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Masqueman Photography

May 02
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Headshot Portraits for an Atlanta Engineering Firm

By corporate photography, Graphic Works, head shots, headshot portraits, Masqueman Photography, portrait photography
Many of my clients are right in my own back yard. This is especially true with an engineering firm that is located just a mile from the studio. This certainly makes the drive shorter.
Every company has preferences for the types of head shot portraits that I shoot for them. I show examples of styles that I have used in the past and ask if they would like any of the styles that they see. This puts us on the same page so that there are no surprises. This corporation chose a gray background style that has a slight gradient. The lighting ratio on the face is fairly close so no heavy shadows here. 
I have made head shot portraits in just about any kind of corporate room you can imagine from a claustrophobic closet to a normal conference room to a gigantic warehouse space. I can set up a portable studio in the space reserved for me… even a front entrance.
I shoot photos tethered to a computer so that I can show the victim, err, I mean subject the images. This usually makes clients happy because they will not be surprised with a photo that they dislike. I can also give contextual feedback that help the subject improve their posture or smile. 
In the end, I provide finished photos at the ratio they need for their web site (4×5 or 4×6) and another 1×1 ratio portrait for social media sites like Linked-In that use square proportions.
 I am always thrilled to work with neighbors and this was no exception.I even got to meet the office mascot who was notoriously shy. One click of the shutter, and this guy bolted.
Apr 25
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Mother and Daughter Photos in Virginia

By family portraits, Masqueman Photography
I have known Susan and her mom, Becky for a very long time… maybe over 30 years. Susan was my sister’s friend and I tried to keep those 2 out of trouble…let’s just leave it at that.  Here is a photo of me and Susan in the 1980s. I had found a wig and was trying to do my best Bon Jovi impression.
Embarrassing? It was not as bad as my early 90’s mullet.
The current Susan is to shown to the below, and I think she has aged pretty well.
I try to get back to Virginia a couple of times a year, and my mother asked me to take portraits of Susan and Becky when I was there. I was glad to do it so we met at a local park that I had not seen before. I never know what a new location will offer so I got there early to find the best spots available. Luckily, there was a grove of trees and covered picnic tables. It would have to do since the rest was soccer fields. You can kinda see the location behind us. The lovely lady next to me is my own Momma.
These were important photos to take because I knew how terrible a year Becky had endured with a cancer diagnosis and painful treatments. These were to celebrate the relationship that mother and daughter have. Even if they want to strangle each other at times, they still love each other greatly.

Becky is a trooper putting up with the stagnant stuffy Virginia heat for our photo session.
Yes, they ladies wanted to show off their cool sunglasses.
 The sun was certainly bright, but nobody melted.

I hope that these photos will bring them memories of good times.
Apr 18
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A Halloween Wedding in the Theme of Pokémon

By costumes, group photography, Halloween, Masqueman Photography, Pokemon, portrait photography, theme wedding, wedding, weddings
I know what you might be thinking? What in the world do costumes, Halloween, a wedding and a popular game named Pokémon have to do with the ceremony of matrimony? My answer is “who cares?”.  I think that people should be able to do whatever floats their boat on their wedding day.

I had to research Pokémon and here is all you need to know from the Pokémon Wiki: “Pokémon is a multi-media franchise that’s owned and developed by the major Japanese games manufacturer, Nintendo. It is second only to the company’s Mario Brothers franchise in terms of profitability — making it the world’s second most lucrative video game franchise. Pokémon gets its fan base hooked on creature collection — to complete what’s called the Pokédex — in order to achieve various goals and to improve their combat abilities. The franchise exists as several video games, a trading card game, televised anime, manga, and theatrical films.”

Pokémon Characters
A corporate client of mine asked if I was interested in shooting her son’s wedding and then told me about the theme of the event. I actually looked at the calendar to make sure that April Fool’s Day had not snuck up on me.  She was dead serious though so I told her that I would get back to her with an answer.

