Recent Thoughts

I feel like randomly throwing out some mental notes today.

"The Boutonniere"

According to the Google spellcheck, thats the right spelling. Someone should look into changing the term into something a lot less complicated and easier to spell. If anything, corsage and boutonniere should be switched. That huge arrangement of flowers weighing down on that young woman's wrist ought to have a huge word connected to it too. I dunno.

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On sleep -

I have the worst sleep schedule ever. I've been falling asleep around 4, waking up at 7, taking a nap from 5-8, then staying up til 4 again. It's horrible. That 5-8 nap seriously kills my social productivity. I need to force myself to go back into a regular 8 hour sleeptime again.

On Indiana Jones And The Legend Of The Crystal Skull -

As someone who was raised on the action adventure movies of the 80's, I was honestly somewhat disappointed after watching the midnight premiere of this movie. In its defense, the action scenes were pure genius, just like they've always been in Indiana Jones. However, it was the storyline that killed it. Without accidentally spoiling it for anyone, let me just say that the original trilogy took historical legends, and turned them into something pretty plausible, as if it could really happen. The plot in this one though... I dunno. For this one, they tried reaching for an urban legend instead, and it turned out to be a poor decision. Which really sucks, because it really detracted from what could have been an extremely worthy successor to the original trilogy.

On Business -

Oddly enough, I've encountered my first brush with copyright law the other week. Seems like someone took a few of my photos without my permission and used them for commercial use. Not cool. It's a weird process. First you have to politely ask that they take your photos down, or compensate you for their use. If they refuse to do either, you have to send a cease and desist letter, with recognition from a court of law. Luckily for me, the picture stealer neglected to erase the files' EXIF data (the photo equivalent of an MP3's ID3 tag), so when checked, all of the photos contained my copyright information, which did not sit well with the court. I guess it works out for me, cuz now I've got a good amount of money awarded due to damages. And all I asked was that he pay 5 bucks per image for their use. His loss.

On Hawaii -

I'm really excited to go back. It will be my third trip in 4 years, and I always look forward to it. I'm especially just looking to get away. Life can just get so, monotonous at times, you know? Not only that, I get to watch two of my best friends get married (and take pictures of it =D). What could be better?


On Weather -

California has seriously got the most random weather in the world. Just 2 days ago the temperature was hitting the triple digits. Today it's hailing. Can someone please explain that to me? Like, there wasn't even a slight transition in the weather. It just happened, one after the other. Unbelievable.

Okay, that's it. Phew, I managed to throw a lot out there tonight, even if it was all random. But then again, it usually is, if you follow this blog with any regularity.

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Youtube time. This one's been out for a week or two now, so you might have seen it. If not though, this one's a trip. Someone decided to take graffiti art to a whole new artistic level:

Heat Stroke, Anyone?

Move down to Southern California, and we'll give it to you, free of charge.

I don't feel like writing too much tonight, I need sleep, since I only got like 4 hours of it the night before. Plus, my day was pretty full: work 945-1, Photoshoots from 3-5, Bryan's bachelor party from 5-11, Jose's birthday party from 1130-130. Yeah, let's not fill our days to the brim again, yes?

And now a new problem has arisen: my good friend Tracey baked me a full batch of chocolate chip cookies as a way of saying thanks for hooking her up with a $350 phone for only 80 bucks. And they're really really good, which means I've been eating a lot of them. Which means now I can't sleep because I have all this sugar running through my body. Darn it. But thanks again Trace, in the off chance that you actually end up reading this thing.

Anyways, I'll leave you with a couple shots from a shoot over the weekend. They're from my good friend, and soon to be college graduate, Tracy (not to be confused with the aforementioned Tracey, with an E in her name). She's finishing school at Cal Poly Pomona, and asked me to do her graduation announcement photos. Since we're friends, I refused to charge her, but she refuses to let me refuse to charge her. We'll see where this goes in a couple days. I also had a prom shoot and a senior portrait shoot, but I think I've burned your eyes out with so many high school kids lately.

So yep, she's pretty darn photogenic, no?

We've known each other for over five years now, but I'm pretty glad that we can still get together even after long periods of time and still just grab a coffee and talk like we just hung out yesterday. Those are the best kinds of old friends. Besides, we've been taking pictures together since we started hanging out:

I hope she doesn't see this picture. She'll kill me. But I really like my dilated pupil. Not really. Anyways, I should try to sleep now. I need the refueling.

