Fall Light is Beautiful for Downtown Albuquerque Headshots

As I walk out on my back porch after dinner I can just feel the light change from late summer to fall.  I've been doing a lot of head shots for women lately here in Albuquerque.  The light is so gorgeous that when we shoot downtown, the urban background turns into a creamy backdrop and reflects beautiful diffused light over their skin.  Although I retouch every headshot image, the early autumn light kisses their cheeks so I really don't have to do too much to their skin.  This is my new favorite spot for female professional headshots in Albuquerque.  See what you think :)

Susan needed some business card photos for her new Real Estate company.  Her boss thought she was so pretty, he wants to make her the face of her company!! You might see these in a few new Real Estate ads sometime soon.

This young gal is a social media and SEO expert and needed a headshot for her website and business cards.  (She just got married the week before in AZ - can you tell she's still glowing!!!)

Elke is also a Realtor, and I loved this photo of her.  I loved the chunky necklace that she brought with her.  This last photo is of Susan again.  She brought along an old high school friend for moral support and he just bought a new Viper - so of course we had to take the obligatory hot rod photo!!  :)

Happy Hearts - Albuquerque Commercial Photographer

I was so excited today when I opened up my email and I had a message from the American Heart Association.  They just got the proofs back from their ad agency for the new billboards that I shot for the Lovelace Hospital heart disease awareness campaign.  I only have the low res proofs, but I wanted to share just a few of them with you.  You can see the real thing on Feb 15th when all 12 billboards go up around the city!  Each of these men and women are generous local donors of the American Heart Association and are members of the Circle of Red.  Check out the campaign at www.Lovelace.com/GoRed !!

If you want to get involved, this year's Go Red for Women event will be held:
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 from 11am-1:30pm at the Hotel Albuquerque located at 800 Rio Grande Blvd.

Space is limited, and we are expecting a sold-out event this year, so get your sponsorships, tables or tickets secured today!

For more information, visit www.heart.org/albuquerquenmgoredluncheon or call Kathi Bradley at 353-5800, or 353-5818.

Make It Your Mission to fight heart disease in women. By sharing this commitment, together we can help save lives. Be a part of this extraordinary day.

New Mexico's Top Model Competition, Albuquerque Fashion Photographer

New Mexico's Top Model Competition, Albuquerque, NM
Sponsored by: Hotel Andaluz, Club Ibiza, Roc Body Angels, and Ell Photography

One Th evening at One Up nightclub in downtown Albuquerque I started talking with a gentleman got to talking and discovered we both had a love for the fashion industry and wished that we had an Albuquerque Fashion Week!  Currently he hosts Wed nights at One Up, and throws an uber chic Film and Fashion Industry Night mixers for all the stars, directors, producers and fashionistas to get together and network.  For the Month of September, his company is holding a city wide model search.  With 3 individual and one finale competition, models can win runway and modeling classes, personal fitness packages, and a I donated the grand prize of an $800 modeling portfolio to launch their career.

 

I went down to help out on the registration night and took some digital "polaroids" of the contestants, then turned the floor over to them to do some creative freestyle shots.  This top image of Julia Gallegos is my favorite.

Got "Fesh"? - Albuquerque Events Photography

Under the direction of Michelle Morrison, Farfesha Belly Dance is a professional belly dancing company and instructional studio located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. If you're lucky you might catch them twirling, shimmying, and gyrating on a Friday night at Taaj Palace, a local Indian restaurant.

As the story goes, the Egyptian music historian, George Sawa,  spent the evening with the dance company and declared they were full of "joyous laughter." Hence the name Farfesha.  Since then, the adjective "Fesh" has made it's way into their vocabulary describing a dancer who is full of  that "on-stage high energy delight."

Brighten Up Your Real Estate Listings - Albuquerque Real Estate Photography

This last week I got a call from a friend who is a professor up at a university in Oregon.  She was teaching a class on product photography for Graphic Design majors.  I had helped her with some basic lecture outlines earlier in the term, but this time she wanted to add some spice to the curriculum.  She wanted to do a lecture on HDR - High Dynamic Range so they had something fun to learn about right before their finals.

