Congratulations on 50 years!!
Posted on 21 June 2010 | 2 responses
I recently was asked to photograph a 50th Wedding Anniversary event. Having not done many personal events I thought it would be a great opportunity to jump in and help out while drying off behind my ears a bit more at these types of shoots. Unsure what to expect I was a bit anxious to get to the event and begin shooting away.
The event was beautifully planned and the decor was exquisite. The default lighting was monstrous and made white balancing a nightmare but I expected that due to where the event was being held. After adjusting as much as possible to neutralize the ‘red’, shooting became less of a challenge and more of a enjoyment. Everyone was pretty open to the cameras and the friendships and relationships in the room became easily noticeable. I soon got the impression that some of these people had not seen each other in years if not decades which gave the entire event more of a ‘homecoming’ atmosphere.
We shot for 2-3 hours before the crowd started filtering out. We were told we could leave a bit early but there was no hurry. I decided to hang around and try to capture anything else I could which included the present opening and some children at play. Overall I consider it a success and hopefully the family will too.
Some of the decor.
A fun shot of “Dad” offering a full plate all at once.
Thanks again to Tracy and Leigh who invited me to be a part of this special event.
- Jason
Phelps Wedding
Posted on 19 June 2010 | No responses
I was asked at the last minute if I could help out a friend and do a wedding shoot. It was to be a small wedding with only a handful of guests at a local park. I threw an estimate together and once we agreed to terms we were ready to go. Aside from the extreme heat things fell together without many hitches and we ended up with some great shots.
One battle we did fight is conflicting with other persons with cameras. Everyone wanted their shot and there was very little courtesy shown to the person actually getting paid to take the pictures. It’s one thing to stand beside me and shoot but a lot of the time there was someone shooting from an angle directly across from me. With little or no time to react and ask the person/s to move each time, I did the best I could. I guess it’s just part of the trade but the customer gets the raw end of the deal in the end.
The bride was beautiful and the groom stood out in his dress uniform, having just finished boot camp and proudly showing off his patriotism. Here are a few samples from that shoot.
Congratulations to Morgan and Joey.
- Jason
Busy Year and the Henson Wedding
Posted on 14 June 2010 | No responses
Wow, time has really flown. This domain is a year old now and it seems like only yesterday I was setting it up. I haven’t posted in a while and I apologize for that. This spring->summer has been very productive. I’ve now gone from refusing weddings to now doing them here and there as well as taking on requests for next year. It’s amazing how things can change so quickly.
Here are a few more shots from the wedding that pulled me into the wedding abyss.
After seeing how fun weddings can be to actually shoot I decided to dabble a little more. I soon got my opportunity on a last minute impromptu wedding of a friend of mine. This was a quaint and quiet little wedding at a nearby park. The wedding chaos was no different even with a smaller crowd and the stress was there as there would be with any wedding but it was still a blast. Those pictures will be up soon.
- Jason
New Dragon Lens Photography Site
Posted on 18 April 2010 | No responses
Everyone take a look at the new site I’m building that is currently under development. Let me know what you think. As of this posting there is nothing in the Gallery section just yet. Thanks
- Jason
Evan
Posted on 21 December 2009 | No responses
I got the opportunity to do my first real ‘baby shoot’ a couple weeks ago. Some friends wanted to make some Christmas cards for the holidays using photos of their 5 week old son Evan. I jumped at the chance. It was my first time doing a full shoot with a baby and I’d heard the advice and horror stories from other photographers.
The one thing most photographers will tell you up front is to be patient. Babies do what they want. You can only ‘coax’ them so far. They tend not to feel obligated to pay attention to you cute voices or dangling toys. A lot of times Photographers will spend most of their time waiting. Waiting on the crying to stop (which can be at any second since most newborns act pretty bipolar. Happy one second then crying the next, then happy again.), waiting on the baby to finish eating, waiting on the baby to finish getting changed. Waiting on the baby…. well you get the picture. (No pun intended)
One thing I learned is photographs can be very deceiving. Half of my pictures that turned out ok look as if Evan was posing specifically for me. What actually is going on is he is in the middle of jerking, twisting, drooling, and flopping and I just got a lucky snap in.
Overall I am happy with the outcome. Tell me what you think.
- Jason
Of LillyFilmsFHS
Posted on 4 October 2009 | 3 responses
I got the opportunity to work with Nick Lilly of LillyFilmsFHS last Thursday. We met downtown to see if we could grab a few shots that would work as some future promotional photos for Nick’s work. We started out without a plan and just looked for different shots as we approached different areas.
We began our journey at the Raleigh Convention Center and worked our way down to The Capitol building. At one point Greg Lilly, who came with Nick for assistance and to do filming for him, obtained permission for us to do some shooting in the club at the top of the Wachovia building. We took the queasy elevator ride to the top and spent a little time there shooting at the bar, staircase, and center room. It was very impressive to say the least. I’ve heard it was a membership only deal but I can neither confirm or deny this. Anyone?
We finished shooting at the Capitol building and began our journey back to the vehicles back at the convention center. It was a pleasure to work with Nick and Greg and would definitely do it again.
Here are a few Samples from that shoot.
