Olinda attended the event at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, taking pictures for Sulekha. You can see the full image gallery on Sulekha’s website here.

It was an exciting and colorful event, as you might expect. Everyone was covered in color – including photographers. There were also plenty of performances at the event, and you can see a couple of the dancers in the photo previews. The kids were extremely cute!

These are just a few highlights from the evening. Use the links below to view the albums for each of the nine scenes, and for the backstage photos.

If you’re interested in getting a copy of all of the images from the evening, they are available as either a digital download ($10) or a DVD ($10, plus an additional $5 shipping). We’re still working on getting the automated shopping cart system back online after our recent redesign, so just send us a message via the contact form, or look in the page footer and contact us directly via e-mail or phone.

The List of Galleries

• Scene 01
• Scene 02
• Scene 03
• Scene 04
• Scene 05
• Scene 06
• Scene 07
• Scene 08
• Scene 09
• Backstage

Other Fashion Shows

You might be interested in some older albums, as well – like the 2010 William Paterson Fashion Show or the 2011 William Paterson Fashion Show.

If you’re hosting a fashion show and looking for a photographer, we’d love to hear from you. Hit up the contact form, or look in the footer for direct contact information for Olinda and Brian.

We went through a couple of quick outfit changes – khakis and a button down shirt, jeans and a shirt, then jeans and a sweater. Finally, we wrapped things up with the good ol’ cap and gown shot, complete with a rolled up fake diploma. Everything went smooth, and we were in and out in under an hour. I’m kind of surprised it went so quick, considering the number of outfit variations, but each one was pretty simple. Took a few shots, we had what we wanted, and moved on.

Interested in a senior portrait session? Read more about our senior picture sessions and print packages here. The short version is that we’ll do a basic, on location portrait session for $50, and you can order prints starting at $25. You’ll need to provide the graduation robe and formal outfit, unless you want a blue cap and gown like the one in Jayson’s photos.

If you have any questions or want to schedule a session, hit up the contact form or check in the page footer for our direct contact info.

This year, AlNeysha came to me and asked if I could do her senior portraits and graduation pictures. I thought, “What the heck?” Let’s give it a go. I ordered the backgrounds we needed (a speckled red muslin and a speckled blue muslin), borrowed an old cap and gown from one of my old students, and set up a temporary studio for her.

AlNeysha is a cheerleader, so we thought about doing something a bit more modern and creative – like some shots outdoors, or some shots with her unifom. But, we ended up doing this in December, so outdoors wasn’t going to work out very well. She opted for a standard portrait session, much like she would have gotten from the aforementioned unnamed photography studio, and we were both really pleased with the results.

She brought two changes of clothes, a casual outfit with the orange fur, white shirt, and jeans along with a formal looking black top for a standard yearbook picture. I provided the blue cap and gown for the graduation picture. After an hour of shooting and a little Photoshop work to create a digital background for the yearbook, we ended up with four different looks about a few dozen great photos.

AlNeysha also asked if I could put together a collage with her pictures. I mocked up a couple quick designs, and this is the one she liked. We crammed a whole bunch of pictures in there, but printed at 11×14 inches it came out looking quite nice.

Live in central or northern New Jersey and interested in booking a senior portrait session? Follow the link for more details. Our current session fee is $50 for a standard senior portrait session. This includes about two to three dozen images delivered via an online gallery, and print packages are available starting at $25.

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.