A Belt Test @ American Tiger Martial Arts and Fitness

I was at American Tiger Martial Arts and Fitness last October and took some photos of the students participating in the monthly belt test for that month.  

The test involved some white belts moving up to orange belt, all the way to a couple of red belts moving up to red-black belts (last test before their black belt for these guys).  These tests involve exercises, board-breaking, hand forms, weapon forms, and free-styling.
 

Board breaking using a stomp.

Jeannie in between exercises.

Performing a lesson that involves kicks from a sitting position.

Miss Azieh getting ready to assist a student with a dagger lesson.

Sai kata.

A Broadsword kata by Victor.

Jeannie staying out of the circle in her freestyle three-on-one test.

Victor and Mr Pollack (Instructor) mixing it up during one-on-one freestyle.

Board breaking with a left hooking heel.

Modesta's turn with her left hooking heel.

Dawson with a right hooking heel.

Victor going through that plywood with power and technique.

Goodbye Orange Belt, Hello Yellow Belt!

Technical Notes:  Gear used was a 5D with 24-70L and a 70-200 IS L.  Most of the images posted here were taken with the 70-200 at ISO 800-1000 and at f 3.5.  Not wanting to be a distraction with flash, all shots were with the ambient florescent lighting in the studio with white balance corrections made in Photoshop.

Claudia and Jesus' baby, Joaquin.

Two weeks young, and adorable as can be!  Meet Joaquin.  We scheduled this shoot around this little guy's naptime, but as fate would have it, he was too interested in modeling for his photoshoot and was wide awake the whole time.  He was mesmerized by the lights we had setup, and was incredibly cooperative.  We had a couple of oopsies while we had his diaper off, but it made the shoot more interesting and fun (sorry Dad)!
Without further adieu, here are images from our latest shoot.

"Babies are bits of stardust, blown from the hand of God."
-- Barretto

"O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother"  - William Shakespeare

"A new baby is like the beginning of all things-wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities."
-- Eda J. Le Shan

"Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last."  - Charles Dickens

Claudia and Jesus, thank you for the privilege of capturing memories of your beautiful, young family!  We wish you all the best!

Tech Info:  Canon 5D, 24-70 2.8, 50 1.8, Calumet light kit, Cowboy Studio light triggers.
Super thanks to my wife for all the help she provided.  

A Tale of Three Birthdays

We were at San Bernardino last weekend for the birthdays of Ashley, Haley and Charisse.  It's always a fun time at the Contreras residence, and this was no exception!  Got a bounce house full of kids, a plethora of barbecued goodies on the grill, the celebrants and their cousins displaying their singing skills, and friends and family members in attendance to complete the celebration.  Effective ingredients for a great time!

Taking photos inside the bounce house was fairly tricky...aside from the constant bouncing and shifting inside, the lighting was either blown out backgrounds or just shadows inside.  I was able to snap this shot by crawling inside and bouncing flash over my left shoulder into the ceiling....this caused a bit of a mix of green and red cast on the kids, but since I shoot in raw, I was able to correct the color to make it acceptable....

These next shots are of the girls giving due diligence of putting out the fire hazards on their cakes :)

 

 

 

I switched lenses to a longer tele to get a closer shot, only to realize I was too close :(

Charisse's arm was just a few inches behind Ashley, and that was the sweet spot.  This is when my distaste of cropping in post production definitely got the best of me.   

 Above and below are Chinky, Marina and her daughter Jaimee and Carol.  Classmates from Saint Paul's QC batch 88.  This was taken with the sun pretty high and bright...for fill in flash, I had a Sunpak 333 firing remotely just to the right.  Just enough to lift those shadows :)

 

 

That's Haley (above) right as she was opening her gifts.  Precious!

 

Charisse all smiles after she got a SB 600 for her Nikon.

You can feel Ashley's excitement here as she started opening her presents! 

These three images of the girls above were shot in a gazebo tent in the backyard past sunset.  I had a 550 EX firing remotely into a corner of the canvas roof to give a soft, bounced light.  Ambient light was a bit too low to be the only source of light at this point, (and I don't like pushing my ISO when I can still have other means of getting a good exposure) but there was still enough surfaces around us to create soft light.

 

Jerome and Ana earlier in the day.  They are actually laughing at me thinking why the heck I had the flash pointing directly away from them when I took this...  I had to convince them that I meant to do that, but I don't think they believed me anyway.

These next images don't do much justice to the singing these girls demonstrated during the party.  The girls started off by a dance routine then capped it off by singing a few of their fav songs from Glee.

Pretty awesome stuff!

Techie Notes:  A few of the shots here here taken with flash and a few were taken with ambient light only.   Which ones were which?  There's a few give aways that reveal which is which, but nothing too obvious.  No harsh shadows and hot spots.  That's the whole idea of the style of photography I shoot with. 
Gear used: 5D, 24-70, 70-200, 550EX, Sunpak 330, Cowboy Studio radio slaves.

Emilie, Milan and Echo @ the beach...

We had a great time photographing Emilie, Milan, and their incredibly well behaved dog, Echo!  It was a good day at the beach to be snapping away memories for mother and daughter (and pet).   The tide had just gone out, so the beach had left it's magical tide pools and moist, cool sand to keep our feet comfy.

Both mother and daughter were such great subjects with wonderful personalities that make sessions like these incredibly rewarding to shoot.   Whenever she wasn't smiling or making faces for the camera, Milan was playing in the sand and checking out the plethora of interesting items on the beach. Echo's discipline was pretty impressive...she was as behaved as can be, stayed calm and collected even though the presence of another dog running around on the beach had her attention and was probably much more interesting than looking sharp for the camera.

Daughter and Mommy toes enjoying the cool sand!

In case you are wondering why a gorgeous beach like this was fairly deserted, it wasn't.  There were a good eight or nine other photographers shooting all around us.  It was a matter of working around each other that was keeping each other from popping up in each others images...at least I hope I didn't show up in theirs :)

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.  ~Washington Irving

Emilie and Milan, you ladies have a wonderful partnership of being mother and daughter.  Thank you for letting me be part of your world as your photographer for the afternoon.  It was a pleasure capturing your precious smiles. 

Techie Notes:  Gear Used - Canon 5D, 550ex Flash, Sunpak 333 Thyristor, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, a car sunshade for reflectors from Kragen Auto Parts :), ND filters.

Most of the shots here were metered and underexposed by about two stops.  The sun was still pretty strong at this time of day and I didn't want blown out skies for the majority of the shots.  Every now and then I get blown out skies when the moment is happening and metering is not an option, but for portrait sessions like these when you can control the speed of your workflow, I'll take blue skies over white skies.

Special thanks to my sons Kiefer and Dawson for assisting me on this shoot.