The human eye is truly amazing.  In one scene, the eye can see detail in the brightest highlights and the darkest shadows all at once.  A camera, on the other hand is not as gifted and has about half of the dynamic range of a human eye.  Even shooting in RAW falls short.  There are several HDR programs out there, including a plug-in in photoshop, that can help bring back detail in both the highlights and the shadows by merging several images together taken at different exposures.  Many times photographers also bump up the saturation to get an over the top HDR image.  While I'm not going to get into details, I will share some of the pictures I made yesterday.  I needed a subject while I was writing the tutorial for my professor friend to use, so I looked around and decided my dining room would do just fine.  The first photo is best averaged exposure from the camera, the second is a 5 image HDR composite. The HDR version makes the room just glow. It is warm and inviting. In this case the HDR isn't over the top, it's just enough to add some spice to any real estate listing.

Research done by Tim Ellis at Redfin concluded that listings with professional photography:

• Receive an average of 61% more views than their peers across all price tiers.
• Have a 47% higher asking price per square foot.
• Have an increased likelihood of selling for homes priced above $300,000.

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

When Should You Use HDR?

If you are interested in photography and have access to Photoshop, you can manipulate images using HDR too.  Here were some pics I took in Zion National Park at the Weeping Wall a few years ago. The left picture shows a photo with an exposure metered for the cliff, but then the sky is blown out and loses detail in the highlight. The second image is metered for the far away mountain, but then the cliff loses detail and is too dark. This is a perfect situation to use HDR. With the camera on a tripod, take 3-7 images with different exposures. Keep the aperture the same and move the shutter speed up and down from the best average exposure.

When the images are merged in the HDR Photoshop plugin you can get an image like this:

There are far better programs for HDR such as Photomatix with better tone mapping algorithms. However, if you already have Photoshop, it's an easy way to spruce up your vacation photos.  (This photo is a little too saturated and "HDR over-the-top" but you get the idea of the range of things you can do.)

Urban Yoga - Commercial Photography

Oreste teaches at Infinite Yoga in Little Italy, San Diego.  He discovered Ashtanga Vinyasa in 2000 when recovering from a back injury. In just 3 weeks the pain, which hadn't responded to 2 months of medication, completely disappeared. Oreste has studied extensively with Indu Bala Bhardwaj and many other prestigious teachers and is a certified yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance.

Oreste wanted to shoot his portraits in an urban environment and add a twist of his own personality into the images.  We traveled on location to UCSD in La Jolla, where he also teaches photography, and setup portable strobes to compliment the architecture and natural light.  The poses may come from classical yoga, but these are definitely contemporary portraits.  Here's just a taste of tonight's photo shoot.  More to come soon!

Update: In Jan 2011, Oreste went to study for one month with Desikachars at the Krshnamacharya Yoga in the Viniyoga.  He had many trials, tribulations, and epiphanies that changed his way of life (and thinking) forever.  You can check out his blog, "From India, With Love" to laugh, cry, and be thankful he's home safe at: http://india-with-love.blogspot.com/

Now Offering Real Estate Photography - Albuquerque Real Estate Photography

Professional Real Estate Photography- Starting at $99.99

Professional lighting and a wide angle photo can make any room look larger and more inviting.  The first thing you need these days is for online browsing home-buyers to say, "WOW! Show me that one."  Not only do you want to show each room, but you also want well-lit photos showing off accent pieces and landscaping that makes your house special.

  

Research done by Tim Ellis at Redfin concluded that listings with professional photography:

• Receive an average of 61% more views than their peers across all price tiers.
• Have a 47% higher asking price per square foot.
• Have an increased likelihood of selling for homes priced above $300,000.

 Email elltoraphy@gmail.com for a quote based on square footage, number of rooms and accent pieces, and asking price.