Behind the Scenes Martial Arts Shoot

We shot a slew of awesome kids at the East West Mixed Martial Arts school in Mesa yesterday. I was impressed not only with how well the instructors related to the kids, but with how much they stressed the importance of respecting and helping one another as they learned. If any of you parents out there are looking for a positive environment for your kids, you might want to give East West MMA a call. Greg Silva is the owner and the head instructor's name is Kelly; tell them DM Photo sent you!

We've recently been discussing how it might be interesting for folks to get a behind the scenes look at some of our shoots, just to understand how we work with lights and such. So, we snapped a few shots of our lighting setup and the overall layout. Enjoy:

...and a few of the final edits...

Take It To The Limit - Eagles Tribute Band

We did some photos for a local band called Take It To The Limit a few weeks ago. TITTL is an Eagles tribute band out of Scottsdale, AZ. These guys did a few pieces for us during the shoot and honestly we forgot we were supposed to be photographing the band their music was so entrancing. Here are a few shots from the session:

Our backdrop wasn't quite long enough for one of the shots...

Before:

After:

One of the main purposes for the shoot was to duplicate this shot off the Eagles album "Hell Freezes Over":

...and our version:

Not too shabby, eh?

Anyway, all the guys in the band are great. If you get a chance, check out their website and check out one of their shows.

Baby Ben

What a great name. And it goes so well with the "baby" part. Baby Ben. That's who we spent last Saturday afternoon with. This kid had THE MOST HAIR I HAVE EVER SEEN ON A NEWBORN. Seriously, it was completely awesome. He had more hair than I have. And it was cool hair, too. Like Zoolander. "It's not my fault I look better with gel in my hair than with a little helmet with a light on it."

Anyway, the pictures...

Studio Shoot w/ A Baby

A few months ago we volunteered to do a free photo shoot for our friend's son. He has a medical condition for which they needed to raise funds, so we donated some time for a silent auction fundraiser they had. This is the shoot we did for the winner's daughter.

One fun thing we did at this shoot was to incorporate a new piece of studio equipment. You'll notice a soft reflection on the floor in each of the photos; that's the new board we used. Pretty neat, huh? We love the effect.