I Haven't forgetten you blogger...

I have been incredibly busy since Philadelphia Fashion Week and have been kinda neglecting my blogging. I apologize and will do my best to get back on track and post regularly from here on.

Here's a bit of an update:

I have been shooting a lot for Debbie Brooks handbags (DebbieBrooks.com) as well as doing several shoots for my favorite hang out spot Darlings Diner (Darlingsdiner.com) in the Piazza. I also just completed a huge commercial fashion shoot for Lock and Mane hair products and accessories (lockandmane.com). Lauren Palmer (makeup artist, stylist extraordinaire ) and I also recently completed a gift bags product shoot for Lock and Mane as well.

During a recent shoot for Jessica Saint and her girls from Sephora make up, my trusty faithful Canon Rebel XT met it's demise. To be fair, a good camera is probably going to give you 100-150k shots in its lifetime and I probably drove it well past 250k. It was due to die. More importantly I was due for an upgrade.

I wanted to buy one from New York Camera Video but I had a shoot coming up and didn't have time to wait for them to get in one used, however Scott from Nycv STILL (even though he stood to gain no money) helped me negotiate my deal from the camera I found on craigslist, made sure I got a quality camera and even offered to go with me to pick it up. I am jaded when it comes to most things in modern society, but I have to say Scott (and all the staff at NYCV.com) really still believe in QUALITY customer service and this is just one of many instances when they went above and beyond to not just keep me as a customer but to make me feel like they truly are more than just a store with photography equipment, they are people who share my passion for the medium to their core. They sell amazing stuff and their knowledge, guidance and customer service is 2nd to none. I recommend them HIGHLY to everyone I know, professional or amateur, who is interested in buying any type of photography, video or related equipment. I found a wedding photographer (Conrad Erb) who was selling a Canon 5D, which is now my new baby. Conrad was also a great guy, took the time to walk me through the changes from the XT to the 5D and really also went beyond just a guy selling a camera to another. Thank you.

To complete the upgrade I felt it was also time to move onto new lighting. I purchased a used set of Novatron strobe lights over the summer for a mere $55, knowing they'd be a good introduction to strobes but probably wouldn't last very long and I felt that it was time to move up a notch. This week I received my brand new Alien Bees 800s. I bought two of them and love them to death. I've been busily doing test shoots for the past few days to learn all the ins and outs of all the new equipment.

At the same time my roommate (Angelrift photography) and I decided now that our neighbors have moved out and cleaned all their crap out of our shared basement, that perhaps we should clean it up and use it as a new shoots space, possibly even rent it out to photographers that need indoor locations. We completed that project earlier in the week and now have the main basement (about 5 different walls or corners to shoot on) as well as THREE mini storage rooms that are perfect lil sets for photo shoots. I am currently looking for Interior Design students who want free work from a pro photographer in trade for creating mini shoot locations in those rooms. If you or anyone you know is interested please email me info@x-pose.net

I also worked two events for Advertising/Communication Times ; A business card exchange mixer and then an advertising trade show. Both events were a lot of fun and well attended and gave me a chance to mingle and hopefully strengthen my relationships with the modeling agencies I am currently shooting for. Though having them both in the same room at the same time proved to be a bit nerve wracking to say the least.

This weekend I was asked to do a submission shoot for Inked Magazine on Saturday, which I am shooting both Fische and Key for, then Sunday I am shooting production stills and modeling shots to appear in a TV commercial for Debbie Brooks handbags. I was supposed to do a test shoot with the amazingly beautiful Lorianna Swain, but the Debbie Brooks people liked her look and will just use her in the commercial instead. That girl just keeps blowing up it seems.

I will be posting tons of images soon, my goal is to release and blog about one shoot a day for at least the next two weeks, I may keep it to weekdays, we'll see. Stay tuned.