Mayor Todd Gloria I approach campaign portraits a bit like corporate head shots. After all, the subject is in a great job and he happens to want to keep it. The purpose is a bit more specific, however, so the primary difference for me is context or, more simply put, backgrounds. We wanted to show Todd Gloria in real backgrounds in the actual San Diego community he serves and in the context of issues that he cares about. As a…
Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to shoot Ballet Folklorico in San Diego for AAA, documenting the people and dance. I was traveling around my hometown like a tourist to various locations to see rehearsals and performances both indoor and out. The shoot resulted in three magazine covers for AAA and I'm stoked with how these turned out! This type of dance is a photographer's paradise, utilizing a lot of color and controlled movement in combination. With this type…
Over the past couple of years, I've had the opportunity to shoot quite a few restaurants in and around San Diego and the Inland Empire. Often, my primary assignment is to capture the food but one of my favorite parts is to grab a portrait of the chef or restaurateur. Sometimes its at the request of the client, but often its for my own creative exercise and portfolio. Chefs are generally personable and passionate but they also tend to be…
One of the questions I get asked a lot in classes and workshops is how to achieve a pure white background without a lot of Photoshop knockout. Graphic designers like a clean white background so that the subject could be plopped anywhere on a website page or white paper layout without borders (or easily extracted and placed on a different background). TLDR: The trick is to light your background about one stop brighter than your subject. In this case, my…
It's no secret that the 'ol Book of Faces can be a great marketing tool for photographers as well as just a generally fun place to show off some family photos. Facebook, however, has a tendency to compress, convert, or otherwise mangle your photos if you don't do some image prep ahead of time to maximize their display quality. Here are some steps I'd recommend to optimize your images for Facebook display. I recommend using Photoshop but you could certainly…