You see, I gave up shooting weddings a while back. I tell people that they are like surviving a 10 hour battle without food, water and with dwindling ammunition. My opinion is that wedding photography is some of the most demanding shooting (outside of a war zone). The pressure is high to get the photos and you do not get a second chance. You have to be on your game and stay there. God help you if anything goes wrong like your bride eating a handful of Xanax and washing it down with a couple of bottles of wine. That is a true story and the reason I got out of weddings. No thank you.

Regardless of my self-imposed wedding retirement, this was one of my favorite clients, and she needed a favor. I decided to help her and see what kind of wackiness might transpire given the ingredients that she described to me over the phone.

The location was going to be a driveway at her home and it was going to happen on Halloween day. I have shot weddings in driveways before. It can be a challenge to make it look like the wedding is not happening where you park your cars at night. Luckily, there was a valley of Fall foliage behind the chosen location, which is better than seeing neighbors’ houses.

The other issue was the time of day. It was going to be at 1 o’clock when the sun can potentially be harsh and unflattering causing deep shadows and contrasty images. Of course, there are ways to counteract this, but it gets more difficult in a fluid situation and a wedding party of 14 people. On the day of the event, the wedding gods blessed me with diffused cloud cover, which is like using a giant overhead soft box… in layman terms, perfect lighting for weddings.

We decided to make the group photos before the event to get them out of the way. I think this is great because it is time to party after the ceremony. I generally don’t think guests like waiting around while the wedding party is being photographed so this solves that issue immediately.

Here are the ladies. I should point out that the clothes they wore were “inspired by Pokémon”, not actual character costumes. This is provides more variety and room for personalization than the matching uniforms that many wedding parties wear. 

Here are the men. These guys cracked me up. The big hands are obvious but did you notice the medieval style cod piece? It’s there and I cannot show the other photos… ha ha.

I used my trusty Einstein flashes and a giant umbrella to push fill light into the portraits. Technically, I was shooting into the sun so I was lighting the shadows to make them more even with the lighter background.

 The setting was a tiny nook in the front yard. I tried to create the illusion that we were  not surrounded by houses and cars. I am not showing the other groups I photographed, but there were many.

The procession to the ceremony was a great time to grab less formal photos of the wedding party.

The flower girl was dressed as Pikachu, the most famous Pokémon character.

The ceremony was short and sweet. The couple read a passage from a favorite book that was beautiful. It was all over in a flash.

Afterwards, guests moved inside for cake and food. If the front yard was tight, inside was even tighter once  each room was filled wall to wall with people.
I grabbed the couple for a few more outdoor photos when they were not tending to their guests. These ended up being my favorite photos.

Because they were in untraditional wedding attire, I approached their portraits as character studies.

That took the portraits out of the context of a wedding and to me become more mysterious. 

They defy explanation and I like that about them. The world needs more mystery in it and I hope people wonder “what is the story here?”

I enjoyed meeting the wedding couple and their friends. They were some of the coolest young people that I have met who marched to the beat of their own drums. That individuality in itself should be  celebrated in our homogenized world. This is one wedding that the participants nor I will forget.

And, just to see how many themes we could stuff into one wedding, we got light saber photos. This ended up being the coolest theme wedding that I have shot to date. I wish Harry and Devon a long happy life together.
Apr 04
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Photographing an Amazing 3 Story Tall Lobby Sculpture