I Guess It Rains Down In Africa.

There's really no point to the title. I just heard "Africa" by Toto, and I remembered how awesome that song was. 80's music rocks.

"At Odds" 5/10/08

I'm only posting this picture up because Marielle wanted to see a photo of Missy. So there you go Marielle. You now owe me a visit to my work.

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In the hubbub of everything that's been going on, I forgot to introduce you to my studio. Also known as my garage. Take a look:

Yep, there it is. Yay. Now currently, I've been taking up a lot of jobs that are mostly on location shoots, eliminating the need for backdrops and such. As we start to swing into summer, with graduations, and summer modeling opportunities, I have a feeling I'm going to get quite a workout with this thing soon. Shoots that require me to have a backdrop usually are more on the fashion side, so whenever that holds true, I make sure to call up Vivi. I've moved her up from just volunteering to do makeup to now getting paid to do it. She's awesome. She tripped out the first time I handed her 50 bucks for her help. I told her, the way I see it, if I make up to 200 bucks per shoot (which I usually do), and she helps me by making them look good, then she deserves a part of the money too.

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Now where was I going with this?..... oh yeah. Anyways, back to the studio setup. I had set it up the other night, not only to try out some lighting setups I had in my head, but also to make an attempt to take some self portraits of myself. I had mentioned in an earlier post that I ought to throw a few pictures of myself and maybe myself at work so potential clients can get a feel of how I do things. Well, I think I've got the self-portrait part worked out. I think.

It's a lot harder to do when you're in a studio environment. Actually, I make it a lot harder for myself because I keep holding back on buying a cable release for my camera. It's basically a long cord that you can hook up to your camera, that's got a button you press to take a photo.

I took a couple different pics, but I finally settled on this extremely mediocre shot:

Someone please remind me next time to not try and take pictures at 11pm, when my stubble is really starting to show, and my pimples are showing because I haven't yet washed my face. I also think I have that kind of deer in the headlights look, but its whatever. It's something for now. Man, where's Vivi when I need her? Haha.

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I love my backdrops. I've got a graduation portrait session, a family portrait session, and a senior portrait session all lined up for next week, and you'll definitely see me getting more use out of my investment. Oh yeah, I'm also using it over the weekend to take some headshots of the staff at my church. That'll be great practice for headshots right there. Hopefully a couple of the staff memebers will let me experiment a little with them =).

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Okay, sleepy time. I forgot to put up a Youtube video last night, so I owe you one. But not tonight. Here's a really cool video on a super cool way to celebrate Easter. I wish my church did this. I can assure you a whole lot more people would be willing to celebrate Easter if this was a widespread holiday practice:

More Hypebeast Ranting :)

Sorta, but not really.

"Stunna Shades" 5/10/08

Yes, I know there's a stray water bottle on the right side on the ground. I didn't feel like opening up Photoshop to take it out, not that it'd take that long anyways. I'm just lazy right now, okay? Gosh.

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So here's a pretty funny side conversation I was having with a good friend today. I'm Guy, she's jae:

jae (7:16:05 PM): i have a question!
jae (7:16:09 PM): regarding cameras.
Guy (7:16:10 PM): yes maam
Guy (7:16:16 PM): those are my specialty!
jae (7:16:17 PM): so if i wanna buy one.
Guy (7:16:19 PM): teehee
jae (7:16:20 PM): YEAH
jae (7:16:26 PM): okay okay okay. so hello, mr. pro
Guy (7:16:30 PM): duuumb
Guy (7:16:35 PM): DDDUUUUMMMMBBBBBBB
jae (7:16:38 PM): if i wanna get one... not even to show it off and be a little hype beast
jae (7:16:39 PM): hahaha
jae (7:16:42 PM): YOU ARE.
jae (7:16:43 PM): um.
Guy (7:16:48 PM): ew, hypebeast
jae (7:16:54 PM): but just for a hobby and to put it pictures up in my room
Guy (7:16:55 PM): i can't believe you even used the word
jae (7:16:56 PM): LOL
jae (7:17:02 PM): what else do i call them?
Guy (7:17:07 PM): i dunno
jae (7:17:12 PM): "filipino kids who wear bright colors and skinny jeans?"

Haha, I thought that was pretty funny. Especially cuz its true.

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So gas is about to hit 4 bucks. Great........

