The pictures were for Diwana, a stylist at Lucky 7 Expressions, a “new concept unisex hair studio” in South Orange, NJ. She’s working on building up her book, and these two lovely ladies made some of her first additions.

The shoot was done out on the street on South Orange Ave. Turned out to be a good thing, because the shop itself was cramped and we’d have had a helluva time setting up lights in there.

Initially, we were going to stand against the fence, and then shoot with the train overpass in the background. This created some nice bokeh in the background, and the sunlit area on the other side of the overpass looked really cool. Too bad the models weren’t ready on time, so we started an hour late… and the sun went down.

Oh well. So, we improvised, and focused more on the fence as a background. Still came out nice.

Maryrose was a treat to work with. She knew exactly what she wanted, and we got the job done extremely quickly.

If you’re a model looking to get some comp cards done, check out the Comp / Zed Card Info Page or head straight to the Comp / Zed Card Order Form.

Ashley brought a great set of images to the table, and they made for a great zed card. I really like the headshot, although I had to do a little editing to save it from being too overexposed.

If you’re a model looking for comp cards, head over to the Comp Card Info page or go directly to the Comp Cards Order Form. Printed cards start at $60 for a set of 50, shipping included.

Meet Charlien, Dominique, Abigail, and Ebonee.  Oh, and the inconsequential men behind them are their dates.

They wanted some nice portraits of the group and of each couple, so we headed to Brookdale Park on the way up to the prom.  The prom was at the Venetian in Garfield, NJ, so Brookdale Park’s location in Bloomfield, NJ made it a fairly quick stop. Add that to the nice flower garden, and you’d have a hard time finding a nicer free, public location at which to shoot a bunch of pictures. [Random aside, if you're looking for a nice garden, try to the Reeves Reed Arboretum. My wife insisted that we do our wedding pictures there.]

One never knows what to expect shooting outside, so I brought a light or two just in case.  It turns out that the sun did a nice job of putting together some creative lighting for me…

In two of the shots, you can tell that the girls are backlit.  The sun was setting behind the trees just behind the garden, so I threw a speedlight on the camera to brighten up the subjects and let the sun add some backlighting and some lens flare.  In some of the pictures, the lens flare was too much… but the center picture to the left (of Ebonee and James) came out with a nice balance.

Then, we moved over to another part of the garden with red roses. By some magical coincidence, the sun was lighting the area at a perfect angle.  It lit up the roses and threw an angular light on the girls’ faces, adding some depth and direction to the images. If I had the time, it would have been nice to add a fill light on axis or off to the right of the camera to brighten up some shadows (see the first picture of Ebonee and James).

But, I had about twenty minutes to shoot the group and four couples… When time is tight, work with what ya got! And, all things considered, the images came out great and the girls were thoroughly thrilled with the end result.

And it was an eventful afternoon. Speeches made by many, carafes of wine on the table, and plenty of old colleagues on the dance floor. Everyone had a great time, and best of luck to these two women in their futures as retired educators.

For pictures from the event, follow this link - Single Mothers Appreciation Day at Watsessing Park.

The event was organized by Akeem Cunningham, an ’08 East Orange Campus High School graduate. He did a great job of bringing together people in the E.O. / Newark area to help celebrate all of he hard working single mothers in our area. By the end of the day, we’d seen plenty of beautiful mothers and cute kids.

Downloading a Picture

If you’re trying to download a picture to re-post it on Facebook or another social networking site, here’s some direction:

• Right click on the image in the album
• Choose “Open Link in New Tab” or a similar option
• This will create a new tab/window with the image
• Right click on the image
• Choose “Save Image As…”

What’s With the Watermark?

Most people don’t want prints of images these days. They want to share them on sites like Facebook.

That’s cool, and we photographers understand that. The purpose of the watermark is to derive some kind of value (i.e. advertising) from people re-using our images for free. You post my image on Facebook, and people see where it came from!

Normally, I would charge a fee for a watermark-free copy of an image.  However, this event was something of a special situation and as a token of appreciation for all of the single mothers that attended, I’ll happily give you a watermark free copy of any image that you want.

Just e-mail me (brian@olinda-gibbons.com), let me know what image you want, and I’ll send you a copy.  If you hover your mouse over an image in the gallery, a name should pop up (i.e. IMG_2887). You could also right click on the image, choose “Copy Link Location,” paste that link into an e-mail, and send it to me.  Or, if all else fails, tell me the page/location of the image (there are 11 pages of images in the album).

If you’re confused about all that, e-mail me (brian@olinda-gibbons.com) and I’ll try to explain it more clearly.

Again, here’s a link to the full album – Single Mother’s Appreciation Day at Watsessing Park.

The event was hosted at the Appian Way in Orange, NJ, and the place was packed to the gills. Due to the Colonel’s retirement, about twice the usual number of guests showed up – including members of the color guard from McGuire Air Force Base and cadets from years past.

I finally got done sorting and processing all of the pictures. I broke it down into smaller albums, sorted by scene, so it’s easier to find stuff. Use the following links to browse the pictures.

You can order prints straight from the albums, or just flip through the pictures.  There’s a flat fee of $5.00 to ship the prints, or if you’re going to see John Cook I can hand deliver them to him at no charge. If you purchase any prints, I’ll also e-mail you a low-resolution copy of the picture without the watermark (the “Olinda Gibbons Photography” tag) so that you can post it on Facebook and such.

• Scene 01 (“The Opening”)
• Scene 02
• Scene 03
• Scene 04
• Scene 05 (“Legs”)
• Scene 06 (“Back from Intermission”)
• Scene 07
• Scene 08
• Scene 09 (“The Sexy Scene”)
• Scene 10
• Scene 11
• Scene 12 (“Swimwear”)
• Scene 13 (“The Finale”)
• Other Pics

So I met Olinda at Kean, and we did a quick photoshoot with the whole group. It took a bit longer than expected – what with 11 people to photograph – but we managed to squeeze everybody in before the sun went down. We did the shoot in a courtyard outside one of Kean’s administrative buildings. It provided a nice backdrop with a surprising amount of variation between the pictures.

You can check out his campaign website (getitdone2014.net) to see the full gallery of pictures.

Here are a few of the nice shots from the evening. I love the one of Jamal and Chris dancing… too funny!