The Mocha Club.

I am so excited to talk about this exciting way we can serve those really need our help, especially in this Christmas time. I recently joined this awesome group of people who are emulating Christ in giving a helping hand.

I am a fan of coffee, and yeah mochas. Well, white chocolate mochas with the occasional peppermint if I'm feeling extra Christmasy. The Mocha Club's whole deal is that for the price of two mochas a month, you can (with the help of the thousands of people already serving) build wells in Sudan or provide hope for a single mother in Africa by providing job training, counseling, and clinical aide or schooling for a child that would usually not have that opportunity or help to those with HIV/Aids (which in some countries is 1 in 3 people) or provide care for orphans without a home, a life, or hope.

The contribution is $7 a month. "Our vision is to provide a way for people who don’t have hundreds or thousands of dollars to make a difference in Africa. Our community-based website allows members to start a team and invite friends to join them in giving up the cost of 2 mochas a month to support their chosen project" Your involvement in this group is up to you-- you can be a supporter just by donating a small portion of the resources our God has provided you with or this group gives you and opportunity to get our of your room and make this stuff known!

So pray about it. Let the Father guide you in your giving, and if this seems like something you could be apart of, join a project and lets make a difference. Here's a link to their home page: Mocha Club

-m

Some exciting news, a couple shots, and a website.

Hey Guys!

A buddy of mine and I have some pretty exciting news that we can't really talk too much about, but we're really really excited about. 2011 Seniors- keep a look out for us as we're giving Rockdale County's seniors a choice about senior portraits. For the first time in a long time, you will have options. Much much more on this soon to come. Anyways, here's a couple shots from the turkey week.

On a different note, check out Conyers First United Methodist Church's website. I've had the pleasure of helping the folks out there with some web work and we just finished a redesign that hopefully will be simple and clean for the user this Christmas season.

Also-- who else thought Auburn would pull through?!

-M

Round 2 on Product Photography Starting...Now!

This is my second take on product photography. The first item or brand I pretended to shoot for was maybe the most famous brand, certainly the most recognizable brand, Coke. I shot the two photos on my white seamless and went ahead and made a fake ad for the huge brand. It was kinda fun to pretend I had a client named Coke. Anyways, let me know your thoughts about the ad! You can see my first shot at product work here.




The second piece of product photography is vastly different, and It's more of what I hope to be doing in school the next couple of years. The subject for this piece is a coffee table prototype, made 1/4th scale out of cardboard. I designed this table for my dorm room and plan to build it over the Christmas break. I'm so so so stoked about making it a reality! To take this prototype and practice product photography, I shot and designed a very simple truck, or portfolio spread, for the coffee table.


Anyways, I've had the pleasure of shooting a bunch this week, and I'm so excited to get back into it all! I'm also so excited about building this table and then photographing a proper truck for it, this time including developmental sketches, prototypes, and the real deal.

-m

Who, me?

Here's a couple shots of me. Coming out of like a three month time period of not shooting, I started back shooting some good 'ol self portraits.



I always have trouble getting the focus spot on with the self timer. I got some ideas from the great Dustin Diaz about getting that sharp focus on the eyes even without standing in place. He suggests to place a light stand where you'll stand and focus on the metal tip. With my lack of extra light stands, I used a broom. Yes, a broom.



Also inspired by Mr. Dustin Diaz, I experimented with using water in the portrait. His use of the water can be seen here. This guy obviously has been really influential in how to make killer shots with fairly inexpensive strobes.

Product Photography?

First of all, I'm alive. I've been swamped with school work (I go to Auburn University) and have put photography on the backburner, which means this blog hasn't gotten much attention in a long time. That will change. I am really excited about a bunch of photo shoots coming up! As I really try to find my niche in the photo world, I'm really just experimenting with a little bit of everything. In taking advice from Mr. Zack Arias , I'm going to work on really focusing my work down to one or two areas. This is kinda tough for me as I really love shooting diverse things- from live shows to portraits to children/baby portraits.

In an attempt to experiment, I've decided to try my hand at product photography. As some might know, I'm at Auburn studying Industrial Design, specifically product design. A large part of this field is imaging and product photography- getting that product to look oh so good that you must buy it. So just to say I've tried to shoot it, here's my try at product photography.


The set up was really simple- just one SB-600 speedlight in a 21" reflective umbrella camera high and left. I only have one phone (and i don't even know those colors really exist), so all the color is done in post.

P.S. I'm so stoked to say that I just joined the Mocha Club! More to come on that.