When I was a photojournalist I’d try to limit group sizes with justifications like ” There’s more impact with fewer people in the photo.”. Thankfully, it usually worked.

So the phone rang a while back – it was a business colleague wondering if I’d be interested in doing a photo shoot of a choral group. “No problem, I’d love to do it.”

Did I ask how large the choral group was? No.

Another small thing I hadn’t counted on – assembling nearly 100 people is no small feat – and it doesn’t happen very often. When it does, they’re ready for a concert…translate that into there’s not much time to shoot. OK, I’ll admit maybe I should have thought of that, but I was pretty consumed by solving the lighting parts of the problem. Did I call that a small thing – long live sarcasm!

Three days before the shoot the final details were worked out – I’ll have a window from 7:15 until 7:30 to shoot and then tear down my equipment before the doors are opened to the public for the concert! Suddenly I needed an assistant, one who knows how to set up big strobes, adjust them and tear down in a hurry. The choice was obvious – my 13-year-old daughter has been around lighting gear almost as much as me. She’s good and she takes directions and orders ( as long as its about photography…anything else, she’s even more stubborn than me!) After some intense negotiating surrounding pay, we struck an agreement  and I had my assistant. Good thing too because in the Murphy’s Law of Lighting, there was no electricity where I wanted to position two of the lights. I was so flustered I didn’t see the solution – she did, and not a moment too soon. We had time for 6 test shots to check the light, then 16 photos with the 97 members of Portsmouth Pro Musica, then tear down and run with our gear so nobody would crash into it.

Technically, the photo was lit using 4 large strobes, 2 alien bee’s and 2 profotos. All were set to full power, we managed shooting at ISO 400 at F/8 with an 80mm lens.

Absolutely a wonderful challange and a type of photo way out of the ordinary for me…and my assistant! We did catch a bit of the dress rehearsal/warmup. These folks are really good and I’d whole heartedly recommend catching them some night. Here’s a link to their concert schedule, http://www.portsmouthpromusica.org/concertinformation.html . Put it on your to do list!

Here’s one of the 16 photos we shot.

Emails back and forth for three days leading up to the shoot – and finally at 8:30 that morning Lisa said, “Let’s go for it, no matter what.”

Now that is my kind of bride! We met at the entrance to the island, I stowed my truck and the three of us headed for the beach, much of which was posted off limits because the plovers are nesting right now. That didn’t matter – there were so many choices for great places to shoot we could have stayed there forever.

The rain never materialized, the temperatures weren’t nearly as chilly as predicted – though it wasn’t t-shirt weather – and we had a great time.

The absolute moment came when Lisa and Joe kicked off their shoes and waded into the water…yep, next was two people screaming their heads off…it is the North Atlantic after all … and they came bursting back onto the beach. Sadly or smartly, I didn’t get the picture of the reaction. Call me a wimp if you want, but I had stayed on dry land! I’d like to think it was a smart move.

Here’s some photos from the session.

The conversation starts with defining a good place for the shoot – a place or environment that has some meaning. As a general rule, that’s a pretty easy process, but Cody and Ryan were stuck for ideas until they said, what about Wellesley College? Turns out Cody is a graduate and they spent part of their “dating” life in that environment.

What a great idea! The campus is beautiful. We hiked around the pond on campus – it was quite a trek since areas were still flooded from all the rains, then meandered through buildings and the chapel. One thing that struck me was nobody paid much attention to us as we shot here and there. Guess I’m not the first person to end up shooting portraits of a couple on the campus – we were as much a part of the landscape as the ivy-covered brick buildings.

Here’s a few photos from the day.

What’s that got to do with an engagement shoot? Well,  scheduling has been a nightmare – and I’ve totally given up on paying any attention to the weather forecasts!

Mark asked Shelby to marry him while the two were at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, so it seemed a natural place to do their engagement photos.

Forecast, warm, overcast, occasional rain.

Reality, like a fall day – bright sky, chilly and windy!

Shelby was a trooper – she had a jacket but was committed to being in a short sleeved shirt for the photos…Both she and Mark gutted out the temperatures while I was pretty toasty in a sweatshirt and jacket! When all was done, most of the photos I was holding her jacket, she never turned blue from the cold and we had a great shoot.

Here’s a few from the day.

It was a perfect day – cool, breezy, and there was the feeling of baseball in the air – Spring in New England! An added bonus – good friend and Boston photographic legend Mark Morelli came along for the shoot. Mark is an exceptional Boston editorial photographer who I met when we were attending the Art Institute of Boston’s MFA program.

Not all the following photos are from Fenway – after the area around the park we wandered through the victory gardens and surrounding areas. The first photo, by the way, is Mark in front of the House of Blues.

Can you imagine a guy in a tux fighting a fire?!

After putting it out, he cautioned the occupants to stay clear of the car until the fire department arrived, then looked at them and said, ” Sorry to run but I’ve got a wedding to get to!” And we were off to the reception. I swear, do this long enough and you’ll see the most amazing things!!!

The reception was great, not anti-climactic at all – I knew many of the guests from a wedding I had done in October, second shooting the wedding was good friend and colleague Roger Ramirez and shooting video was good friend and amazing video artist Sean Cusick … it was like old home week!

The only thing missing was a gentle snowfall – Oh well, I guess you can’t have everything.

And here are a couple of really nice photos from Roger:

Here’s a link to their website , check it out.

Oh, since this is a photo blog, there needs to be a photo or two … so here’s a couple of photos I did of Eliza – lit only from the light off the screen of her iTouch ( a birthday present – she got one before me!)  and one starring  the alpha cat of the family – Boo, all 18 pounds of him.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Helena. She and Eliza have a playdate weeekly after school. Last week Helena was dressed in anything but typical teenage fashion – she looked like a refugee from a movie set about colonial days – and I wasn’t far off. She had dressed in period garb to be the visual presentation for another classmate who was presenting a project set in colonial times.

Helena didn’t care that she wasn’t in modern-day dress down mode, she was quite comfortable in her costume. When it was time for Eliza to go to a meeting, helena opted to wait for her Mom at the house and settled into a chair with a book. As the daylight decreased she turned to make use of the window light to read by and I quietly ran to grab a camera – the combination of the light and costume made a visual treat.

Here’s Helena, reading after school.

Look out the window, watching the branches sway, rock and roll actually – big limbs still even in the wind gusts, smaller ones doing the dance though. The sky that intense shade of blue that happens at the false dawn, more intense than can be named or if there’s a name I don’t know it..reminds me of being out on the water duck hunting years ago, hearing the birds but not quite seeing them, remembering just how cold cold could be.

WOW its so incredibly beautiful….quick, camera, tripod, memory card…not going out, set it up on kitchen table…shoot few frames…long exposures which I’ve been meaning to play with lately…not even concerned about shooting through the glass…just the need to make some frames, can I capture the mood, the cold, the intensity?

Coffee’s ready – good to be alive!