Firebreather

Sorry I haven't blogged in while. I have been busy with work. No surprise there, but I do have some new photographs to post soon. I'm on vacation right now in the Philippines, and blogging on my food and travel blog. Check it out at http://aflipsnote.blogspot.com and you can also check out my brother's blog http://mark-kari.blogspot.com/.

We're having lots of fun here with our family. Here's a photo for you to see... check out my food and travel blog for more photos and videos.


GZ

Hercules, Hercules!!

This is a late post. Its been crazy the past month. I've been on the go almost non stop. Anyway, at the beginning of August, my friend Jerome asked me if I could do a photo shoot for him for his fitness modeling portfolio. He wanted some head shots and some shots while he's working out. So I met him up at LA Fitness, where he works and took some shots and had a little fun.

I got a background system a while back for a shoot for work. So I figure, since I have it, use it. Its nice to be able to get studio-type shots just about anywhere. Here's how a few of them turned out.

Birthday fun

Well, yesterday I turned 30... yay! ...sarcasm. Aside from leaving my 20's behind, it was a pretty fun day. Usually I'll go out and party and such, but tis time around I decided that I would tone it down and just relax and spend time with family. Oddly enough, dad and my brother had to work, my mom left for Las Vegas, and my twin sister is in Florida. By the way, this is the sad part, this is the first birthday that my sister and I have been apart. That's a 29 year streak, broken! Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually, and there's always next year. Miss you Mina!!

Anyway, so that said, I hung out with the Mark, my Godson, his little brother Lui, and Sig Sauer Zamora. Yes, he's a Maltese. My brother got him a couple of Friendsgivings ago. He named Sig after his favorite brand of guns. Sig is kind of a sissy dog, but he's cute and has a tough name.

We had a lot planned for my birthday, playing arcades, eating all sorts of stuff, but instead they came with me to a photo shoot I had to do for work, and hung out with me while I processed the images and uploaded it to my boss so she could work on it. In retrospect, it would have been alot faster if I went in to the office and just handed them to my boss when I finished, but that would have defeated the purpose of being on vacation. Anyway, I did get a few shots of Mark, Lui, and Sig before we headed off to my photo shoot.

I got a background system a few weeks ago with a white and black muslin backdrops, which I have been using alot lately. Its fun and makes a great portable studio. Mark had asked me to take his graduation photos since he never got them done when he graduated high school last year, and I was happy to oblige...


While he had everything set up, I figured it would be great to get shots of every one. Here's Siggy's set.




And even though I'm against anything OU(sucks), I let Lui wear his jersey for the photos. By the way, thanks Kari, if you are reading this, for enabling. You're an enabler!!! Get him something awesome next time. Maybe something with a Longhorn on it. lol just kidding!!!




Of course, Mark being Mark. Silly. Just silly.




Anyway, over all I think the photos turned out well. They are well lit in my opinion. I think I'm really starting to get used to getting the lighting just right when I'm using my lights. I did buy a 5 foot reflector to bounce around light with. That was set up on the opposite side of the frame. The main light was to their left and the reflector was to their right.

GZ

Worth waiting for

I didn't take this image, hence there's no watermark, but I just wanted to share. This was taken a couple of weeks ago during one of our happy hours. These are the wonderful people whom I work with—the staff at CURE Magazine. The best staff ever.


These are by far the most passionate group of people when it comes to doing their job that I have worked with. Informing people about the latest in the world of cancer isn't just a job for us, its a way of life.

I know, for a lot of people, there are days when they don't want to wake up to go to work. I know I used to be that way, but when you truly enjoy your job, there's less of that. Working on CURE is one of the blessings in my life. Its not just getting to design, going on photo shoots, and making videos. It's getting to do something meaningful, producing something that affects other people, something people clamor for, and something that might change a person's way of thinking about his or her cancer experience is such a wonderful thing to experience. It's something that is worth waking up for. A meaning in life. We do this at CURE on a daily basis, and that is a blessing. Sharing that experience with the folks above in the photo is just icing on the cake.

Each one of us has our own cancer story (or stories for a few) that motivates us to do what we do. A story that we remind ourselves each day when we start our work. The story of the people who we do this for—the people we love who have experienced a bout with cancer, the people we lost, the people who read our magazine. For a couple of the staff, its a personal thing. Two of them are cancer survivors, and one of them going through a recurrence. For me, she's the one who is motivating me to do the best job I can.

Its kind of funny when I think about where I was almost 4 years ago. When I was an unemployed 26 yr old. Two years out of college, trying my hardest to find a job, with little or no luck. Then came an email, which I first I thought was spam, that changed my life. I was fed up with interviews that led to nowhere. So quite honestly, I didn't even try that hard. I started a few weeks later, laying out medical journals about cancer. Then a year later, a position opened up at CURE, so I thought I'd apply. I ended up getting the job and starting what I would consider the best job I have ever had.

I consider myself blessed for this experience. As you can see, there's only a handful of us that work at CURE, producing the actual magazine–not including all the amazing freelance writers and photographers and illustrators we use that make the content one of a kind. We are like a big family, and that's something you won't find in an everyday work place. I don't mean to brag, but its pretty amazing. Seriously the best staff ever.

GZ

I'm baaack!!!! =)

Alrighty then, I can finally start blogging and updating this thing again. I'm so excited! Lots of things have been going on since the last post. The first big, and mos recent, thing is that I got a new computer. My old mac wasn't cutting it anymore. Although I loved the thing, I have owned it for 10 years and it was time for an upgrade. After years of saving, I finally bought a 15" Mac Book Pro. Now I can keep working anywhere. My turn around time for photos should decrease, since I can practically do a shoot, go to a coffee shop (or bar), edit, and publish right away.

