Fun in the Mountains, and some random acts.

I love to take a break from the day to day work behind the computer and get out and have a little fun. In these little excursions I have a few goals in mind. First go some place that I have never been before. This prepares me for surprises that may occur when I am shooting events. Being able to adapt to changing situations. If I go somewhere that is new to me I have to take a quick assessment of the location, figure out what the lighting will be, how the backgrounds will look and put that together as fast as I can in my head to start to create an amazing photograph.

I have a general idea of what I want to accomplish when I am out shooting. For this shoot I asked my model, the lovely Hemi Shah, to wear a nice formal dress. This is something that you may see a bridesmaid wearing, or maybe that formal dress you bought for one occasion and have never worn it since. An amazing dress deserves and amazing location. "> For me I love to hear people say "oh you photoshopped that background in" or "That looks fake" I just smile and think mission accomplished, I made you look at a photo and think there is no way that came right off the camera! Now I do use photoshop to enhance some colors but usually nothing dramatic. All the work is done during the set up and not waiting to fix it in photoshop. I shot these photos a couple of winters ago in the Big Bear area. I wanted the contrast of a winter scene, one that usually makes you think of cold weather, fur coats, mittens, and bring to that area a fire hot red dress. Lucky for us it was a nice late winter day so the temps were really not that cold. Now she did bring the nice shoes but for everything we shot you never see her feet, so her uggs were just fine. "> Now I spent a little time setting up each shot, from the area she was in, lighting, flash, and backgrounds, but the joy of working with someone like Hemi is that just about what ever she does it just looks amazing. This last photo was just that. I was moving a light to change the angel it was hitting her and I was taking a while since I did not want to put footprints in the snow. So as she was waiting for me she just sat on her heals till I was ready. I looked back and just loved what I saw and snapped the picture. What came from it is one of my favorite photos. No set up, just me being at the right place at the right time. Sometime you get lucky! ">

I am looking forward to our next adventure, I have some amazing ideas for our next shoot! For more information and to see some of my other works please visit my website ruelreyesphotography Thanks for reading!

The work in progress

How I long for just one more day in the week How that will help get so much more work done, just a free day to use as you please.

With that being said I have so many works in progress. The latest is sitting on the computer waiting for me to get to it. I know what needs to be done, but I need to set aside a good 6 more hours to finish it. This will be added to my collection of my artistic works. As with all of them I am very proud of the work I have done, and the time and efforts that my model has put it.

She is not new to the front of my lens, she has been there before. Hemi Shah is the featured model for this next work. A little about Hemi, she is working to become a PA with a specialty in surgery. She is a licensed phlebotomist, and a full time student. Not sure if I would want to wake up after surgery and see her, I would think I had died and had gone over to the other side! Okay enough of the corny jokes, she is of Indian decent and she is wearing a traditional sari and bangle's on her wrist. To see her out there was just amazing.

The location is the Los Angeles County Museum of the Arts, LACMA. Next to the museum is a display called "The LACMA Lights". Now you will have to wait for the final project but in the mean time you can see some of the other shots we took while we were there.

The camera is the Nikon D200, the two lenses used for this was the Nikkor 28-70, 2.8 and 80-200 2.8. Post production done with Adobe Lightroom, and Photoshop CS3. At the end you will see a video I put together with the images from the shoot. For the video I used ProShow Gold to edit the video. Please leave your comments, and thank you for taking an interest in my art.

Friends

As I make my way through life there is one thing that I know for sure, and that is I am truly blessed with having the best of friends. Now just like everyone else I have friends that come in to my life and then for one reason or another move on. But one thing that I have is a small group of friends that have been around for a long time. This is one such friend.

We met in class, it was not a big class maybe around 25 or so students, Mrs Grumm's class. Does that sound like the perfect 2nd grade teacher name? Well it was, and it was in the 2nd grade I met Elizabeth. Now I could put her 2nd grade picture up here but if I did I am sure my picture taking days may be numbered so I will skip that. What I will show you are the pictures from our first photo shoot. The name is now Liz, and it is such a fitting name for such a beautiful person. We had lost contact with each other after 8th grade but thanks to facebook we reconnected, and the friendship continues like it was never interrupted. Now I will not tell you how long ago 2nd grade was, I will just let you look at her pictures and see if you can guess.

For this first photo shoot we went to a couple of locations, first was the Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles. The building is a marvel to behold and offers so many great places to take pictures. After that it was off to Venice. Now the weather did not want to cooperate but with an artistic eye and a great model, anything can happen. The camera body was the tried and true Nikon D200, for a majority of the shots the Nikkor 70-200 2.8 was the lens of choice. At the Disney Concert Hall, everything was shot with natural light. At the beach the clouds decided to roll in, so out came the Quantum Q-Flash to fill in the gaps. To trigger the flash I had my Pocket Wizard riding next the the SB-800 flash that was on the camera. Post production was done with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CS3. Now I present to you, the fabulous Liz Travieso begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Chelsea Coronado on the beach

Along with all the work I do, I try to get out and have some fun. That usually consist of grabbing the camera and a friend, and finding a fun place to shoot. Here is one example, I will be posting a couple more real soon.

