Artist Statement

Living in a big city with my parents and siblings I had a great childhood. After graduating high school, I enrolled in a pre-nursing program. While taking my science courses, I tried out many different art electives, from computer graphics and painting to my passion which is photography. Nothing in my past and present life would have suggested the creation of BloodCrave Photography.

Since nursing was no longer in my future, I transferred schools and started working toward my BA in Photography. When heading out into the field to photograph nature and children on the side, I was assigned an interesting essay. My professor suggested that we all research and write an essay featuring five new photography genres we were unaware of. It really intrigued me to see a few photographers using toys and dolls as their main subjects. I was captivated by how dolls can hold a pose for days, will not run late for a photo-shoot and are cost effective. I had to try photographing dolls.

The dolls turned out to be a real success; I loved what I was doing. In a later class I was brainstorming some ideas for a big projects I had coming up. I had so many happy ideas with positive endings, but when I shared the ideas with my professor he said: “ All of your ideas are good but, I’ve noticed that you make real art when you add blood and death.” From this day forward, I started exploring the darker side of my imagination. He was right.

I do not consider myself a creepy person although my art suggest it to others. I am a fun loving person who enjoys educating children of all abilities. Art is just an extension of my imagination taken to a whole new level and captured in one frame. I hope you enjoy my work as much as I have creating it for you.

3 Tips for Shooting in Water Through Glass

As you all know, my upcoming project will be shot in a water setting. I have a large glass tank to hold the water and this can be really trick. If you have tired shooting a glass of wine, you know how annoying the light reflection can be. Here are some tips I have been experimenting with in my studio and yes they have worked.

1. Have the lights in the back of the glass. This may sound storage, but if you place the lights in the back of the glass, you are illuminating your setting without any of the actual light being in the way of the photo shoot. One tip you should make sure is the lights are not facing your lens. You do not want a glare
   
   
2. If shooting from behind is not an option, this can be due to objects in the way, light from above. You can always choose to place a light above the main object and have it reflect down. This creates a really nice effect in water.
   
   
3. If you are really tech savvy, you can get waterproof lights and hide them in the water. For example I will be using gravel, I can hide the lights in the gravel and have only the rays peeking through. 

No matter the effect you are trying to create, photographing through glass can be really tricky. Both glass and water does strange things to light so make sure to leave lots of time to experiment.

Have you ever shot through water or glass? What was your experience like?

Music Series

Well after all of these long weeks of photographing, my musical series has finally come to an end. It has been a wonderful experience seeing how a fun concert can become so deadly.

Getting Ready

Performing Together

Death Metal

Rock n' Roll

Oh boy. What a way to end a wonderful night. It looks like music really has a way of getting to you.

It looks like I am back to the drawing board for my next photoshoot. My girls are home this week due to the holidays so I will be back next Monday.

What do you think of my music series?

Final Dressing Room Shot

After much hard work, I finally have the final shot. Yay.

As you can see everyone is so busy getting ready. The girls are doing their final touches making sure their hair is all ready. The producer is talking to some of the other staff members making sure there will be no issues on set and the tech guy is in the back double checking all the settings on his camera. Looks all good to go.

I will be back on Monday with a very special post. I cannot wait to see you all there.

Touching Up

As this is the final dressing room shot, everyone is really busy doing what they need before the perforce that ends it all.

Producer

Well everyone except the producer. I guess she is taking some time to relax before opening night. I guess she has put so much time and effort, a two second breather never hurt anyone.

Tech Guy

This is where he comes into shine. He has to make sure everything will be working smoothly from the microphones to the video camera and sound effects. I hope he did a good job.

As for the girls, well their voices are all warmed up and now they need to make sure they are visually pleasing.

Death Metal

While there is not much to the death metal besides the goth clothing, she wanted to add a bit of bounce to her bangs. I do not blame her. She has a little wavy hair and some extra bounce will just make the concert all the more fun.

Rock n' Roll

Talk about bounce, here we have it all. With the upbeat music that Rock n' Roll provided, my little model is actually touching up her hair a bit to tone it down. A bit of hair spray on a brush might do the trick. Big hair big personality.

This concert is going to be amazing. I cannot wait to show you a behind the scene shot on Monday.

Final Date Set

So far so good. Everything is running according to schedule. The dressing room look amazing and the girls are happy. I am so happy to finally announce to all of you a final shoot date. I feel like this is well overdue.

I will be revealing my final image on Monday March 30th.

I would like to thank the help of my tech guy and producer for helping me come up with this date. They were the ones who really helped get everything moving.

Finalizing Shoot

As you can see here, they are really deep into conversation making some of the last minute arrangements. They were working on the studio as I was adjusting the lighting. They are great.

I will be back Thursday with some of sneak peaks and updates.

Letting the Models In

Now that I had my setup, more or less, I let my music crew come in. It was cute to see them. At first they were all excited for the upcoming photo-shoot, but then they got down to business.

As you can see they are taking care of themselves. They want to know who will be doing what and how it will be arranged.

I told them to calm down because they are doing a dressing room shot. It is basically all about putting on makeup and making sure the last of the tech is arranged. Not to much to worry about. It is more in the details.

They are okay now and we will be heavily shooting to get this next final shot. I will announce my final shot date next week. It really depends on how well my shooting goes over the weekend. I am really looking forward to this.