Category Archives: photography tips

mountains in Utah are warm at the sunset time

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Women from Brazil are very pretty! I was lucky enough to have a change last Saturday to shoot these girls. They are all English students that came here to Utah to learn English and boys, yes they are single.
For these images I asked them to take turns assisting holding a golden reflector so we could get a warm temperature on them.

fast session

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Often in photography we don’t have a lot of time to plan before we have to do a session. Also often because some circumstances we might have to run as fast as we can do deliver the image. While I prefer to plan a shoot way before, sometimes a photographer has to work fast. Here is a sample of a mini session.
10 minutes = 20 images.
This is Stephanie, and while she was assisting in a shoot for her mom, we made together a really quick session for her. It took no longer than 10 minutes to get about 20 frames that were good.  I would like to share today Steph’s mini-session. I am thinking it’s a very practical way to get some nice images really fast and if there is interest I will be doing more of this.

1) It’s very cost effective

2) Its fast

3) and it’s fun

Thanks for visiting.


PhotoVision deal

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I found this on Facebook. David Terry was sharing with us.
I ordered and can’t wait to start studying the videos.
PhotoVision is one of the best values on the market for those wanting to improve their photography. It is a subscription to a set of DVDs (you get 6 during the year). Each DVD is filled with 3 hours worth of information from various speakers on various topics. These are real professionals sharing their secrets. The cost is normally $199, but if you use coupon code PVFAN you get the entire set for just $49.

2011 Holi Festival of Colors

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Photos from the festival of colors will be ready soon. I had an engagement session with Camilla and Diogo and lots of randoms photos of people having fun at he festival. I absolutely love vivid + vibrant colors on my images.  Festival of colors gave me a great opportunity to play with it. Here you can see the first photos I post processed.

This girl didn’t see that coming. Disclaimer: No person was harmed in the making of this frames. 😉

The eyes are attracted to the minorities said once Kenneth Linge. I love the white on her eyes contrast with all the colors.

…and final but not least…I had a chance to make some fun and unique frames of Camilla and Diogo to celebrate their recent engagement. They were super fun to work with. I will write a blog post just about this later.

Thanks for visiting the blog. I took more than 1000 photos at the festival and you can see all the photos in this link. Not all are ready yet but I will be uploading more as they are ready.

Jarvie Window (my) Experience

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Last Summer I did an internship with Scott Jarvie. Later I will write some more posts about the many lessons I learned from him about wedding photography and photography in general. He is passionate for his work as well as for teaching.

I am writing today about one of the things I learned with him: ” The Jarvie window”  experience.

I Decided to continue to do the ” Jarvie window” because it really is quite simple and very fun to do. I do it at parties, event groups and wedding receptions.

In the words of Scott Jarvie himself:

” Yes you will see me doing this again… often

Yes it’s very gimmicky and doesn’t replace being able to take good pictures otherwise.
But you better believe that I’m going to be doing this a lot.

A whole series of faces in square format, doing crazy stuff.
Up in the face… no personal space allowed.

I can totally see this as the hit of a party or wedding reception.
There’s something me and Bryan Jones just couldn’t put a finger on… something about it that makes it so endearing.
It has to do with shooting through the circle.
Yes the lighting is cool.
Yes it’s often more of a caricature Than a picture”


What equipment do I use to make these?

With my full frame camera 5D I use a 12mm Lensbaby with fish eye that I bought at Pictureline

If you have a cropped sensor camera you will might like better the 8mm lens.

Almost any flash that you can set on manual will do it. Try some settings till you find the one that works better for you. I also use a flash ring  Flash adapter that you can find on ebay for less than $50 bucks

The aperture I have tried so far are f/22 and f/16 I like these apertures cause it naturally makes everything else in the background darken.

If you can afford a AF lens is great but a manual will do as well. The focus on the lens baby is Manual, so I have to be very careful after I set the focus to always shoot from the same distance to the face.

It’s not a problem at all since this is very close anyways. However if I make a mistake the whole batch can be out of focus which is not good unless that is a style you looking for 😉

Pos-processing is quite simple. Crop it 1×1 if you like it squared and brush up exposure and brightness if needed.
That’s it. They are ready to be shared and people typically have lots of fun with it.

Big thanks to Scott Jarvie for discovering this so we can have fun with photography.

I would like to invite you also to check the Jarvie Window Experience on Scott’s  blog to take a look at all his work that is of very high artistic quality.

Thanks for visiting.

happy prepared accident

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After the sun sets it can be a little bit difficult for the photographer to get some good photos since the light source rapidly goes away.

However is when the difficult comes that the creativity and skills can overcome it to make still some pretty frames.

I love silhouette and I am going to share how I ” Prepare”  to get some silhouette frames as well as great frames with the use of one Flash.

List of equipment used here

Canon 5D ( original)
24-70mm 2.8L
Flash 580 EX  Off-camera on manual mode
Cactus V4 radio wireless triggers

The idea:
To explain this I will borrow the words of David Terry when he commented on the same photo I posted on my FB page:
” … Set your camera exposure for the sky and let the flash light up the couple. It’s perfect. Then when the flash doesn’t go off … it’s still perfect. Perhaps a better term is a happy prepared accident. ”

The Result:
Here is what happens when the flash “fails” to fire off

(1/60 sec at f/2.8  ISO 250)

And here with the flash firing on them

Here is another example of the same idea. The posing them in a superhero pose is optional 😉

(1/200 sec at f/5.0  ISO 100)


(1/200 sec at f/5.0  ISO 100)

(1/200 sec at f/5.0  ISO 100)

(1/200 sec at f/5.0  ISO 100)

Thanks for visiting the blog, and share with me your happy “prepared” accidents and comments.

KBYU TV International about photography part 1

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BYU Television International is a cable/satellite television channel operated by Brigham Young University. BYU Television International broadcasts simultaneously in English, Spanish and Portuguese, with most of the programming also seen on its sister channel, BYU Television. I got an invitation to participate in a program about photography.

Broadcasting via Satellite, BYU Television International is available in most parts of the world. It aims to provide viewers worldwide with high-quality, educational and inspirational programming. It is available through direct satellite broadcast services such as Dish Network and DIRECTV, as well as on the internet using Move Networks streaming video technology.

Well, they were doing a show on photography and they invited me for an interview. The reporter asked me a few questions and I invited 2-3 couples that I had photographed before to participate as models and to be interviewed as well.

So I will be posting blog posts with the photos of these three couples. Keep in mind that the main purpose wasnt to do the photography but to ” pose ” for the TV show. This is the outcome of my shooting.

First,  is Norman and Xiomara. I photographed them at his proposal, engagement, Wedding day and many other times.

they are fun to have around…

…they have that loving connection

Too shoot inside of a building at night is always complicated for me. The low light condition is still a challenge. It can be difficult to get the right color temperature and the sharpness I wish for in my frames. For these I choose a prime 50mm 1.4 and I shot in f/4 and the ISO up to 600-800 with flash off camera.

Thanks for visiting. The program will be aired at KBYU International from May 2011.