By abstract art, architecture, artists, Masqueman Photography, Sculpture
In my opinion, most artwork is better seen with one’s own eyes, especially 3-dimensional sculptures. Photographs may not do the original justice since the nature of a photo is to turn the 3-dimensional object into a 2-dimensional “flat” abstraction.
The choices that a photographer makes when capturing the sculpture (such as viewing angle) are “baked into the photograph”. The viewer can only interpret what the photographer chose to show. Enjoying sculptures in person with our own senses, making our own visual discoveries and forming our own opinions will always be the best way to enjoy this type of artwork (at least until virtual reality is indistinguishable from the real world).
On the other hand, photography can be used to enhance sculptures by creating a version of the artwork that is not possible to see in person. A photographer documenting sculptures always takes a risk of adding a layer of his own aesthetic that may not be in line with what the creator of the artwork intended.
This concern was in the back of my mind when I was asked to photograph an amazing art installation in a client’s lobby. The artwork is permanently attached to the building via a massive hanging system tied into a skylight. I have no idea whether the artist designed it just for the space or if it is something that she has done in other locations.
A client installed this wire and mirrored hexagon sculpture that descends from their skylight three stories above down to the first floor entrance.
The hexagons are suspended at regular intervals creating planes of color and pattern in all directions.
Less than half of the installation is shown in the image below. It fits into the spiral staircase perfectly.
By using flashes, I was able to control the mood of the photo. While my photos make it looks like dusk outside, it was really midday. I could also control the direction of projected shadows adding another layer of dimension to the work. The regular office lighting does not have this effect.
This is simply beautiful.
One of my favorite views was looking up at the links of disks. I did not see a single repeated design.
The view from the top of the staircase reveals reflections of color patterns since all the tiles are mirrored on top. It is similar to looking through a giant shifting kaleidoscope.
I took advantage of the spiral staircase to frame the amazing installation. I imagined some sort of futuristic warp drive in action as I looked at the suspended facets of color.
I believe that the impact of the sculpture is stronger because of where it was installed.
The top of the sculpture seems to come to a point, though this is just an illusion created by the staggered starting points of the hexagon columns.
The red wires play their own part bringing streaks of color into negative spaces around the tiles.
A slight change in perspective shows the fit into the architecture.
By sharing so many views, I am trying to show that this sculpture will offer infinite pleasure and a new experience each time it is encountered.
The sculpture can appear solid or airy depending on whether you are viewing the edges or the tops and bottoms of the hexagons. I would love to have something this cool in my dream home.
I do have one question though… how do you dust something like this?
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UPDATE: ABOUT THE ARTIST
Pae White is a multimedia artist known for reinterpreting familiar encounters and ordinary items—like animals, books, advertisements, shopping bags, and plants—and revealing what she calls the “artfulness” of the natural and the everyday. She employs ornate craftsmanship along with inventive materials to create objects and installations that transcend traditional boundaries between art and design. Learn more about Pae White here.
Mar 28
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Matching the Portrait Style of Another Photographer a Continent Away

By Andrew Hughes, corporate photography, Graphic Works, Masqueman Photography, portrait photography
Photographers often dissect each other’s work to see how a photograph is made. We look for subtle tell-tale signs that show the environment and the light sources for the scene. Trying to recreate another photographer’s style can be very difficult, especially without all the facts. That is what I was asked to do when I was hired to shoot some pickup portraits.
I was tasked to photograph a few of the local Atlanta employees and match the style of the South American office portraits that were already completed. I have the utmost respect for the photographer who took the photos that I was supposed to match. This guy was good and had a wonderful look to his shots. Unfortunately, I do not know this gifted shooter’s name, but his work can be seen in the three photos below.

I was tasked to match these wonderful portraits from another photographer
Try as I might, I could not recreate the scene in the very small office I was given to work in. I got the results below “after the fact” with some photoshop. It was the only way I could do it.
I took the portraits on a white background so that I could composite a background into the scene. The background was pieced together from several of the source photos plus some illustration to extend the blinds.

Later on, the client share a very important clue about the original portraits. A behind the scenes picture revealed the extent of the original photographer’s portrait setup inside an office made of frosted glass. The photographer used the large glass wall as a humongous diffuser. Brilliant!
There was zero chance of me using the same techniques in the space I was given, but it all worked out regardless. Whew!
Mar 26
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Photographing a Wild In-Home Discotheque for an Audio Visual Company in Atlanta

By architecture, interior photography, Masqueman Photography, Performance AV
I was asked to take photos for a prominent Audio and Visual installation company working in the Atlanta area named Performance Audio and Video. The photographs were needed for an online industry article written about PAV.

If you are the type of person who gets excited about home automation and advanced control of the distributed A/V, heating, lighting, security and window blind components in your house, then you should consider giving them a call. All the information you need is located at www.pavatlanta.com, which is a web site I completed for them last year.

