HoustonPhotog.com / LongoriaPhotography.com

I got to attend the OneLight Workshop given by Zack Arias this week and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about off camera lighting, it was awesome! Tracy Tesmer, a local Houston based photographer was kind enough to donate her time to be one of our models for the day. She is an amazing photographer and seemed to be right at home in front of the camera even though she said she was nervous and uncomfortable with it. Ha! Could have fooled me!

Lighting for this shot was a Nikon hotshoe flash inside an Apollo 28″ softbox. In fact there were some other workshop attendees shooting Tracy from just outside of frame left but I snuck in a shot or two in between their shots. I didn’t want Tracy to see that I was photographing her since I wanted her looking away. This is my favorite shot from the entire day. Thanks Tracy!

Canon EOS-5D Mark II : Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L : 1/30th : f/2.8 : 640 ISO : 24mm : Manual Mode : 0 Bias : Flash Fired

Here’s another photo from an even older portrait/photoshop workshop from a couple of years ago held by a friend named Tracy Hicks and Brian Stewart (Links Not Safe For Work) with hair and make-up provided by Tara Ward. The retouching and editing tips/tricks I learned way back in ‘07 I still use to this day. I learned a lot about skin softening, blemish removal, make-up enhancements, eyeliner edit, eye color adjustments, wrinkle removal, eyebrow and lipstick tweaks etc. It’s important to get hair, make-up, lighting, compsition right on set but it’s equally as important that the post processing is there as well in order to make a great photograph.

For the life of me I can’t remember the lighting position and modifiers used in this shot so you’ll just have to let me slide on this one. =] The main reason I’m going through a few more older portraits and editing them for the blog is because I’m looking to order a few strobes of my own over the next few days so I was trying to go back and look at some past stuff I’ve done. Trying to get a bit more motivated to venture down the portait road since I’ve always been intimidated by shooting portraits of people.

Canon EOS-1D Mark IIN : Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L : 1/200th : f/6.3 : 100 ISO : 52mm : Manual Mode : 0 Bias : 3 Strobes

I adopt the same saying as many other photographers do out there… “I belong BEHIND the camera and NOT in front of it!”. With that being said, this is my self portrait taken while lost somewhere in Hawaii. I don’t really remember which island I took this on but I remember sitting on the shore shooting the sunset. I think I did take a couple of photos of myself in it but yea I’m not too crazy about how those turned out. Hehe.

So this is my artsy rendition of my self portrait. I really like these types of self portrait photos since I’m there but I’m not really there. Ya feel me?

Canon EOS-1D Mark III : Canon EF 17-40 f/4L : 1/30th : f/6.3 : 100 ISO : 17mm : Aperture Priority : 0 Bias : No Flash

I attended a portrait/glamour workshop last year held by a friend named Tracy Hicks (Link Not Safe For Work). It’s been about 18 months since the day of the shoot and here I am finally editing a single photo from the day’s shoot. Yea I am a bit of a procrastinator, I don’t deny it! =]

This shot was taken with 3 strobes, one behind the couch firing at the door/wall, one in a large soft box camera left at 45 degrees and the third as a kicker camera right with a small softbox and grid 45 degrees towards the model.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III : Canon EF 17-40 f/4L : 1/200th : f/11 : 100 ISO : 40mm : Manual Mode : 0 Bias : 3 Strobes

I plan to get a set of strobes and a battery pack very soon so that I can get out and try my hand at some edgy, urban editorial style portraits. I’ve been wanting to get out there and do it for quite some time now but haven’t gotten off of my arse to just do it! Hopefully that will change soon.

I went to San Luis Pass with Brian last week in order to help him out with a beach shoot.. I had a blast even though I spent most of the afternoon pushing our car (and others) out of the sand! Ugh!

Here’s a quick edit from the day…

Canon EOS-5D Mark II : Canon EF 135 f/2L : 1/5000th : f/2.8 : 100 ISO : 135mm : Aperture Priority : -1/3 Bias : No Flash