DVD Booklet/Cover: Steph Fernandez [Cotillion]

I added a pic to my twitter showing what I was working on and had two mentions from friends regarding it. I figured I'd make a post to show what I include in the events I do--a custom DVD booklet containing several images from their event [all edited and all] to show a brief summary of the event in about 7-8 images.

All is hand made--printed, trimmed, and secured by twine.


Spread 1
Spread 2
Spread 3: My favorite part of the booklet--a "mini-panorama" using one pic across two pages.

Backside: The "party" shot.

The DVD is imprinted with an image of the celebrant.


The DVD and booklet are enclosed with a personal letter printed on grid paper [matching the busines card].

I give my thank yous and sign off.

Thanks to those [Twitter] mentions that made me want to show the final product! =D

KSE: Community Arts Workshop: Photography Workshop by jC Photography

This Thursday, August 6, 2009 and next Thursday, August 13, I will be presenting a Photography workshop alongside Kalayaan School of Equity. This is all under Liwinag Kultural Center based in Daly City, an organization dedicated to meet the educational needs of the Filipino community.

It is a two-part workshop covering photography basics. The first part will focusing on the bare essentials including aperture, shutter, iso, the "Golden Rule." The second part will focus on portraiture and lighting--a step-up from the first workshop.

Both workshops are from 7pm to 9:30pm and will offer plenty of time for questions and chatting with myself and others.

If you're interested, please email and register. It is FREE so come out and support! I will also be raffling two prizes: the first night I will be raffling my book, a photo project completed in the beginning of 2008 entitled Nonage. The second prize I will be raffling is a DVD of Annie Leibovitz, one of one favorite photographers in which it goes behind the picture and focuses on the living legend photographer.

Details:

BASICS
August 6, 2009
7-9:30pm
Liwanag Kultural Center
222 Lausanne, Daly City 94014

PORTRAIT & LIGHTING
August 13, 2009
7-9:30pm
Liwanag Kultural Center
222 Lausanne, Daly City 94014

Cotillion: Stephanie @ Sheraton Hotel (Burlingame, CA) [07/31/2009]

[EDIT: Please click photos for full view of photo as I thought I edited to fit width of blog. Plus, this is published at about 1:30am. Have mercy!]

The big day came for Steph and I was definitely looking forward to it after photographing her for her guestbook sign in. Her fun personality made photographing her easy and for her cotillion (18th Birthday), with the help of her entourage and family and friends around, made it all fun for me and my girlfriend/assistant for the evening to photograph.
All dressed and ready for the big night of celebration ahead of her.

Taken at the lobby of Sheraton Hotel in Burlingame. I told them all "Fellas, think GQ...and ladies, yall look good already!" to try and get a casual relaxing pic.

Steph's Entourage.

...and now all sillied.

Steph's cake was pretty enormous and definitely had one of the best toppers I've seen in awhile. I believe it fit her dress and theme for the party accordingly.

Steph had two escorts in which her original escort, my friend and former high school schoolmate and now schoolmate at USF, John on the right was injured and couldn't dance for the Entourage's numbers.

One of my favorite pics of the night.

Photo by: Cherrymae Jumoc

My girlfriend assisted me and when I didn't have her hold my "light stick" [seriously, that's what I refer it to...] I had her take photos using available light.

Father daughter dance.

Photo by: Cherrymae Jumoc

As a surprise, the Entourage gave Steph a nice framed collage of them with hand written notes and pictures.

The Waltz. One of my favorite photos as well...

A request of Steph was to have all the attendees gather around as she blew the candles from her cake.

If you can see from here, this is a cake!

And when she requested all her attendees gather around her, they did.

The last dance from the Entourage was of them doing a 1920's inspired dance with the fellas sporting the suspenders and hats. Creative choreography sure got the crowd cheering with the big jumps and stunts from this Entourage.

Steph's personality was definitely on the dance floor as she tore it up the rest of the night with her friends and family.

I'd say Steph definitely got her parents' loose attitude... I'm sure they all had a very good time for their daughter's 18th birthday.

Photo by Cherrymae Jumoc

I interrupt Steph from her dancing to take a quick shot of us together as I call it a night.

Thanks again Steph [and family] for choosing me to photograph your event!!!

Concept: DJ Zita "DJ HD"

These series of conceptual drawings are for DJ Zita as we've been trying to work on a concept over the summer and hopefully will execute it at the end of this summer.

