This is the photo boof section of the party. It was a lot of fun just chillin w/ the homies and feeling old; thinking about the kids that were forced to hang out at the party w/ their parents then reminiscing about how it was when my parents did the same to me. ;)



Still, damn good times and hope to see you all again soon! (Better quality vid on my Facebook.)

Oh, and I'm thinking of putting the final pic up for online print sales or something. I.e. Smugmug or some shit. Nothing outrageously priced, but I think it'll be a start, you know? Thoughts?

P.S.
No-homo for the GaGa-ness of it. :p

SOHc It To Me

I was rummaging through my hard drive and realized that I haven't posted this picture yet! My bad.

The SOH stands for the Student Open House 2009 at the Hallmark Institute of Photography. We were in charge of the Car Shoot portion of the shindig and man, was it fun. It was the first time I actually directed people on a project. With the help of Chris Myska and Ashley Heyl, we were able to accomplish this incredible feat:


After much deliberation, we decided to follow this Ken Brown joint that can be found on his Flickr. We just changed it up by trying to show more of those sexy wheels, but I wanted to keep as close to the original, that's why the face wasn't totally lit up.

I know it doesn't seem like much since there are tons of different ways of achieving this but since we wanted to have a grandeur showcase, as well as stick to purism, we constructed a giant, roof-suspended reflector.








And here's a tiny (and I mean tiny) view of the final output.




Special Thanks:
Randy Ahart, Michael Curry, Darryl Dobbs, Ashley Heyl, Fallon Hutto, Tiff Marcy, Leland Marshall, Dan Menard, Chris Pino, Mandi Rowland, AJ Smollen, John Stevenson, Mike Thomas, TJ Turner, and everyone lending a hand for even a few minutes. Thanks also to Hallmark staff members Lindsay Ciavattone, Thom Burden, Paul Teeling, David Turner, and Gabriel Hmieleski.

Impromptu MTB

Here's teh homie Eric.

1) What started out as a Navy uniform shoot ended up as a play mtn bike shoot since he took forever to get to my house. By the time we'd make it out to the location we'd lose all the light soooo, next best thing...MOUNTAIN BIKES!



2) Since my bike hasn't been seeing much use due to my wrist injury, I figured I'd let him have some fun on it. It's good he knew how to bunnyhop.

I wanted to play w/ split toning on this one. Meh.



3) This one was the last of the set. It was funny. The PP work is based off a Jon Stars joint w/ techniques we learned from our teacher Peter Chilton at Hallmark, but I couldn't find the image to link to. His turned out way better but I just had fun w/ this one anyway.



All in all a successful shoot imo. I was bored over the weekend and wanted to keep fresh and this was the result. I'll get better.

Props to my other buddies Del and Eric for helpin' me out on the shoot. We got L&L afterwards and it was delicious!

*on a side note, I hate how these images upload to the net. :\

Cyrus' Z

So here's my fav shot of Cyrus' awesome Z. The rest can also be found on my Flickr along with some of my other stuffs.


I just wanted to post some of the behind the scenes shots that the homie and fellow 09 Hallmark Alum Matt Campagna took during his visit from Dallas. While he was down here, I figured I'd use his awesome education and have him assist me on a car shoot. Thanks a lot for the shots, man!








So obviously, go snoop through my site and/or the Flickr link I posted, but make sure to hit up Matt's Lightroom Guruness. http://theturninggate.net

Bicycle, Bicycle, Bicycle, I want to ride my BICYCLE!

This past weekend was the Cycle Eastlake 2009 event but 1) since I didn't wake up early enough and 2) since I didn't get a chance to register early, I didn't end up riding...BUT I did get up off my lazy bum and take some pics of the event.

Here's a small sample of what I shot:
















The rest can be found at my Flickr. (<~ Click)

Enjoy!

Test Shoot

Just got my 'Bees setup and wanted to test 'em out on my fav subject, my car!

Really didn't wanna shoot her again because I haven't done any mods since like jr year of college, but meh, she's still pretty to me. I wanted to shoot someone else's car but last minute planning ftl.

Anyway, on with the show:

The Bees Knees

'Nuff said...

;)

Super Kid!

