Esperanza Plantation Holiday Showcase @ Pix/Capri (12.22.12)

it’s the last post of the year for Scenes Around Jackson so you know what that means!

it means it’s time to check out the photos from the annual Esperanza Plantation Holiday Showcase!

this year was the 10th(!) anniversary! and for the 10th, just like for all previous years, they held it in the heart of Fondren, at the Pix/Capri theater!

like i’ve said for the last few years, this is clocking in at about a 100+ photo post so don’t expect a lot of commentary from me.

so sit back and enjoy photos of a rocking show!

and, as always, let’s give props to Stephen Barnett of Davaine Lighting for lighting so awesome, we need to come up with a better word than “awesome” to describe it! 🙂

so, without further ado:

The Line-Up! (in order of appearance)

– T.B. LEDFORD!

– JOHNNY BERTRAM & THE GOLDEN BICYCLES!

– EL OBO!

– BEAR COLONY!

– QUESTIONS IN DIALECT!

– THE WEEKS!

[Model Shoot] Peach – NOLA (Oct. 2012)

well, this was a shoot that was a long time coming.

Peach and i have been friends for a couple of years now, and we kept meaning to find the time to shoot together but, y’know, life kept happening.

around a few months back, we decided to get serious about meeting up so we made plans to do it and then her car broke down so we had to push it back and then, after she got her car fixed,  my car breaks down so I had to push it back.

finally, after a month or two (and both cars being fixed), we settled on me coming to crash with her, at her place in New Orleans, for 5 days in the second week of October so we could just hang and shoot like crazy a week before she left for San Francisco to hang and shoot with our mutual friend Finch.

and shoot like crazy we did!  we shot many different styles in many different locations, both inside and outside.

i won’t be posting everything we shot (just my personal favs) since a lot of these are destined for other sites such as GodsGirls, Zivity, and Peach’s own personal site so they get first dibs.

but i also shot some polaroids of her so i’ll post all of those since those aren’t destined for any other site.

i also shot a lot of Instagram shots of some behind the scenes stuff that i’ll post up too, for the same reason.

alrighty, some stats before we get to it!

Model/MUA/Hair: Peach

Camera(s): Pentax K100D, Polaroid 420 Land Camera, iPhone 4S

Lights: AlienBee 1600 w/a Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox and a silver field reflector as modifiers.  also used a Nikon Speedlight SB-600 when we were “running and gunning” outside.

let’s do this!

(oh, all the titles for the different shoots came from me. i’m sure Peach will think up better ones whenever we send these off)

A Southern Peach, Wrapped In Scarlet 

A Peach In Afternoon Light

A Peach In Sin City

A Peach At The Levee

A Peach Among The Graffitied Pool

A Peach At The Beach

A Peach In Bed

Jaime and Jeff’s (re)Marriage (9.8.12)

yikes! i meant to post about this last month but time just got away from me and then i went down to NOLA for about 5 days to shoot my friend Peach sooooo i’m just now catching up with these 🙂

so!  last month two of my very good friends, Jaime and Jeff, decided to get (re)married!  (pretty much, they were already married. had been married for years. but the first time they just went down to the court house. this was pretty much an excuse for them to finally have a ceremony to go with it) 🙂

and since i wasn’t the official photographer (yay) i could just hang out and shoot whatever i wanted.

which, also, gave me the excuse i needed to finally put a Fuji X-Pro1 that i was borrowing through its paces 🙂

i’d been wanting to shoot with this camera for awhile and it did not disappoint (except a little in one way, which i’ll cover at the end)

anywho, let’s get to the good times!

[Model Shoot] Thuy Tran – 6 Different Styles (8.16.12)

geez, i can’t believe it’s been 3 months(!) since the last time i updated!  see, this is what happens when i fall into my vicious cycle of not shooting (if i don’t shoot often i start feeling down which leads to getting lazy which leads to not shooting which leads to, etc)

but then it occurred to me “wait, it’s been a year since the last time me and thuy have worked together! it’s time!” (since we seem to only get together to shoot once a year LoL)

so i hit her up on facebook and, since you’re reading this post it should come as no surprise, she was more than down for another shoot.  so we met up at the CUPS in Lakeland to plan out what we wanted to do this time.

since the last shoot was outside, we both wanted to shoot in an inside location this time (plus, y’know, it gets really hot during a mississippi summer and we both wanted to avoid melting)

we also wanted to try and shoot more than just one style this time.  we kinda played around with that during our first shoot but we really wanted to go for it this time.  so, after hashing some ideas out (and leaving some stuff vague so we could see where we wanted to go during the shoot) we just had to figure out a day and location.

enter my friend J.Diddy!

i’d had a photoshoot at a friend of her’s apartment a few months back, right in the heart of downtown Jackson, and just fell in love with it.  so i was really hoping i could use it again and, after a few back and forth emails with J.Diddy, discovered that he was cool with letting us shoot there!  with that locked down me and thuy set a date and got to it!

so, before we get started, some quick stats!