The photoshoot I have in mind is inspired by the high end fashion ads/photos in magazines that I subscribe to [Interview, Vanity Fair, Elle, to name some..] and hopefully I will be able to work together with other creatives on executing the makeup, hair, and ward robe.

I envision this photoshoot to be an interpretation of a female DJ set in fashion. Currently this project is entitled "DJ HD"--high definition--for every part of these images will be of great detail.


After seeing an ad for perfume [I believe], it was a simple head-on shot of a model with her hand over her head. For DJ Zita, the twist is to implement DJ elements and for this case I see a vinyl being used.


This one is the one I'm already envisioning to be a real good photo. It will be a profile shot of DJ Zita and covering her eyes is her pair of headphones.

Plays in with the whole "seeing the music" aspect of DJ-ing.

Inspired by ads that showcase beautiful models and handbags, this will simply be her holding her headphones.

I have a lot of ideas for this, involving the turntables, speakers, and even cassette tapes! haha

In short, I definitely want to answer "What if DJing was implemented in fashion?"

--
All images were concetualized and drawn by JJ Casas.

My cat is on a leash

Edit: This is the first time I'm uploading a pic from an iPhone on the T-Mobile network without internet--so this is from a wifi upload.

But this is a pic of my and my cat Iso in which I've placed him on a leash so we can someday stroll in the park. So far I have to coax him to the backyard with some food so it does defeat the purpose of "exercising" if I'm feeding him.

Hopefully, he'll like to go outside since he doesn't try to escape or struggle or bite the leash [or me for putting it on him].

Photoshoot: Cher [07/16/09] @ "Sunset Studio" [Edited Images]

Photoshoot Details:
Photographer: JJ Casas
Model: Cherrymae
Make Up: Karen Wan


Smile! This shoot was for my girlfriend whom I asked if I can photograph her in order to improve my folio. I had my friend Karen do the make up and she did a terrific job on interpreting on the look I wanted it.

This is one my of favorite stills because throughout the shoot, Cher was getting into the groove of modeling and I was requesting a lot of "smirks" or "half-smiles" aka seriouso poses. So when this shot broke out, it was definitely out of the mold.


If you didn't see the previous post, I posted up my set up but in general, it's 2 lights--one for the main and one for the background.

As for the poses, Cher took some cues form my [favorite] magazine Interview. We looked through some of the ads and found a few that we liked and tried.

This is image is about... 99% complete... because I could place her on a full white background but thought including the background grounded the image that it isn't some ad or high end stuff.

Beauty shot to show Karen's make up work.

Another beauty shot.

One of my favorite aspects of portraiture isn't taking pictures of people against solid backgrounds but instead including the background that is familiar to them. This was taken in her kitchen if you haven't guessed already.

Another shot in the kitch.

Her dog Skippy wanted to be in the picture too and this made it more fun to shoot a mini series on her dining table.

As usual, saving my personal best image of the day, is this one right here. I love how there's so many elements [or distractions] in the image but Cher totally killed the shot. Even the cuteness of Skippy with his bone doesn't detract from the image.

Note to self: Use hair moving more often.

Thank you again to Karen for the make up and my girlfriend Cher for posing [and spending the 10:30am - 2:20pm time for the shoot]. =)

Photoshoot: Cher [07/16/09] @ "Sunset Studio"*

Had a photoshoot for my girlfriend for fun [and to also expand my folio. tee hee]. Set up was at her garage and I brought enough to set up this photo below:

A roll of white seamless paper supported by stands [and clamped by my Home Depot A-grips]. Main light was Alien Bees ABR800 with the 56" Moon Unit attached on a boom powered by Vagabond II. Background light was a single Alien Bees 400 set to f/16 since I didn't have room for another light to cross light. And for sure I had my iPod Touch hooked to my JBL portable speakers to keep us all company.


I had my friend Karen help me out with makeup [Check out her blog as linked]. She was also in front of lens not too far back [if you remember this shoot].

We took about 30 minutes or so taking pics with this white background set up but I actually enjoy taking pics more in "natural settings."

Single Alien Bees 400 with umbrella triggered with CyberSync transmiter/receiver. All metered with my Minolta Auto Meter IV [on dining table].

As usual, I take pictures with the people who I work with although Karen refused to take a picture. =P

The edited pics will be posted soon. Stay tuned!

*Sunset Studio aka Garage outfitted with equipment.