Today I was shooting groups (and kicking @$$ at it I must say) and this kid comes up wearing a cape. At first I laughed to myself (out loud) but realized how much awesome there was in this situation so I busted out my iPhone and asked to take a couple snaps.




I guess they get it when they prove themselves in class...like correctly answering what what 4+4 equals. Nonetheless, still fun.

The Bird Is The Word

I just wanted to share an image of an interesting lady I saw walking down the street while I was at work. I was getting ready to shoot some group shots and kinda saw her out of my peripheral walking around w/ a branch. At first, I thought she was just strange...until I actually peeked over to see what she was holding. Turns out she was "walking" her bird lol.

I forget her name, but she was real nice and sounded like Bobby's mom from the show Bobby's World. I shoulda had her say, "Doncha' know," or "Oh yah," like the people from the movie Fargo.

Here's her bird, Sweetness.



*pics taken w/ my iPhone.

My Loves...

Just wanted to share a pic of all my loves...past and present; my bmx bike, my car, and my current love, my mtn bike.

It's just nice to see 'em all together.




I also wanted to show off my new bike racks. :)

Gerardy Photo - Day 1 @ La Costa Canyon HS

So yup, a quick glimpse of what I get paid to do. ;)

Just a fun lil' "outtake" when it got slow.

First Day of Work

So some of you may know...most of you may not know but I started working for a high-volume portrait studio called Classic School Portraits as an individual photographer and as their group photographer. While it's not where I saw myself being right outta school, it's definitely a start and I'll for sure learn how to deal w/ 200 kids/day (on a light day) and groups of them lil' buggers. If I can do that much, then yeah, I'll be able to control anybody during my shoots in the future.

I've been going through training the past couple weeks with a couple practice runs, (one in-house and one school for the less fortunate called the Monarch School) but this week is where we actually do a real school.

I also was able to bond w/ the first set of "newbies" and we'll be tackling most schools together. I'm looking forward to working with my co-worker Missy Islas after the season so we can work on our portfolios. She's pursuing her beauty school degree and is currently learning how get people's hair did.

It'll be interesting season. And who knows? Maybe they'll call me back to work for them in the spring where they tend to do more creative stuffs...I.e. I'll be able to work my Hallmark muscle!

Comic Con 2009

So I'm about to embark on yet another year at SDCCI making it ~8 years strong. (?) If they don't have pre-reg set up this year (which I'll find strange), this year will be my last for a while. Anyway, I'll be posting pics w/in the next few days of different, cool, odd, and just flat out AWESOME things. Too bad I don't have a flash. I'll just have to make do. 5D MKII high ISO pwnage! haha.

I'll also be posting stuff from my iPhone on my twitter when I get a chance so be sure to check it out! Twitter Linky

Going Going, Back Back, to Cali Cali

Almost ready to be on my way to Cali. Wish me luck!

I'll be taking phone pics along the way and uploading them to TwitPic.

Check 'em out at http://twitter.com/bryutas

Good morning smoldering porch.

If it wasn't for the mailman coming by, my neighbor Marcus and I probably wouldn't have even known about it in the first place. Awesome.

This was caused by non other than our Sasquatch-hunting neighbor Ms. Daly.
Here's a link:
"I am immortal/I hunt the bigfoot furry things" (to the Highlander theme lol)
Yep, I works magic. :p

We came out to what looked like a smoldering pile of ash. I noticed a lil pee-wee fire so I ran inside, grabbed a cup, and doused the flame with water. It was still crackling as the Turners Falls FD arrived. They then proceeded to cut away the burnt, and still burning, boards and douse everything with even more water. By then all but a few cigarette butts were complete ash but there was enough left to conclude that she probably meant to put the butt out in the empty beer bottle and missed. Maybe she was drunk or sleepy or both. I remembered an old plastic planter bucket filled about halfway with old butts but that container was no where to be found. Maybe it melted away? Maybe she wanted to plant a pretty Jamaican flower or something? Whatever it was, the bucket's still-burning contents were left all over that corner of the porch. Good job.

Now for some pichers of today's events. Enjoy.





Dude inspecting her burnt cigarette butts.











Here's some motion for ya!


So it'll be nice to know that she owes our landlord money for almost burning down the house. I like to think it's just karma coming back at her for making all of us put up with this crap:


'til next time...