Model/MUA/Hair: Thuy Tran

Camera: Pentax K100D

Lights: AlienBee 1600 w/a Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox as a modifier (along with just a silver field reflector sometimes).

ok, let’s get to it!  we settled on six styles for the shoot!

Casual

Faces (inspired shoots like this kate moss one)

Red Hair

Classy Black and White

Classy Color

Business Woman 

Room 901 (7.6.11)

like i mentioned last post, Room 901 is the second theme that Cody and I did on the same day we shot the first theme, Dirt Track Date.

cody ended up naming the first theme. in fact, the first theme was really her baby all the way.  she knew what she wanted, the feel she wanted, and everything.

for this them, i took the lead.  i named it, knew the feel i wanted, etc.

in my head, she’s still the same character.  but this theme takes place when she first gets to the room and then shows what happens afterwards.

you’ll notice, as i get towards the end, that i shift from black and white to color.  i think it fit the scene and feel better.  it’s rare that i do that but i think it fit in this case

ok, let’s get to it

Dirt Track Date (7.6.11)

i figured i’d post some photos i’ve been wanting to post since july of last year, but between wanting to hold up and show them in an art show first and then my old Dell dying i never got a chance to actually post them here.

so, i’d been wanting to shoot my friend Cody for awhile but could just never seem to arrange a time. between us living in different cities/states and her going to school and working full time, well it wasn’t easy.

plus, both cody and i are artists,  so we both wanted a theme and/or backstory for whatever we were gonna shoot.

well, last july everything came together.  i was in town, it was the summer so she was on break from school and didn’t have to work till late, and we had worked out 2 backstories for what we wanted to shoot.

instead of combining two separate themes in one post (even though we shot them on the same day) i figured i would give each one its own entry.

so, let’s get started on the first one!

ROLLEIFLEX ACROSS AMERICA!

MY PHOTO BOOK, ROLLEIFLEX ACROSS AMERICA, IS FINALLY DONE!

80 pages of portraiture photographs and writings about my roadtrip across America.

every photo was taken with my Rolleiflex 2.8D and black and white film.

the always wonderful Katie West was even kind enough to write me a two page introduction for it! many thanks katie 🙂

you can buy it and check out a free 15 page preview at this link:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3194398

many thanks to everyone who goes to take a look!

[Behind The Scenes] The Renee Agency Model Bootcamp (4.7.12)

wow, you get busy and you look up and you’ve completely forgotten to update your blog for an entire month!

so, many apologies everyone, but with real life getting in the way and planning out 30 Days and 30 Nights, a photo project with the amazing Nettie Harris (which i’ll be talking more about soon) i’ve just been busier than usual.

but enough of that, let’s get to the photos! 🙂

so, Chanelle Renee, of the new Renee Agency, and I have known each other for a bit.  we were talking on facebook a couple of weeks ago and i mentioned that when she put on another show i’d love to shoot the behind the scenes of it.  i’ve always loved that type/style of photography.  anyway, she said she’d keep me in mind and a few days later she asked if i’d be free to shoot some documentary/behind the scenes type photos of a model bootcamp she was doing.  i said yes and away we went!

[From The Archives] Josh Hailey’s I Love Jackson Retrospective (12.2.10)

have you ever shot so many photos that you’ve overlooked a crap ton of them?

no?  well, i have LoL

in an effort to correct that, it’s time to, once again, take a look through the archives!

so, back in the last month of 2010, Josh Hailey, a well known Jackson Creative, was getting ready to pack up his ole kit bag and move to the always sunny west coast

and what do you do when you’re getting ready to move?  that’s right, you throw a going away party!  which is just what josh did.

except, this going away party included the entire city of jackson, live music, food, drinks, and kick ass art!

so let’s warm up the flux-capacitor and hop in the TARDIS and re-live a really great night!

and remember, this isn’t Sparta…

THIS!

IS!

JACKSON!

Best of Jackson 2012 @ The King Edward Hotel (1.29.12)

welcome, everyone, to the first Scenes Around Jackson post of 2012!  hope everyone had a safe and happy new years eve!

we’re starting off this year just like we started off 2010, with photos from the Best of Jackson party!

this was the 10th annual(!) Best Of and, as always, it was hosted by the Jackson Free Press with the venue being the historic King Edward Hotel in downtown Jackson.

and now, a little backstory about what the Best of Jackson is all about:

The results of the annual “Best of Jackson” competition–also known as “Best of”–publishes the last week of January in the Jackson Free Press. Since 2001, the JFP has run the ballot online and in the print edition in November each year for six weeks. The contest is completely reader’s choice: Readers choose and vote for their favorites in more than 100 categories. The winners are announced in the Best of Jackson issue, our biggest of the year, and the first-place winners get awards at our invitation-only Best of Jackson party, held the Sunday evening after the Best of Jackson issue hits the street and the Web.

in addition, each Best Of party has a theme and this year’s theme was “jazz club/1920s” era.

as always, Best of Jackson parties are the parties you just don’t miss and this year was no different so let’s get to it!