Work has been good also. I'm getting to do a lot of things I love doing, including videography and film editing. I recently went to Austin, TX to do a video interview with the help of a very dear friend, Jason. I'll be editing that down to a few minutes then post it for a website we are working on at CURE. Also, I have been cleared to post the photos I take for CURE. My awesome boss told me that since we let the other photographers post their images before the magazine is published, why not me? Did I mention I love my boss yet?? =) So expect those to come in the next few days.

Anyway, work has been very rewarding, but I have been missing doing what I like doing afterwords and this new computer is going to allow me to do just that on the fly.

Another thing is that I'll be going back home to the Philippines with my dad and my brother in October. We'll be there for 2 weeks. I was dreading the 18 hour flight to Korea, but with the new Mac, now I'm looking forward to it. Gotta get a cool video game and see if I can finish it before we reach Korea lol. Anyway, I plan on blogging and vlogging my entire trip. I will be acquiring a Kodak Zi8 very soon to start taping the events in my life. It will help me get faster with video editing. So when I start getting bigger video projects, it won't take me no time at all to edit and finish a project.

So, new things coming up:
1) A new website for GZamora Photographie (a customized website showcasing my best photos... a portfolio if you will, and also, a place for future clients to order prints and items online)

2) Vlogs (video blogs to post here, or maybe a youtube channel, who knows? I feel like a new kid in a big playground.)

3) More blog updates

4) More photos

There are a ton of things I will be doing in the future. It won't happen overnight, but they'll get there.

GZ

Slacker...

Yes, I have been slacking. Honestly, I have been shooting but for work rather than for me. So I really can't post anything here because I don't own the images, not until they've been published anyway, but I can talk about them.

One of the people I photographed is a lady who is living with liver cancer. She was diagnosed 10 years ago, and at the time of her diagnosis, she was told by her oncologists that she only had months to live. So she set out to live the life she always wanted and cross things off her bucket list. Moved out to the country, got some horses, and spent time with her husband and 2 daughters. She's now an advocate for metastatic liver cancer patients, giving them hope and making them realize that there are options and that one should never lose hope.

The other assignment I have, is ongoing, since last year. I have been in contact with a family who recently had gave birth to their second child. While they were pregnant, one of their check ups resulted in a diagnosis that they son had cancer, while still in the womb. The dad is a writer for the Associated Press, and wanted to chronicle the experience and share it with the cancer community so he figured the magazine I work for would be the perfect vehicle for that. So I have been meeting up with them on their check ups, family gatherings and such so I can take photos of them and their son. He's such a cute little kid, now 7 months old.

Anyway, I have tons of photos to post from shows and bands I've shot recently also. But right now, work has taken over my time. I'll get to them eventually, when I can finally breathe.

GZ

Mara Conflict 2: We found the singer!

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you guys to Mara Conflict. My friends' (Ben and Dylan) rock band, and man do they rock! I went out there to shoot photos of them practicing and maybe some band shots, but unfortunately, the singer wasn't able to make it to practice. So I went back last week to listen to them play and shoot more photos. This time around the singer was able to make it, and we were able to get them some group shots.

The last time I had three lights set up, which worked well, but the hard light was a bit too much on some shots. So I took one of the lights and turned it around and shot it into an umbrella at 1/2 power to be able to reflect some softer light, and it worked out pretty well. It made the light source bigger and the light seemed softer coming from that light. It lit the room a lot nicer, I think.

Here's how they turned out...

Here's the lead singer, Josh, doing his thing.


Dylan on drums and Jared on guitars. The light that had the umbrella is to Dylan's left.




Note to self: when photographing a band, specially the drummer, stay away from the crash cymbals! I was underneath Dylan's crash cymbal when I took this shot. Moments after this shot he started banging on the cymbal profusely. My ears rang the ENTIRE night!



The place they practice at is pretty sweet. It's what I would call a "band haven." Kinda like a storage building, but instead of storing miscellaneous stuff in it, you put a drum set a few monitors, guitar and bass amps, maybe a couch, fridge, coffee table... maybe hang some pieces of carpet on the wall to sound proof, some posters of your favorite bands and musicians, and you've got a pretty sweet pad to play in ... as loud as you want to! Some of the rooms they rent out hourly to other musicians who just needs a place to practice every once in a while. This one was blacked out with black carpet and paint on 3 walls and the floor. The ceiling was white and the other wall had mirrors. So I was able to reflect some light into the ceiling and mirrors to brighten up the room better. Kind of a nice place to take group shots in.



For this shot, I placed 2 bare flashes on their right and left side and one light in front of them for a fill light. I like this effect. =)


Some solo shots, same set up. This is Ben.


Charlie.


Josh.


Dylan.


Jared.


We took a stroll outside the building, which is located in an industrial area of Dallas. And took more group shots.


Surprisingly enough, the vignetting you see here is an accident. That was created by the flashes not spilling light into the darker areas. Its almost like a spotlight.



Note to self: If you are ever going to take group shots outside, avoid cars. I was laying on the ground for some of these shots. A few cars came by and almost ran my equipment over ... and me. =\



These were shot with my 20D with the 55-250mm f.4-5.6 IS.






These guys rock pretty hard and I enjoyed shooting their practice sessions. I can get used to having a private concert while I'm photographing. =) They're playing Ridgley Theater in Ft Worth this Friday. Can't wait to see them live in front of a crowd!

GZ