I got a glimpse into what PAV does by taking photos of various installations in a recently renovated mansion in north Atlanta. At first, this may just look like a regular living room. The great thing about the home automation products is that they work in the background, and are accessed using television screens, iPads, iPhones and wall control panels. You may never even know that they are there, until you need them.

The photograph was tricky because I was mixing several different colored light sources with my large  flashes. The room was tight and enclosed with rough hewn divider walls, which essentially determined my choice for viewpoint. Below you can see a little behind-the-scenes of the flashes.  
The other shot needed was for the daddy of all outdoor porches. There are a lot of hidden details here so I am going to mention a few. Along with inline heater units, there are speakers faux-painted to match the wood used in the ceiling. You can barely even see them even a few feet away. There is an outdoor television and fully automated floor to ceiling screens that close the porch off from Atlanta’s famous mosquitoes. We lowered the screens to act darkness the brighter outside yard. They acted like neutral density filters allowing me to make the photograph in one shot.

Normally, several images might need to be composited together since the exposure of the darker porch and the lighter yard is beyond the latitude of my camera’s sensor. I used a couple of flashes the light the foreground area. Below is what the camera would see if I just clicked the shutter.
Behind-the-Scenes: How the camera would see the terrace without my flashes
The last room was quite a challenge. Try to make a photograph of an in-home discotheque that has black walls, a fiber optic star ceiling, mirrored dance floor, DJ booth, VIP couch and a professional level of booming sound, lights, lasers and smoke machine. I had my work cut out for me as you can see in the disco video here.

Play the video

This disco is intimate and everything can be seen in the wall mirrors. Using a wide angle lens meant that it was difficult to hide my light stands, the camera on a tripod and myself.  Smoke allowed the laser spots and lights to be seen. I might have breathed in a quart of the oil based smoke. Delicious!

If I cannot light something directly, then lighting the space behind it works even better. I added a remote flash that was gelled with pink behind the DJ booth. This gave a focal point to the room.

I asked Jason Caponi of PAV to program the disco lights to slow down and stay in one spot for as long as possible. This was needed because the long exposure combined with the constantly moving lights rendered the colors that you see in the image above practically invisible to the camera sensor. It was quite a balancing act and I am glad that I was able to get something before our time ran out.
Mar 21
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Shooting a Variety of Male Portraits with Ronald was Like a Walk in the Park

By Andrew Hughes, Atlanta, male portrait, Masqueman Photography, Piedmont Park, portrait photography
I enjoy making portraits both in and out of the studio, but when Atlanta is in the full “bloom” of Fall, it pays to head outside and take advantage of the beautiful foliage, crisp morning air and lovely vistas.

I was contacted by Ronald to make a variety of photos for social media, business and personal use. We decided to meet in Piedmont Park and take advantage of the weather which was darn near perfect. My plan was to go with the flow and take as many different styles of photos as we could fit into our session. This was more informal than many portrait sessions that have a specific shot list in mind. I kinda like the looseness of it.

On the way to the park, I noticed an irresistible stairway that was being lit with sunlight bouncing off of a building across the street. That was our first stop.
I like to surround my subjects with framing elements like these defocused leaves.

Ronald wanted formal and informal photos so we shot in wearing just about everything he had in his wardrobe bag, including a snazzy tuxedo.

Once in the park, I used repeating architectural elements as a background. Something about columns and well-dressed people just go together. I call this pose “the knuckle sandwich”.

The columns were attached to arches which make a perfect framing device.

And one more…

Changing the direction with me shooting from inside the building creates a whole new scene. I liked the canine passerby.

The sun was blaring bright by now but there was still some haze to diffuse it a bit… a very little bit.

Shooting with the sun to the subject’s back makes a great rim light. Even shooting in harsh lighting conditions can produce good images, but it was challenging. Even the ivy and dead leaves were like little white mirrors pointing sunlight into my eyes.

A quiet moment and rest from the sun glare.
A quick swap of clothing and location in the park changed the feel of the portraits. I like to use natural landscapes to my advantage. Here, the hill was hiding a playground full of children.

