Tulsa trip, old friends reunite!

So I just realized I know all the hot chicks, especially back in high school. Anyways, today was one of those days. I was talking to an old friend about a shoot a while back, but she got hurt and had to cancel. The injury she had gotten was the same I have experienced in the past. Well about 2 weeks ago we were talking and she had mentioned she was going to Tulsa to shoot with Kevin Camp, and I asked her if it would be okay to come along and shoot. Mainly to just talk with her and catch up, but also because Tulsa has stuff that Oklahoma City does not, like REAL LAKES! I talked to her and Kevin and they both agreed it would be okay, so I was excited. Got the trip planned and what not and yesterday (now) and decided to go, all she asked for was 20 dollars gas money. Fair enough.

So I woke up today about 10am, I might add that is REALLY EARLY for me, and got the camera ready to go, she called and confirmed.I took a shower got ready and met her at a 7-11 here in Oklahoma City, now the 7-11's in Oklahoma City are a great story for another day. Because part of the reason I wanted to go to Tulsa was because of Quick Trip, the worlds greatest convience store! Anyways so I got ready showered etc and went to the 7-11 at 12:20 or so, she was already there. I bought her a water and gave the cashier the money for the gas and had hit the road!

Tulsa was going to be fun, get to see 2 old friends from Aspen Athletic and hang out and shoot a gorgeous girl! So we had hit the road and man that road trip had seemed like forever! But we get into Tulsa, Oklahoma about 230 where we met up with Andrew and she took a shower and got ready, Andrew gave me a Red Bull, I felt so lucky! Anyways, apparently Andrew is now into tennis so I shoot the breeze with him and his roommate for a little while, and hit a ball around. Now I know why I am NOT a tennis player.Andrew got to catch up with her for a little while to, just kind of caught up.Now off to shoot with Kevin Camp.

We left from Andrew's house at 4:30 p.m. or so and I decided that I was going to try several different looks with her as far as lighting goes. Anyone who knows me, knows I am not scared to do something different, My only prayer is I got some good images without an LCD screen on my camera. Kevin called her and gave her directions, and the way Tulsa is laid out it was REALLY easy to get to, Oklahoma City you do need a GPS. So we arrive about 5 p.m. or so and met up with Kevin. Her first dress was a cute little form fitting dress with black and silver stripes. We shot that dress downtown, I wanted to do some pure ambient light looks with a 300mm f2.8 lens that Kevin owned and some 50mm 1.8 looks. Really shallow depth of field, and blend falsh with ambient.  As well as some dreamy looks to with an edge light. So first looks we did downtown I focused on blending the flash and ambient with her dress, I would say I did pretty good here. Now it was for the second look.

I sure do miss my paw print watermark, that was my signature. But when I get my laptop back up, I will have it again! Back to the story though, the second look we did was a formal dress she wore for a pageant one time, it was a limited edition Sherri Hill dress, for those who do not know fashion designers, she is big in pageants, about as big as Johnathon Kayne Gillespie. The dress was gorgeous, I told her to bring it out because it was just gorgeous! So we shot in that for like 15 minutes because it was hot as a mofo out and that is not cool. We went to a little park that reminded me of Kerr Park here in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was cute, had a few buildings in the background and grass and trees overall I liked it a lot. Pretty place! The lighting I went with here was kind of overpowering the sun, a little. I muted out the background a little and underexposed it just a tad bit while filling in her with a flash, overall I liked the outcome. It gets tricky because you have to meter the sky and background first, than go 1 to 2 stops underexposed. But it is a lighting style I like, a lot.

Now you see why I love the dress? It is gorgeous, like the model in it.

Last thing we did was swimsuit at Lake Oolgah, I think this is how you spell it. This lake is trippy as hell to, because apparently it used to be a town, but apparently the town got flooded and replaced by the lake, so if you go into the lake at certain parts, there are buildings, sidewalks, and various other town stuff there. Most have not been very big, I thought it was eerie, but it is a pretty lake. Of course swimsuit at sunset I got to do my style, the strobist style. You know shadows and harsh contrast between subject and background. Oh I do love that style. Except this time I did something different, there was a dramatic blue and purple sky so I did the strobist look  but without a sunset just a dramatic blue sky. I also tried out raising ambient lighting to get a more advertisment style bikini, here is an example.

Well you guys probably do not care what we did after, which was eat and a long ride home. But it was nice to reconnect with an old friend and have her model for us, she totally did rock it! :)

Dreamy light, huh?

Blue Sky!!!!!