Balloon Fest 2018

This week, I attended both the opening ceremony of the Balloon Fest in Crandall Park, and the early Saturday morning launch at The Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport. This was my first time actually going to the balloon fest as an adult, and I can say that it was definitely an interesting experience. The balloons that I managed to see were quite pretty, and it was cool to see the process of them actually being blown up and taking off into the sky up close. The pictures shot at Crandall were in the afternoon on a dreary day, while the ones shot at the airport were in the early morning sunrise. The airport ones ended up being my favorite shots, even though the balloons didn't actually go up in the morning (I missed the afternoon launch where they actually all went up). Below is what I captured -

A few tips for if you plan on attending one or more days of the festival-

- Plan to get there as early as you can so that you can get the best parking possible.

- You will be doing a lot of walking, so wear appropriate shoes, and depending on what time of day you go prepare to wear weather appropriate clothing as well. 

- You might also want to bring your own snacks/drinks so that you don't have to wait in a long line for an unnecessary amount of time.

Wednesday Addams Photoshoot

This week, I decided to try and do something a little different by having Emily try to transform herself into Wednesday Addams. I had her create an all black outfit with a long sleeve shirt, skirt, stockings, and black boot heels. For makeup, we tried to keep it a bit subtle. She put a pale foundation on, a bit of barely there eyeshadow, a heavy coat of mascara, and a brownish red lipstick. No Wednesday Addams look would be complete without the signature braids, so we made sure to incorporate those into the look as well. I decided to shoot this series of photographs in black and white to add to the "creepy" aesthetic. We started off outside, but I wasn't really feeling that location so we decided to come inside for the last half of the shoot. For props we had a fake skeleton, a pumpkin (not shown), and black curtains. While posing her, I had her give me some of the attitude that Wednesday Addams is famous for. We had a lot of eye rolls and stoic facial expressions. Below are my favorite shots -

Jurassic Giants Exhibit - Mystic Aquarium

Mystic Aquarium is probably one of my favorite places to visit, so I decided to dedicate a blog post to their fairly new Jurassic Giants exhibit. This exhibit is located in the back section where the 4D theaters and the frog exhibit are. It is a quick little walkthrough with giant statues of some of the more popular dinosaurs. There are also a couple statues outside of the exhibit. Keep in mind that it is very low light in there, though! Below are the photographs I took of the exhibit -

If you want to read a bit more about the exhibit, here is the link to the page on their site - http://www.mysticaquarium.org/jurassic-giants/. 

Location Tips

For the purpose of this post, we will use Fox Hill Tower as our location. This is only the third shoot (if I remember correctly) that we have done at this location. Out of the few places around here where I have shot portraits I would say that this one fares pretty well. As for my location tips -
- You can really find photo shoot locations in any area, as long as you are on the lookout for them. For example, if you don't think you have a good place around you, look again. All you really need is an open area (a field or even your own back yard for example).
- Once you have your location, start looking for objects that are going to be in the background and foreground. This can include trees, flower bushes, or even buildings if that is the look you are going for.
- You want to make sure that you compose the shot by placing your model where you want him/her and looking through the viewfinder to make sure everything looks good. You want to make sure that the objects you have in the background and foreground don't take the attention away from the model.
- Then once you have composed your shot and are happy with the way everything looks, you can start shooting!
Here are the shots that I took of Emily at Fox Hill -

As you can see, we heavily relied on the tower wall, and the cloudy sky in these photographs. In some of them, we relied on the grassy field by the tower and we even had the tower in the background at one point. In some of the photographs, I had her pose standing in front of one of the trees by the tower. One of these photographs is shown above - this location was okay, but I thought it provided too much shade. Just be cautious of areas like this one which give too much shade, or even areas that are too sunny!