I heart PJ!

I've got lots to share from the past few weeks. More than a blog can handle! Or the truth of it is that it's more than I can handle blogging about! There's not enough time in the day to get it all awesome and still have time to blog about it!

Between shooting, traveling, meetings and processing, there's not much time left for the back-end work like creating albums for my kick-ass clients. After struggling with heaps of hours designing an album in Photoshop, a very special photographer friend turned me on to PhotoJunction.

Now I can layout an album design in a quarter of the time it took previously. And with the seamless Photoshop integration I can still beef up my images while designing the album... seriously, photographer friends... please note... this program rocks! I also have the freedom to customize each album, but still save a design as a template to use again if I so choose to! And that custom work is what JAGstudios is all about!

So big thanks to Krystal of Studiofoto for turning me on to PJ... and BIG thanks to PJ for making a program that allows me to create freely anything I choose to! I heart PJ!!

since we're on the topic of hot stuff....

Check out this hot group of kick-ass photographers!

Patrick Williams of PWP Studio in Atlanta, GA (and Angel in the top photo!)
Tina Carter of Vrai in Chicago, IL
Mark Adams of LaCour in Atlanta, GA
myself... New Haven, CT (and Chris in the top photo too!)
and Matt Adcock of Del Sol Photography in Mexico!

Talk about hot stuff!

This is where, after many long weeks of blogging the past shoots of Atlanta, it all began.
Well... that will really be revealed in the next post.
But that was the night after... and the day before it all started going on.

The next evening Patrick and I went to hear Matt Adcock speak to the Atlanta PUG.
Atlanta is originally Matt's home, but since this past June he is officially fully in Mexico... with his beautiful wife Sol (also an amazing photographer!) So I was quite privileged to learn from Matt and in his environment too! (It made the southern accent more effective!)

Matt's presentation was about his crazy, fun approach to shooting wedding photography with the off camera flash. Matt's desire to make use of the flash off camera has led to many award-winning images all beautifully lit by a few hand held flashes. You can check out more of Matt's work here.

I love his energy and passion for pushing the limits of photography to places you never knew could exist. I try to push myself by taking the camera away from my eye, or if you will... shooting from the hip. I like to consider it shooting from the heart.

Most of my images on this blog and my website are shot with the camera away from my eye.

Check out this shot taken by Mark Adams (and borrowed from Matt's blog) to show where I was sitting (on the floor... I guess you can just see my hair, really.)


Anyway, the rest of the images in this post are shot from the heart. Enjoy!













Did I mention how much I love the baskets of ferns hanging on almost every porch in the South?

And just how awesome the photographers are at the Atlanta PUG?




I love this shot of me talking to Chris and Kattie Torres and Matt Adcock

hot enough to make you melt...

Alas my friends... the long awaited last post of the Atlanta series! Well, there will be many more and all will make sense in the next few more posts.

But for now...

Here's a quick story:

we'll skip the beginning...

... and then I was in Atlanta with Patrick and at this crazy awesome rehearsal dinner (see two posts previous)... there was a show girl with a great big smile.

Arian. (remember... the hot shot of the show girl at the top of the blog post? Right.)


And so, long story short...

I convinced Arian to meet us after the rehearsal dinner at Patrick's house. Um, not what you were thinking... at all...

I was thinking... hhhmmm.. Patrick has a kick-ass house... great for a risque shoot... Arian is absolutely stunning and would totally rock a risque shoot... Patrick's wonderful wife, Angel (yes, that is her real name, and it couldn't be more perfect) would totally rock photographing hot risque shoots from her own home and attached kick-ass studio... and then she could stay home with little baby Murphey and still be wicked creative! Sweet!

(breathe)

So... Let's have a little late-night (midnight 'til 3am with a wedding the next day!) Risque Workshop! And of course, when in Atlanta, and having an impromptu risque workshop, who better to call than the one and only Mark Adams from LaCour!

That's right!

Love these first few shots from Mark of me explaining to Angel the art of boudoir photography...




And the illustrious Arian...





Here's a few more kick-ass shots from Mark...







Can you believe that was all in the studio bathroom!! Seriously, the whole house is quite conducive to some serious sexy sessions! We tried to make the most of it in a short period of time so we sent upstairs to shoot it up. Oh... did I mention that Patrick and Angel have an 8' mirrored dining room table!?! WOOHOO!!!

It was definitely challenging using the styley dining room light as the only light source with either crackled red glass globes or a concentrated spotlight directly over the table. Either way that didn't stop Arian from working it and rocking this shoot (workshop!)


















The only unfortunate thing was that Mark missed the steamy shots on the mirrored table! No worries, mister... I'll be back down there at the end of August, let's tear it up again! This time we should get Matt Adcock to light the place up for us, a few more willing subjects and a few more photogs... HEY! We've got something cookin'!

o.k. enough of the story... until it continues...