Barn Doors and Grids

I have to say I'm a sucker for a great gadget! They have the spring fair in my town every year and every year I can't resist buying some dumb gadget that is suppose to change my life for the better. I've bought the magic broom, the magic mop, the magic chamois, magic pans, magic chopper, magic never-need-sharpened kitchen knives, magic glass cleaner and so on. Honestly, I think the only thing left for me to buy at the spring fair would be magic beans! Pretty much if someone puts the word magic in the name of their product I have to have it! 

Now being a portrait photographer I'm always looking for ways to light my clients better so I can make their kids portraits, family portraits, senior portraits and any other portraits look awesome! So, the other day I ordered barn doors and some grids from Alien Bee for my studio lights. Basically barn doors attach to the front of your lights and have four moving flaps that enable you to make the light more narrow or wide and directional. Grids basically are inserts that go in your lights that have a honeycomb patten. This honeycomb pattern does not allow the light to spread as far as it normally would and focuses the patten for a more precise beam of light. You use both to help you be more creative and focus the light on your clients so you are able to create different lighting patterns that will flatter them in the best way for their portraits. 

The images below are a glamour session with Katy and is my first test of Alien Bee products, so far big thumbs up!!

My first time on "Framed"

Ok, so I'm kinda jumping around on my blog, highlighting some of the things that have happened to me in the past year or so that I feel have been way significant to me and my photography progression. So today I bring you my first "Framed" experience.

The Framed Show is a program for anyone who has an interest in photography. It doesn't matter if you are a wedding photographer, senior photographer, family photographer or even boudoir photographer, there is something on the program for everyone, it's really pretty sweet! So one day I saw a post on their Facebook page that they were looking for Boise photographers to participate in their challenge. Since I was a Pocatello portrait photographer and not a Boise portrait photographer I was not sure I would qualify for the program, but I thought F-it and sent my stuff in anyway.

Some time had past and I had not heard anything so I assumed I had not been chosen for the program. Then one saturday night about 11pm I got an e-mail from Framed saying they would like me to participate! I was so excited and then I was so scarred! If you have ever been at a swimming pool with a really high platform and looked at the people jumping off and thought, "that looks cool" and then taken yourself to the top of the platform and looked down and realized the thought of jumping was a lot better at the bottom than it is right now? Well, for me getting the e-mail was like that! Shit! I really got what I wished for!

A week or so later I was in Boise for the challenge with four other photographers, Sara and Dylan from Sara K Byrne Photography and Jerry and Jennifer from 02 photography. We found out our challenge was to do a commercial shoot for a gun manufacturer. The shoot was at a welding place in Boise! The location was cool, the product was cool, my model was cool and the shoot was way cool. I was way happy with how the images and the whole experience turned out!

For me the best part of my Framed experience was the affirmation that I really am doing what I love and what I'm suppose to be doing with my life and my talents. So THANK YOU Framed for giving me an awesome opportunity!

Here are some of the shots from the challenge and if you want to see the challenge the link is at the bottom!

Check out the other awesome photographers who did the challenge with me and check out Framed!

http://www.framedshow.com/archives/2072

http://www.sarakbyrne.com/

http://o2photography.com/index2.php?v=v1

http://www.framedshow.com/

My sweet clip that MTV wants!

I'm sure someone will post it anyway so here it is! If you can't laugh at yourself who can you? Enjoy everyone!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5f65Cu6r2w

Me on MTV!

So a looooooong time ago I made this little video. It was me caught in an embarrassing moment. My good friend posted it to You Tube and since it has had 655,000 hits! So the other day a get a phone call and an e-mail from the producers of MTV's Ridiculousness and they asked if they could use the video for their show. I said yes, cause everyone I know has seen it already. So I will let everyone know when my cool episode will air! If you are not familiar with the show here is a link to it. Enjoywww.mtv.com/shows/ridiculousness/series.jhtml 

Here is the clip they want to use!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5f65Cu6r2w

Ryan - Blackfoot Senior Photography

One cool thing about being a High School Senior photographer is that all the kids are so individual in some aspects and pretty much the same in others. This shoot I was reminded of two things that stay pretty constant in Senior guy shooting. One, the Boys want to be seen as bad-asses and two, mom's don't see their little boys as that at all! 

This Senior shoot was with Ryan Gallegos a High School Senior at Blackfoot High. Ryan is a running back and defensive back for this years Idaho UNDEFEATED 4A State Champion Blackfoot Broncos and is a phenomenal student. I know Ryan pretty well being one of his football coaches, so his shoot was very comfortable and we talked a lot about our season and what we needed to do to reach our goal of winning state (which we did!).

The next day or so Ryan and his mother came back to the studio for their view and order session. Usually for a senior session I shoot around 250 images so the family has a great variety of images to choose from. I alway show a slideshow of all the images that I take that day at the beginning of the session. The show was playing and I was looking at them feeling pretty good with what I had shot when at about the 200 image mark I hear Ryan's mom whisper, "you didn't smile in one picture." 

Sure enough, not one smile in 250 images! Ryan and I had been talking so much about winning football games that I didn't notice he was not smiling at all, but rather getting his Bad-A on! Lucky his mom was mega cool and agreed to let me shoot him one more time and make sure he smiled. I think her comment was, "We paid enough for that smile I want to see it." So the next day we shot again. I wish I could say we didn't talk more football, but that would be a lie. Here are some of the images from Ryan's sessions, including a few of him with his awesome smile. Another Senior photography lesson learned!

 

 

Fashion Practice with Kylee Hale

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have Kylee Hale in the studio to help me with my fashion lighting. My goal this year is to get hired to shoot some commercial fashion stuff. I have to say my dream job, other than being a pro golfer, celebrity chef or the O coordinator for Boise State would be a legit fashion photographer. Here are some of the image from our shoot.

Then to now

One thing that is way cool about photography is you have a visual record of where you were and where you are now in the progression of your photography. I love looking back at the images I produced when I first started shooting to see just how horrible I really was(and at times still am). Everyone who has ever picked up a camera had a beginning and here is mine!

Blogging my new start!

I found out I totally suck at Blogging and that my Blog was not so hot and really useless the way I had it set up. Well, here is my attempt at doing blogging the right way. Until I get the flow of all of this I'll be jumping around in what I have been doing and in what I have been shooting.

Really quick here is a little info on me for anyone who might not know me. My name is Craig LaMere. I'm a Native kid from Fort Hall and Blackfoot Idaho. I would consider myself a portrait photographer who shoots high school seniors, families, kids, couples, bridals, fashion, boudoir, glamour and pretty much anything else.

I hope you enjoy the images I will be posting in this blog and I hope my ramblings will not bore you too much! Here we go!