Shooting Miss Sarah
Posted on 9 September 2009 | No responses
A friend of mine was wanting to save a few… cough* hundred *cough dollars on the rip-off costs of senior portraits for her daughter so I decided to step in and try to help out by taking some myself. Although I currently don’t have ‘props’ geared towards senior portraits I figured I could at least give her several options so she wouldn’t have to invest so much in the package deals offered by the company the school uses to do their portraits.
We started later in the day so the Sun wouldn’t be so obnoxious and once I arrived to their home found out we were going to head into Smithfield to actually do most of the shoot at a location she thought would be good. We arrived to find that the location was in an open enough area so that the Sun was still too much. We walked around a bit and found some spots to shoot in nonetheless. The next problem was the wind. The breeze was great for about any reason except taking photos. We took advantage of the breeze in several photos using the ‘wind blowing the hair’ effect but overall it was kind of a pain, constantly blowing her hair into her face and eyes.
Considering these setbacks the shoot still went pretty well and I must say that it was a pleasure working with Sarah and Sue. Sarah is easy and fun to work with. She had no problems getting into the work and her only complaint was the typical: “My face is hurting from smiling so much.”. I plan on going back and working with Sarah and Sue very often because it was such a pleasure. Thank you girls very much for the opportunity.
Overall I am very happy with how some of the photos and below are some of the shots that made my ‘cut’.
(above) This was the first shot we took. We were still ironing out some of the kinks and she was still getting used to being the center of attention from a photographer trying to work with the natural elements that were hindering us a bit.
(above) Struggling to find a less sunny area we ended up under a bridge and happened upon a graffiti area that had much less offensive language.
(above) This is probably my favorite. Everything just came together for a beautiful shot.
(above) This one is probably my second favorite. Her eyes worked very well in most of the pictures but this one just draws you in.
(above) This one is a candid from the shoot that I think shows some of her true beauty. Although it was a ‘candid’ and not to be printed, it was just too good to no use in some manner. So here it is.
Again, thank you girls for your time and effort. Hopefully you are as happy with some of the results as I am.
- Jason
Johnny Orr
Posted on 5 September 2009 | No responses
I had the pleasure of doing a photo shoot for a good friend of mine who needed new ‘Promo’ shots for his band. He hadn’t updated his head shots and promo shots in several years and needed to get new ones for some of his upcoming gigs that were a little more ‘big time’.
After a quick attempt done on the fly at an unfamiliar location to me we decided to schedule a shoot that would give us the entire day to use multiple locations. The first location we started with is one that I’ve been dying to use for a long while. There is an old abandoned house that is located near my office downtown that I thought would fit his needs very well. Turns out I was correct. This shot facilitated our needs perfectly in both settings and lighting. Here is an example of that location.
Our second location was downtown and while looking for a particular spot we stumbled upon this alley. I made Johnny stop and give it a shot and it turned out to be another great photo location. Here is an example of the second location:
Our next location was a good distance away and while trekking to our new location I found another old condemned house that looked like it may suit us. This one didn’t turn out so well but we did get a few decent shots from it…. as well as quite a few mosquito bites. Johnny got to try how his new cologne for this one: “Off”.
The final location was a church not too far from my house. After finally tacking down the exact location we decided to take a few shots and be done with shooting for the day. We did get a chance to peek into this abandoned church (which was chained closed) and what we found was the most beautiful photo-shoot opportunity in the world. We are working to determine who this building belongs to and hoping they will allow us to do a session inside. Either way, here is one of the few that we decided to keep from that last location.
All in all it turned out to be a very productive day and we got a lot of great shots from it. Johnny is very fun to work with and I would take the opportunity to work with him any time he needs it going forward.
- Jason
Dragon Lens Photography
Posted on 27 August 2009 | No responses
Welcome to Dragon Lens Photography (DLP). DLP is an outlet for my photographic expression. I do this for fun more than anything else which means I am not always ones to follow the ‘Rules and Laws of Photography’. If I see a shot I like or want.. I snap it. When processing if I want the picture over saturated to the point that no one else likes it but me, my vote wins. I’ve been in love with photography for years but when I first began at an early age the development costs began to be too much for me and I decided to hang it up for a while. I’ve recently decided to pick the art back up and see where I can take it. The digital age has made things so much easier. The cost is extremely low in comparison since you only print what you want and the control I have over each image is increased exponentially. Some would say that the art of photography itself has gone down since one can make the picture/s better by editing it later and in some cases I’ll agree. One doesn’t have to try as hard to get the perfect shot when they know they can make it perfect via some software package. Modern technology has however added a new set of skills and talents to the list of what makes a great artist.
I would have to say my favorite subject to shoot would be people. I love shooting animals, flowers, landscapes and other things like that but people can be so much more challenging. I love to shoot photos of people in all types of scenarios, including: Individual portraits, group shots, candid shots, and posed. I do however feel I love doing the Conceptual shots of people the best. It’s just more fun putting in the extra art and situational setups in order to achieve an art that can express your imagination more than a simple posed shot.
Feel free to look around and comment/critique anything I have here.
Thank you for visiting Dragon Lens Photography.
- Jason