When I was a senior back in high school (that was '02. Yikes.) I could fill up my Toyota Celica with a 14 gallon tank for less than 20 bucks. Now fast forward six years later, and to fill my Honda Accord with a 15 gallon tank takes around 45-50 dollars. Wow.

Now, I understand the whole situation with inflation, that's inevitable. But darn you OPEC and whoever else is responsible for just increasing fuel prices for no reason. Well, there's probably a reason, but I doubt its a good one. Sigh, hurry up car companies and bring electric back into the mainstrean. But please don't make it as ugly as the Honda EV1, or whatever it was called.

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Okay, that was my distraction to clear my mind from my work. Now, back to it. I'll add a Youtube video maybe later.

A Few Quick Thoughts Before Bed

Cuz I'm uber tired right now.

"Priorities" 5/10/08

So a friend of mine, who's thinking about going into photography too, had asked me what's so special about lighting, which I had discussed in my last post. Well, aside from helping to light subjects better, it also allows you to be more creative with your photos if you so choose. For instance, check out this photo above. I used lighting to bring out the color of the dress and the tux, as well as slightly overexpose the skin to hide any possible small blemishes and such, and to make the skin more uniform. More importantly, lighting allowed the photo to look the way it does as opposed to what it should have looked like.

Here's a shot taken not more than 5 minutes after the above one, and in the same spot:

"Why Hello There" 5/10/08

Notice anything different? It's daylight outside. Proper knowledge of lighting and exposure and such will help your photos come out way better, and get your creative juices flowing more once you know how things work.

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So I've been trying to come up with a series of photos for the slideshow in the About Me section of my photography website, when my friend Jon says "why don't you just put up pictures of yourself?". Oh yeah.

Problem is.... I don't have any pictures of myself. Seriously. I'm always the one behind the camera, so its very rare to have a picture of me in my element. So here's a bit of a call for help. If you happen to have a picture of me, preferably while I'm out shooting, would you mind passing it along to me? That'd be really awesome. I don't know what its like to have my picture taken anymore now, haha.

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Here's something really cool. After some discussions with a couple coworkers of mine at In N Out, we've decided to start a team for our local Relay For Life. And I'm the team captain! I'm pretty excited, cuz I love working for causes. And our cause is to support the American Cancer Society in raising funds for cancer research. Awesome stuff.

If anyone's interested, here's our team page right here. If you're in the area and you'd like to join, then please do sign up! I'm trying to get at least 20 people to join in fundraising and walking the event come June 28. If you can't join, no worries. If you can though, we'd love if you could take the time to donate too. It doesn't have to be much, really. Even the smallest amount helps. And it all adds up in the end, ya know?

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Okay, I seriously thought I had more I wanted to talk about, but I just blanked out hardcore right now. I guess that means I'm tired and I need to go to bed. So I shall. Here's my Youtube video for tonight though. Here's a nice little MadTV clip that's been making the rounds, featuring Anjelah Johnson. It's kinda weird, she was signed to costar in the latest season of MadTV, but for some strange reason, people thought she couldn't cut it. If this video is evidence of anything, I highly doubt that opinion. Anyways, here's "Bon Qui Qui":

I Love How I Say I'm Going To Update This Thing All The Time.

And then find myself never doing it. Gah.

"In The Spotlight" 5-3-08

This shot was actually about to be a discard, but I just couldn't help but laugh at chuckle at Calvin's facial expression. I told them to try to make an "epic" face, but he just ended up looking like he was gonna growl at someone =).

I love shooting with the sun. I remember growing up, back when I only knew so much about cameras, that the basic rule was to always shoot with your back to the sun. Sure, the sun wouldn't screw up the picture, but it always left your subjects all squinty eyed.

It's a problem I still tend to find today with new people just learning about photography. Rules you typically had to follow when using a point and shoot can usually be broken with an SLR, mostly because they're much more versatile. Also, I sadly find a lot of newcomers going about shooting things, and not taking the time to learn about lighting, which is kinda sad. Here's a tip for anyone thinking about going into photography as a semi-pro or professional career: learn as much as you possibly can about lighting. Positioning, hard light, soft light, angles, exposure, all of that good stuff. I honestly believe you'll benefit far more from learning about lighting than anything else photography related.

