 6pm to 9pm at NCSU's Freedom Expression Tunnel calling for peace to the war going on in the Middle East. We thought it would be a great idea to get him a photo-shoot for promotional materials.

After about thirty minutes of playing around, we wound up with two shots that he really liked:

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.

Weddings Magazine Makeup Shoot

Last year Weddings Magazine approached us about an open slot for advertising in their publication -- which so happens to be one of the largest distributed and longest running wedding publications in this area. They offered us a discounted deal if we would photograph before and after shots for some makeup artists featured in the magazine. We agreed to it and setup a shoot a few months later. The photoshoot was to be done at an upscale club house where we were given a tight hallway to work with. The photos had to be half body shots displaying dress details, makeup, hair, and jewelry.

This is actually a joint project now as Sahid Limon, who was working with me back then, took the pictures as I assisted with lighting. Then, I was responsible for post-processing and creative development to get the photos ready for printing. Below are some of my favorite "After" shots showing all the girls fully prepared. I've shown the unedited image as it was captured by Sahid Limon and then how I processed it.