Local Characters

Through out the month May and June I got to shoot a few people for Aruba.com.
 Here are a few shots of the ones I shot.

This is Sanju.

This is Ruthy. She is a local writer.

This is Charles from Marriott Hotel.

This is Maria also from Marriott Hotel.

And the last one is Eduard from Papiamento Restaurant.

Cheers!!

Just something to think about!

An e-mail I got today from my mom which I thought it would be nice to share!

Here we go!

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way." I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it."

Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile.  Face your past without regret.  Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear.  Keep the faith and drop the fear.

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling!  And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!



I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! 


Cheers

Lightroom 3

Just have to say that Lightroom 3 is out baby!!!! Sweet!!!!              

New features such noise reduction, camera calibration, video importing and lots more are part of the new Lightroom 3 features.

If you already own a Lightroom program you go ahead and click on upgrade for $99,- which is a good deal!

If you don't have one yet, just download the free trail version and test for yourself.

Cheers

Aruba Soul Beach Memorial Day 2010

Past weekend Aruba had the pleasure of hosting a few comedy artist and musicians for the Soul Beach Memorial Day.

This is great for the island 'cause it brings great musicians for the island. People from all over the world come to the island to witness their favorite artist perform and lot of partying for them as well. For me this a great opportunity 'cause I get to shoot some amazing singers and comedians.

This year we had as singers the great Mary J. Blige, Toni Braxton, Joe Thomas, Raheem DeVaughn and also the winner of Soul Beach contest Darien.  Local artists also performing was Tipico Macuarima and Youth Xtreme.  For the comedy night we had Kevin Hart, Mark Curry and Chris Spencer.

A little of comedy night.

 During press conference. Toni was first up and what a nice lady! Even got a kiss from it! Sweet!!

 First night of the two day concert started with Darien.

 

This guy painted these two painting during one of the performances.

 

 The only thing that went wrong that day was the concert took long to start between the performers.  Crowd was not too pleased about that! Neither was I!!


Second day was as follows:
Tipico Macuarima, local group which plays typical local music.

Youth Xtreme warming up the crowd.

Looking real hot! Dang those legs!

And that was the concert! Great performances and lots of fun people around!

Cheers

Hostaria Da' Vittorio

Last week I was asked to shoot Hostaria Da' Vittorio for their new meter long pizza that is to be launched any day now.  This restaurant is one of the best Italian restaurant around.  The main man Vittorio is a master chef for over 20 years now.  Great guy too!

The setup was for two location at the restaurant, one, where the magic happens for the pizza, damn that area was hot!! Sweating like crazy. And the other was for outside where the fun was eating the pizza and some real cold beers to cool me down from oven area.

Inside setup was very simple, two reflective umbrellas one in each corner with speedlights set @ 1/4 power.  Camera setting was ISO 1000 f10 @ 1/80sec.

This was a great challenge for me that day because I had to move fast 'cause my friend Vittorio wasn't at snail speed.  This man was fast and had to be too, since the pizza only took a couple of minutes to be ready.

This the oven Vittorio uses.  Only one among the islands here. Uses wood for the oven which give the pizza an unique taste.

Fresh ingredients are used for the pizza. Nothing better than fresh ingredients people!!

 

 

This was my favorite part of the pizza! You get different toppings when you ask for such a big pizza.  If I'm not mistaken it get divided in four sections.

This is when it's coming out of the oven ready to eat!! This oven runs around 700 degrees!! Hot mama!!

Vittorio just enjoying himself with the pizza!

We got served by the man himself!!!

Setup for outside was camera left reflective umbrella @ 1/4 power with speedlight and camera right behind girl in the middle just of the frame @ 1/4 power. Camera setting was ISO 2000 f10 @ 1/8 on tripod with remote cable.


The girls ate almost the whole thing.  They say girls don't eat much???? Yeah right!!!

Well it was fun sharing this. I know I'm heading back real soon for more pizza!!!

Cheers

Tosha & Mike

Couple of days ago I got to shoot Tosha and Mike for their honeymoon pictures.  They recently got married in Mexico and decided to spend their honeymoon here in Aruba, which btw is cool! Who wouldn't want to come to Aruba???

Here are few shots of them:

We had just a little fun that is all.

Happy to say they had a beautiful sunset! It was a great day!!

Kids!! What is it about water and kids??? They had fun which is best part! Me too!!!

Well just have to say it was really fun doing this shoot with this beautiful couple.

Cheers!