Inessential Stuff

I mentioned that when Valerie and I did our shoot, we got lots of good pictures. So many, that I decided to break them into several different galleries. This first was “Valerie against the Wall.” Now it’s time for “Valerie on the Bed.” There will be another one in a few days.

I did a shoot a couple weeks ago with Valerie, and we got a lot of good stuff. I decided to split the images into several different galleries. So this is the first set–the first shots we took. Kind of warm-up shots. We took them against a wall. Thus the name.
I was also playing around with some new equipment I picked up from the WPPI trade show I had attended the week before, including an umbrella, some pocket wizards, and my new 12-24 mm lens. With this wide-angle, I discovered that when setting up a vertical shot, I had to make sure my toes were out of the frame. Delightful! I would also, unknowingly, get so close to Valerie that she would say, “How close do I look, anyway!” I love the new lens.

Early on a foggy Sunday morning, Carrie and James and I met up at Riverfront Park for their engagement pictures. We had a good time, leisurely strolling the park and trying out different locations. It was great fun to watch their affection for each other. If, after a long while of shooting, their smiles started to seem a little less than authentic, all I had to do was ask them to look at each other, and the natural, glowing smiles returned. Here’s a little slideshow of some of my favorites.

Lindsi and Ronnie are clothes designers in the area. They wanted to do a fashion shoot to showcase some of their creations, and I was honored when they called upon me. We decided to shoot in an alley and on the beautiful old loading dock of the Barrister Winery, whose owners were so kind and interested in what we were doing, that they invited us to take some pictures down among the barrels in the wine cellar.

The results of the photoshoot are in this gallery. However, you should swing by Lindsi’s store, The KnottyMuse, and Ronnie’s Store, Glamarita, and check out their clothes there. And maybe buy and thing or two while you’re at it.

The keen observer who has been following my blog (and thanks, Richard, Diego, and Mum) might notice some subtle differences. In fact, I’ve made the big leap: from a blogger site to my own-hosted blog on WordPress. There were some glitches along the way (and may still be more), but it mostly went well, with one major exception …

I lost all the comments.

So please, please, pretty-please, feel free to browse (or re-browse) and scatter comments crazy-loco all over the place. And bookmark me. And subscribe to the RSS feed. And make liberal use of the “ShareThis” feature. And invite your friends and neighbors over for an InessentialStuff Blog Party.

If, when commenting, you leave your signature as a link back to your own site, I will be sure to follow and say hello (and it’d be much appreciated it).

So here we go, into the WordPress world! Welcome aboard!

Riley wanted to do some lingerie shots on location somewhere. So we needed a place relatively private, and after trying a few other locations, decided on a little dirt road under a railroad track.

It was a surprisingly warm day, but still not really warm enough to be prancing around in lingerie. Still, Riley was game, and we got some good stuff. The colors were fairly warm, with a cloudy natural light from the side, but lots of the pictures look good in black and white, too. So you’ll get a little of both.

Christalle and I wanted to do a shoot that was dark and gritty. And what could be darker and grittier than an abandoned industrial building.

Well, not completely abandoned; we shared the building with a homeless man. And hundreds, if not thousands, of pigeons, most still living.

We had been watching the weather and had tried to choose the warmest day we could for a shoot. It wasn’t warm at all. It was about 33 degrees, and windy. The fact that Christalle doesn’t look cold is a testament to her modeling ability.

By the end, my fingers were so numb that I was making adjustments on my camera with my teeth.

That’s when we decided to stop. But we consider it worth it.