I like the structure of the cement background and even the very intense contrast. It’s okay to try different techniques in one photo session because it gives more variety to the client.
We took a break in the shade which allowed me to capture backlit color on the bushes and trees.

To shoot Ronald in front of the Atlanta skyline, I used the only source of shade available, which was a monument. He is literally standing on a shade sliver.

Locals know where this scene is, but to everyone else, it might look like a metropolis anywhere. This image just used available light.

To increase contrast, I used a flash to camera right, which is opposite of the background’s light angle. I wonder how many people might have noticed this? It was the best way to control the light on his face. Regardless, I got the shot that I wanted.

And here is the setup I used…a single naked fill flash balanced with ambient light.
I am not sure who had more fun on this photo safari, but it was a wonderful adventure. Thanks Ronald!
Oct 25
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Turning Test Shots Into Portraits

By Carol Hughes, family portraits, Kelli McFerrin, Masqueman Photography, portaits, Tyler Loper, Virginia Beach
When I traveled back to Virginia I ended up in a city park to take photos of a childhood friend and her mother, but this blog is not about that photo session. Instead I am writing about the test shots that came before the actual session. I will often show up to a new location in advance and try a few different vistas. lighting scenarios or lenses.
My mother, sister and nephew were with me so I was able to use them as guinea pigs. There are cases where I have had to photograph myself in various spots but that is much more difficult to do with a remote control and tripod. My sister is a few years older than me, but that did not stop her from scampering up a tree. She was pretty high up there. I thought about throwing her a banana. Her son, Tyler soon joined her.
I had several cameras with me and believe or not, my pocket camera had a faster frame-per-second rate so I used it to snap Tyler jumping out of the tree.
I was keen to check my 70-200 lens since I thought that there might be a focusing issue. 
I created tight portraits and checked the eyes to confirm that the lens is tack sharp.

Though reluctant, Tyler did allow me to move him to different settings and snap away.
This kid is getting taller by the minute.

Lastly, my Mom who is more difficult to photograph than Bigfoot, sat still for a 1/2 second… just long enough to steal a single frame. I already know that she will hate it, but I don’t. This is how I think of my Mom… surrounded by light.
Soon the real subjects showed up and the job began, but having help developing my modus operandi was excellent.
Sep 27
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Family and Baby Portrait Session Moved Inside Due to Rain

By Andrew Hughes, child phtotography, family portraits, Jason Caponi, Masqueman Photography, Studio
It’s been another year and it was time to update the Caponi family photos. The kids are growing up fast so it is important to catch them before they become teenagers. Outside was rainy and gross so we moved the photoshoot inside for different styles of portraits.
Little Michael is a beautiful bouncing baby boy. Look at those huge eye and reddish-blonde hair!
Michael’s grandparents are from the Gulf Shores so the shirt is a nod to them. He is already standing, and at the current rate of growth, he will probably be running his first half-marathon next year.

Jason is a wonderful Dad, but you can see that he literally has his hands full.

Just the boys of the family pose for portrait.

Alessandra is such a beautiful little lady. Here are two similar photos. I just changed the background and modified the poses to provide more choices for the parents. 

Look at that smile with all her front teeth which is not always the case with kids her age.

Alessandra had been taking tap lessons so we wanted a photo of her outfit before she outgrows it.

Here she is showing off a very special gift that her Nonna gave her. Nona was her grandmother who absolutely adored her. I have rarely seen such a close connection between 2 people of different generations. You can read more about Nonna here.

I think she is a natural in front of the camera.

Here she is wearing her Sunday dress. I’m just crazy about this little girl.

And here she is monkeying around for the camera.

Baby Michael has so many expressions and most of them hilarious. His smile lights up the room and would melt even the most Scrooge-like grump.

Another portrait of the men of the house. I like to make comparison photos when kids are so small. Here you can see that Michael’s feet are not even as big as one of Dad’s fingers.
A revealing “behind-the-scenes” look shows that the photo shoot was a group effort. Even big sis was helping Michael find his smile. Mom was over my shoulder making all kinds of funny sounds to get the kids’ attention. Considering that shooting indoors was PLAN B, everything worked out fine.
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