Lately I’ve had a strong craving for shooting in black and white. For last month’s trip to Hermosillo, Sonora I decided to satisfy that craving and shoot solely in black and white… the photo shoot, candids, everything. I think I started driving my friends crazy with all the black and white photos.

After a most tasty breakfast of fish tacos and orange juice over at my favorite restaurant Taco Fish, we returned to the hotel to meet up with Anna Rojo for the photo shoot. I can’t tell you how awesome it is to be staying within visual range of the shooting location. The first setup was on the staircase, merely five feet outside the hotel room door. Simplicity was the goal for this shoot. The first two photos were lit with a single speedlight, shot through the translucent portion of a circular reflector.

For the next two setups, we headed out to the pool area, a daunting fifty feet away from the first setup. These setups were shot completely with natural light and a bit of assistance from a silver reflector. Check out my Facebook fan page for some behind the scenes photos I posted from this shoot!

It took two different printers and many headaches, but the new promo cards to start off my 2010 promotional campaign have finally arrived. For this set of promo cards, I decided to keep the design simple and clean to reflect the branding in place on my website. I also chose to go with only two photos to keep their size large and to reflect the direction I’m taking my work over the next year. Now just to finish up the mailing list for 2010 and lick a bunch of envelopes!

This past month we took a trip to Hermosillo, Sonora for an extended weekend. It had been a few months since I had last been there. The weekend was mostly a vacation of sandboarding, clubs and the best fish tacos on the planet… but I did get some shooting in while I was there.

For this shoot I met up at the Centro Cultural Musas with my friend and photographer Fidel and model Anna Rojo. Anna modeled for the calendar we shot back in early 2009, though we were in Puerto Penasco different weekends and hadn’t crossed paths. This shoot was worth the wait. Anna was a pleasure to work with. We had a great time and created some solid photos. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot.

A trip is planned before the end of the month and another is in the works for February. Watch for more photos from my sessions in Mexico.

Aspiring Arizona model Alex Lasheen contacted me with an interest to update his portfolio with some lifestyle/commercial fashion type photography. After some hair and makeup, we met up just outside the entrance to Lake Pleasant. My favorite photos from our session were near the end when we wandered out into the marina area of the lake. The photo above is one of my favorites from this portion of our shoot.

This past year has seen a lot of location work and it was long over due for my good friend and makeup artist Lorri Mitchell and I to meet up and create something in studio. For this session we decided to go with a handfull of clean, simplistic beauty concepts and had the pleasure of working with Britnee Johnson from S.I.M. Agency. We started out with a list of conceptual ideas. Each concept based on a single element, from which we built the entire look of the the image.

As is in usual fashion when I get to shoot with Lorri, we rocked it out and had a blast! Watch for more beauty inspired concept sessions over the next couple winter months as we hide out in the studio from our chilling 50 degree Arizona winters!

This past month my good friend Aaron Matthew and I have started working on updating his portfolio. For this session I was going for a classy suit look, but with a bit of an edge. We went with a single outfit and changed it up with a variety of lighting techniques.

The initial concept was to shoot inside an elevator, so we took a trip to downtown Phoenix. After finding our elevator, we quickly learned it wanted to have nothing to do with us propping it open. Instead we timed this whole setup in the amount of time it would stay open from pressing the button. This was the only setup that used additional lighting. I attached a bare speedlight to the staircase behind the camera with a justin clamp to bring some hard light into this shaded area.

For the rest of our setups I worked with natural light, ranging from setups in the shade, sun flares and shadows cast by nearby objects. My new EF 50mm f/1.4 I purchased has been working amazing for shooting into the sun to get flares. It’ll allow me to virtually shoot straight into the sun.

After what was to be our last setup, we busted out a few crazier concepts on the way back to the car. The shoot is never over until the memory card gets plugged into my MacBook.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of working with Laura, a model from SIM Agency. Our shoot ended up being a bit of a road trip and the first stop was to meet up with Lorri Mitchell for some stellar makeup. Once the makeup was complete, we took a brief pitstop for some caffeine and headed up north in search of some tall grass for our shoot. What we found was visually what I had in mind, but it came with the added bonus of being sharp, scratchy and laced with thorns. Good times! Even so, we got the look I was going for.

To get more information on the lighting setup used in this shoot, check out my previous post Balancing Flash with Afternoon Sunlight.

I had the opportunity to meet up with Madeline a few weeks ago and spend the afternoon shooting with her. I’ve wanted to do another shoot in downtown Phoenix for a while, but hadn’t had the opportunity to now, so we jumped on it. We had a style we were going for, but no specifics planned, we just let it organically unfold as it wanted to. We headed downtown, walked around a bit, got kicked out of this beautiful space between some buildings, then happened across this location. This location had great shade, good architectural lines and a bright wall behind me to bounce light back onto Madeline. This setup ended up being my favorite, these are a couple of the resulting shots.

I recently had the pleasure of shooting with Foot Klan again. Always a good time. This shoot was setup by my good friend Matthew Dutile. Hip hop dancing, photography, good friends and a sunset. That’s an invite you can’t pass up.

As the dancers started to roll in, we setup for some individual portraits rooftop and in the stairwell. For my portraits in the stairwell, I wanted something a bit urban and gritty. I setup in one of the areas that had strong natural back lighting and threw in a small strobe right up against the wall opposite of the sun.

As the sun started to set we headed back topside out to the middle of the parking ramp and let the dancers take over. We set them up with some dramatic back lighting and they put on a great show. I had the opportunity to practice with Foot Klan for a few months a couple of years ago, it was a lot of fun, but needless to say, I’ll leave the dancing to them and stay behind the camera.

Last night kicked off the runway shows at Phoenix Fashion Week for 2009. Most notably was the FASHIONABLY Pink – Celebrity Fashion Show Benefiting Susan G. Komen for the Cure Phoenix. If you’re attending Fashion Week, I’ll be at the Get Discovered happy hour tonight and hanging out at the show sans-camera, being social. It’s what I do! See you there.