The first was done for a friend of mine, Chelsea Coronado, to build a few pictures for her portfolio. Chelsea is a wonderful model to work with, I am not only saying that because she is a good friend but because she takes her work seriously. When we set a time to show up she is there, she has great expressions and she is great in front of the camera.

For these we went down to a beach in South Orange County. Many of the beaches in this area are really nice to shoot at. They offer many diverse landscapes that enhance the photos. For this we shot in the water at the beach, what fun that was! Well at least for me I did not get wet! For this I had brought some extra equipment in hopes that I would have someone to help me. But in the end it was just Chelsea and I so I had to make do with what I could carry. Since we were shooting right in the middle of the day I need to pack some light with me. I had brought the quantum Q flash in hopes to use it but like I said no one else to help so the SB-800 had to do the trick. I plugged the flash into the Quantum batter pack so I did not have to worry about burning through batteries. The camera of course the trusty D200 and my favorite lens my 28-70, 2.8 Nikkor lens. Post production work is done with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CS3. Here are three shots from that summer day, hope you enjoy.

Angel of the Falls

Wow all I can say is it has been a long time since I have posted something on here. With so much going on, regular job, my photography, advertising, and just living life in general I have left little time for writing on here.

But I will fill you in on some of my latest adventures.

Another trip to Colorado and more fantastic pictures. I have to thank my very good friend Misty Ahmic, she came up with the idea of shooting by a water fall. She found the location and when we went there I was just in awe of what I saw. I knew from the minute I saw it that only good things would come from this. Beautiful rocks, rushing water and an absolutely gorgeous model, yes only good thing came from that.

We shot this around the beginning of July and the weather was really nice. That helped cause the water must have been in the low 50's! My feet were numb the moment I walked it. I am so happy Misty was a good sport in going in as far as she did. She was absolutely amazing. She was so natural posing in front of the camera.

Took along my trusty Nikon D200 and for this I needed a little wider view so the 28-70 2.8 Nikor lens was the lens of choice for this shoot. Just in case I needed a little more light the SB-800 tagged along.

Post production work is done in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CS3. What came out was a spectacular 16X20 canvas of Misty, that I will call "Angel of the Falls"



As with most photo shoots I do I take a bunch of photos looking for that special one. In the search for that special one many more come out that are just as good as the final one I choose. Here are a few that did not make the final cut, but are still worth hanging on the wall.





And one final photo, my beautiful friend Misty considers herself non photogenic, not sexy, not worth art that hangs on the wall, well she is all of those and even more. She considers herself the goof ball next door, so in honor of that sexy geek next door i will post one more picture...



Thank you Misty, I love you forever! More post coming soon!

Wedding season is getting into full swing and I have a busy few months coming up. Besides the wedding work I have to do I continue working for Krieghoff designing new layouts for their print media. But the real passion is in my photography. Being able to mold ideas out of my brain and capture them in print.

My next two shoots are ideas that were born deep inside my brain, these two have been working inside of me for a long time. The idea remains the same, but the little details have been changing. A good friend of mine introduced me to an amazing painter, Koral I admire his work and what he is able to capture, and that will be an influence in the creation of both of these works.

The locations have been picked, one will be around the Disney Concert Hall, and the other at the LACMA lights. The models are getting ready. One of the models you have met before, Hemi. She is studying to become a PA specializing in surgery. The other one is a new model for me, but a friend from long ago, well not that long. The wonders of facebook, meeting friends again after many days have gone by. She is an amateur ballroom dancer, and she dances with passion. I can not wait to capture that and bring both of these ideas to life.

As I sit and dream about creating that art, I have to get back to the work at hand, making beautiful art for my customers. I love it when they beam and talk about the work I did for them, that makes me continue to work hard and create for them. With that I leave you this...

Greetings to all who may be reading this, I am sorry for the super long delay in posting anything new. I have had the opportunity to shoot some really great people and events. From working with my good friend Spider



to continuing my personal project that is my Dancing Series. That project has been so much fun to do, but yet very time consuming. Each photograph has hours of preplanning involved, then the shoot, and finally the post production work. So far the plan is for a total of 5 pictures. You have seen the first one, my "Angel of the Garden." The next one after that "Violinista Del Amanacer" was shot up in Joshua Tree. That morning started at 3 am. We had to be ready to shoot at sunrise! It was a great shoot that produced some amazing colors.



I have my next three planned out, but of course since this is a side project they have to wait until I have free time and some extra cash! I will be posting some of the weddings and some baby shoots next.

I hope you enjoy my work, and thank you for taking an interest in my art.

Ruel