Use of painted backdrops is quite standard in photography. I generally find them to be ok at best, and horrifically cheesy at worst. But it is not every day you get to use absolutely gorgeous painted backdrops that are each worth substantially more than your car.

Yesterday, Tiberio and I brought the La Figa live installation to the studio/gallery of Jose Luis Rodriguez Guerra – an  incredibly talented painter, originally from Mexico, but now living and working in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. Tiberio is being featured in an upcoming documentary film, and we were there to get footage of him creating some La Figa pieces. Jose was kind enough to lend his space for the filming. More details about the movie (and of course still photos) will be coming in my next blog post, after I have had a chance to post-process the images.

While waiting for some extra video lighting to arrive, I did a spontaneous quick shoot with Reyna, one of our absolute favorite La Figa models. Regular readers (and anybody who was at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival this year) will undoubtedly recognize her. Jose generously allowed us to use his stunning canvases as the backdrop for these photographs.

Also note that Reyna is available for modeling gigs of all kinds. If you have a project that she would be suited for, and would like to get in touch with her about it, just drop me a line, and I will introduce you.

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After all of these months of preparation, it is a bit hard to believe it is really over. But it is true, the 2009 Seattle Erotic Art Festival is now just a memory. The organizers did an absolutely incredible job – this was by far the best SEAF ever. The huge space at the Seattle Center really worked well, the art, performers, and DJ’s were all top notch, and the midnight to 4AM after parties on Friday and Saturday rocked the house.

Our La Figa installation was also a smashing success – people really seemed to love it. We had eight large framed prints on our wall space, and Tiberio created new works of food and body art on over a dozen models over three nights.

I have posted three albums of images from the festival:

• The La Figa Installation (53 images)
  
• People and Art (46 images)
  
• Performers (37 images)
  

And here are a few favorites…

I went to the Japanese Garden at the University of Washington Arboretum last week to shoot some macro while everything is blossoming. I believe I set a new personal record  – out of 315 frames that I shot, I ended up deleting 310, for a success rate of just 2%.

There are two reasons for this. First, I have been going to the same spot to shoot the same blossoming plants for several seasons now, so it is getting harder to come up with shots that I have not done already. But mainly, I forgot one of the key principles of outdoor macro photography – don’t do it if it is at all breezy out. Shooting a flower through a macro lens in a breeze is like trying to shoot in a hurricane – the movements are vastly magnified, so it is much harder than normal to get sharp shots (which is already hard enough).

But without further ado, here are the five shots from the day that I kept….

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Here are some shots I did for the premiere issue of JUST CAUSE Magazine (which will be launching extremely soon – stay tuned for more on that). These wine bottles were for filler for a story about recycling.

Clear glass is tricky to shoot well – if you do not do it exactly right the glass either completely dissappears, or becomes covered with unpleasant reflections (I recommend the book “Light: Science and Magic” if you want to learn how to do it). However tinted glass is much easier. Basically you just need to back light it. I.e. have the light shine through the glass rather than bounce off the front.

Click on the images for larger versions…

And we also did some water bottle shots for a story about green shopping…

Here are some photos I shot of my trainer Adriana Medina – owner of Fuerte Fitness – before she won the Women’s Fitness division at the Vancouver Classic bodybuilding competition at the end of March.

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We shot these on location at Fuerte Fitness. Here is my portable studio setup. Black velvet backdrop, and three SB-800 flashes. The umbrellas are actually Photek Softliter Umbrella/Softboxes….