So during work today, I dragged my co-worker Brad out to an alley way that I had passed by several times while humping out the 6 blocks to the UPS store.  At any rate, it was rediculously cold out and we didn’t have a whole lot of time, here are the best shots that I’ve processed so far.

Some of you might have already noticed but now when you go to dev-inspire.com you get a new front page that will allow you to branch off to 3 other sites.  These sites are this blog, my photo gallery(kindly hosted by smugmug who absolutely rules.) and a page dedicated to my wedding photography.  Again I’m taking example from my mentor and friend Vanessa Ard of Vanessa’s Photography.  This will enable me to filter out the wedding stuff for my customers and keep the artistic/other stuff separate.  In addition, it’ll provide an area where it will directly get the images into the eyes of those who’ll be making the decisions on whether or not to choose me for my services.

I’m still developing this wedding site so it’ll be some time still.  But for the first time, I’m doing the web developement from the ground up 100% from scratch which is actually far more gratifying that just customizing a template.

Keep the faith, whichever it may be.

This is my fault really, in my ferver of getting my business up and running I neglected to actually give my clients a way to get in contact with me.  If you’ll look to your right at the top of my links box in the side bar you’ll see the "Contact Joe" link, click that to send me an email.

Also, to clarify.  YES I DO WEDDINGS!! MOAR MOAR!!!!  If you know someone who is looking for a photographer for ANYTHING, send them my way.  But yes, I especially do weddings and am currently trying to fill up my 2008 and 2009 schedule so bring it on!!  I have a fairly wide range of packages. 

Lastly, I’m moving from Flickr to Smugmug because Smugmug allows me a bit more freedom with how and where I display my pictures.  So sorry Flickr.  It’s been a good couple of years but it’s time to move on.  So check it out when I get it all finished:  http://dev-inspire.smugmug.com

Peace!

So my first shoot with the 5D would be a self portrait set that I had in my mind.  But actually, none of the photos that I ended up keeping were what I had in my mind so perhaps I’ll give it another go sometime soon.

My first impressions of the 5D are simply WOW, having been using a 30D for about 18 months now I’m already used to the vast majority of the features found on the body as well as the body frame and style(it’s nearly the exact same dimensions as the 30D).  It’s a bit fatter though and that’s to house the infamous full-sized sensor.  So with that, ISO50 is awesome and the noise, or rather, the lack thereof on this camera is amazing.  I think I only had to do any noise reduction in Photoshop on one of these shots.  It’s pretty amazing.  Even at ISO3200, the noise was easily managable and was able to be removed without destroying any detail.  The reason for this is that due to both the physical size of the sensor and the resolution, the noise pixels are smaller and are able to be removed because the “details” of the photo are per pixel, larger than on the 30D.  Absolutely SUPER crisp.

Combine that with the awesome kit lens, 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Macro, and you’ve got a mini-money maker with some fantastic Bokeh and closeup support.  Truely and astounding combination.

Using the IR trigger, I used my 580EXII and 2 of the 3 430EX’s for these shots to do some dramatic and intense split-lighting.  I’ve had some very good responses from this set and I’m looking very much forward to doing more.

Enjoy and feel free to comment.

So now I’m what some would call "Big Pimpin’"  Today I just picked up a Canon 5D body and 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens, 3 Canon 430EX flashes and the trigger unit which works surprisingly well.  I will review all these parts and provide photos as well as comparison to my venerable 30D sometime this week.

Suffice it to say, I’m fricken excited.

That is all.

So i finally got some L glass and I’m totally stoked about it. Here’s a small compilation of what I was about to glean on my first day of shooting. Specifically, at my Kung Fu school where there was a Chinese calligraphy class going on that evening and very little else at that particular time. So I just spent an hour or so shooting around the school getting used to the new glass. Boy is that thing heavy. Good thing I’m a beefy guy. I hear they’re good in bar fights as well. Link after the jump

See more from this set.

Went up to Baltimore yesterday with an old friend of mine, Jeff Perez. He’s a budding photographer looking to get a bit more serious. I’m sure the bug will hit him once he realizes he can make actual money doing this stuff. I took him around and showed him some photojournalism concepts. We walked the inner harbor as well as toured the WWII sub the USS Torsk. I’ve been meaning to get back there since I was there the first time with my crappy point and shoot. But alas, here I am.

So here are just a few of the shots from that trip. If you want to see all of them, click the pics in my flickr stream down on the right side there. Enjoy!

The result of this pic is not makeup, nor did I augment her make-up’ish features with by hand. It’s a new plugin called Photowiz BW Styler. It has a great deal of options to choose from such as film type, grain type, ISO, development and processing methods, tint, paper weight and a number of filters. I was able to achieve this look by overdeveloping the “film” which gave her a sort of a 300 look but is also reminiscent of a 70’s or 80’s dystopian science fiction movie, where the film was overblown and super contrasty. I sort of stumbled on this look and for someone over the age 18 it might even be sexy. I hope to use this again in the future.

So while I know it’s not proper per se to rely on plugins to finish your photos; that the photograph should be properly composed in the camera and the computer process be only for optimizing the photograph you already created in-camera, I can’t help but experiment with new toys.  I’m trying out some B/W film emulators and the such, so I had a short impromptu shoot today with Angie and Alyssa.  It’s quite funny because just after I posted yesterday’s comment about how Alyssa loves to have her picture taken, today she wasn’t having it.  Probably for the first time ever.  Such as life though, right?  There are a couple of pictures here of her reading me the riot act, it’s pretty funny.  And then of course, Angie mocking her.  I managed to get some semi-posed portrait style shots of Angie and Alyssa, something I’ve not done to date.

Enjoy

So my little girl has been one of my most faithful subjects. Anytime I drag the camera out she’s constantly like, “Take a picture of me!!” And then I take a pic and she absolutely HAS to see it on the camera, no matter how crappy the picture turned out. I love her to death. I’m both glad and dismayed at her enthusiasm at being photographed. I’m glad because she’s so photogenic and always willing to be posed even at the tame age of four. I’m dreading this same behavior around spring break in 2022. (She’ll be 18 then for those playing the home game.) Anyway, here’s some of the latest set that I had with her.. I love her to death my little dork pride and joy!