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So I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off lately. I just haven't had any free time lately. This whole week has been full of random jobs. I've been going to practically every university within 25 miles (which is actually a lot) busting a lot of PCN and Greek Week shoots. Then there's prom season, which although its starting to wind down, it's been keeping me on my toes these last few weekends. And I'm not including my day job, which has been kicking my butt lately. Although, I did meet with a representative from LA Times tonight, and I handed him my business card. So maybe I'll be freelancing with the Times soon enough, which should be awesome. Shooting for the News Group is still pretty cool, but they're pretty lax with the assignments.

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Most of all though, a lot of my time this week has been focused on redesigning my website, www.timmonzonphoto.com. I practically learned the essentials of Flash in a couple days, and I'm now somewhat versed in Network Protocols and Virtual Systems. Yeah, I know, what the heck am I getting myself into? But it's been fun, and if you check it out, you gotta admit that my new site is pretty slick, no? =D

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So it turns out that I've actually been running out of batches of business cards in the span of one week. I've ordered 2 batches of business cards (250 each batch) in the last 2 and a half weeks. Yes, its starting to get expensive, but at the same time, my phones been ringing a whole lot lately, and my emails starting to fill up. So no qualms there.

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Oooo OOooo!!!! My stimulus check got deposited into my bank account today! 470 in free money for me! Woot! As much as I'd like to drop it all on something completely random and outrageous, I know the better part of me will make me save it for something more worthwhile. Like a D300. Or maybe the 85mm f/1.4. Who knows?

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Um, here's a pretty funny Youtube video I found the other day. I was actually looking for videos on cancer awareness, and I suddenly found myself searching through videos on dyslexia awareness, and I stumbled upon this particularly funny, yet sad truth PSA:

I Finally Found Time To Update.

I actually have lots of time to update this often.... I just get lazy or distracted. Or sometimes both.

"Shower Excitement" 4/27/08

Here's a picture of the wedding shower I went to on Saturday that I mentioned about in my last post. I don't think I've ever seen Bryan look so giddy opening up gifts like that before. Of course, when you're going to be a newlywed couple, you'll need all the free appliances that you can get. So I completely understand. It's just funny how he seemed to be even more excited than Aprille. Less than a month to go for these two =).

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Tonight I watched my little sister perform in her high school's spring musical of "Annie". Jessica was Pepper, one of the orphans. I loved the performances, but I couldn't help but let the lackluster production value continually distract me during the performance. I know a lot of kids put their heart and soul into this production, so I'm not knocking them at all. It's the less than satisfactory production that undermines the commitment these kids put in. I dunno, maybe I'm just being too much of a stickler. I just wish that her school district (the same high school and school district I graduated from) had more funds to allocate towards the fine arts. Instead, we're too busy spending it on continual renovations and security measures. Sure, it's Pomona, we've always had a bad rap for being on the "ghetto" side, but there are lots of kids in PUSD's schools who have so much talent, that its a shame that the district can't allocate the money to show it all off.

Sorry for the sour note there, but the play would have just been so much more enjoyable if I didn't have to continually cringe at falling mics, the lack of an adequate sound system, and weird lighting. On a far more positive note, the play was very cute. It kinda brought me back to when I was a kid, watching Annie on tv for the first time. I loved it. I was really hoping my sister would've had more lines too =P. But that's just me being proud of her. She's cool.

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Did I mention that I had to buy a new car battery this week? Yeah, my old battery conked out on me, and it can be quite frustrating to not have a car. Especially in California, where having a car is practically a necessity, a lifeline. As far as car parts go, 80 bucks for a car battery isn't that bad. Problem is, that 80 dollars was meant for a photobook I'm supposed to print out for an event I did a couple weeks ago, which is about 200 to print. Now I have to delay it until my next gig this Saturday. Which means printing will take longer, and it will ship later. It's a good thing I specify in my contracts that I have up to a whole month to produce media for the clients, but I don't like walking on the edge when it comes to deadlines. Besides, it doesn't make for good business practice.

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Prom season is almost over, which only means one thing: graduation photo time is coming. I've already got a couple graduation photo sessions booked, but I'm looking to do more. For anyone interested, packages will start at $75 to be shot at a time and location of your choosing, and will include 2 8x10s, 6 5x7s, and 60 wallets to pass along to friends and loved ones. Also included will be the full res photos of the entire session on a cd for you, and the option to have your photos turned into postcards to announce your graduation (for an extra designing and printing fee). If anyone's interested, feel free to email me at tim@timmonzonphoto.com to set up a schedule.

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Ahhh, Youtube time. This one's a quickie, not even 30 seconds long, but it showcases a fear that probably everyone has, turning into reality: