Boston Harbor Hotel Panorama

Boston Harbor Hotel
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

The Boston Harbor Hotel was lit up as part of the lighting event, Illuminale Boston 2008.

To see this image rotate in 360-degrees, visit http://panospin.com/projects/illuminaleboston08/

Ailene & Steve

Ailene & Steve
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

Today, I worked with two very professional models at my studio in Lowell. When I asked the two of them to pretend to be partners, they stepped right into the role without hesitation. Judging by the pictures, you wouldn't be wrong to think they were partners.

Mount Chocorua, New Hampshire

Mount Chocorua, New Hampshire
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

It's that time of year around here in New England when all the leaf peepers head up north to see the gorgeous color changes. This photo is stitched together from 22 images.

Joe McNally Lighting Workshop

View the above image in rotating 360°

Joe McNally Lighting Workshop
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

Joe McNally, photojournalist and lighting expert, came to the Boston area to deliver a seminar/workshop to the Commercial Industrial Photographers of New England. The photo above is a 360° panoramic stitched image of Joe demonstrating how to light the model. This is the equirectangular projection 2:1 ratio. To see this in full 360° rotation, visit my virtual tour page of this image.

I'm sure that like me, you'll want to purchase some of the cool gear you see all around in the image. Be sure to give Mark Astmann, Product Manager at Bogen Imaging, a call (201.818.9500) or Email Mark, and he'll hook you up with the right stuff.

Joe also published his book, The Moment it Clicks, and he generously shares his knowledge about how the photographs were lit and taken.

Award winning photograph

Award winning photograph
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

This photograph and others were taken for Landmark Services, General Contractors Specializing in Renovating and Restoring Historic New England properties. I'm very proud to assist them in winning the Contractor of the Year Award in the category of Best Historic Renovation Project for their renovation of a Greek Revival home in Cambridge. See their blog entry for more details.

Krysta Youngs @ Cuchi Cuchi

Krysta Youngs @ Cuchi Cuchi
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

I had the immense pleasure of photographing the wonderfully musically talented singer songwriter, Krysta Youngs at the very eclectic restaurant, Cuchi Cuchi. Be sure to visit her MySpace page to listen to her music.  If you'd like to see more photos of Krysta, you can find them on her Model Mayhem site.

We arrived at 4 PM and had about an hour to shoot before the restaurant opened for dinner. As typical with many shoots, we needed to move some furniture around and stage the areas a bit, and the staff was extremely accommodating at working around us and setting up tables after we had finished shooting.

If you are in the Cambridge, MA area, please stop by Cuchi Cuchi for a wonderful dinner and to see more of the eclectic decor.

Crosstown Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Crosstown Center
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

The folks over at Jones Lang LaSalle's Boston office are really super cool to work with. On this particular day, it was really windy and there were people walking all around us, which made it more interesting to photograph.

The final rotating panorama can be seen at the project website. The amazingly cool flash programmer, Mike Lok, put the rotating flash animation of the panorama together.

Carlton & Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

Governor & Senator with Artists
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

State Senator Steven Panagiotakos held an art show in his office in the State House. Governor Deval Patrick also stopped by. In the photo above is Carlton and Governor Patrick. In the group photo below, the Governor and Senator are seen with the Lowell artists whose work was on display. I'm the Asian guy, 2nd from right.

The group photo was taken by Elaine Seidel's assistant.

My photo of the Boston Skyline at night can be seen here.

350.org and Global Warming

350.org
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

The following explanatory text is from the 350.org website.

On Sunday, June 1st, Dr. Jim Hansen, the world’s leading climate scientist, along with Dr. Mark Bowen author of the new book Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming, addressed a crowd of more than 700 concerned citizens in Lexington, Massachusetts about the threat of global warming and the urgency of taking action.

Dr. Hansen’s research inspired environmental author and activist Bill McKibben to spearhead the work of 350.org, spreading the word that 350 ppm of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere represents the target that we need to aim for in order to maintain a climate like the one in which we and other species evolved. (We are now at 385 ppm.)

To see the rotating 360° panorama, click here. Be sure to use Internet Explorer or Safari.

Kelly's Senior Portrait Session

Kelly's Senior Portrait Session
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

I've been wanting to shoot high school senior portraits for a while now and I'm very grateful that Kelly was up for a photo shoot. On location with me was my principal photographer , Heather, and make up artist, Kristen.

Kelly is an amazing golfer and right nearby the golf course was a very cool area with old buildings and open fields of grass. We also found a white chair just sitting in the middle of the field. It never ceases to amaze me how props and locations are provided for our use, just because we think about how we want it..and it magically appears!

To see the photo book from this photo shoot: Photo Book

Urban Yoga

Urban Yoga
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

Julie is extremely talented and she teaches yoga as well. We talked about the concept of how yoga is relaxing and that one can ignore the distractions of sight and sound in the environment. We thought it would be cool to have Julie do some poses in an urban environment full of industrial sights and sounds.

Strobist lighting details. Nikon D300, ISO 200, 1/250 sec, f/9.5. Fill flash from camera right, SB-800 with snoot 1/4 power, held by Heather.

Computer Repair Dude

Computer Repair Dude
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

Ted is the savior, well, not in the religious sense, of course. The tag line for AAA (American Automobile Association) is "sooner or later you'll break down and call AAA". The same is true for computer and technology repair. Sooner or later, you'll crash a drive, lose data, etc., and you'll call Ted.

Ted has saved me and numerous others and more importantly, he not only "gives me a fish", but teaches me "how to fish", and be more proactive about backing up and maintaining proper procedures for computer longevity.

But enough about Ted. You want to know how I lit him up for this shot. I always think beforehand about what the shot looks like. I envisioned this shot in my head that he would be surrounded by computer monitors, the room would be generally dark, and his face would be lit with snooted hot shoe flash. When Heather and I arrived at his office, it was full of equipment in various stages of repair. There was full sunlight coming in through the two windows, one directly behind him and the other to his right, camera left.

After we pulled down the shades to darken the room, we set the camera on a tripod so we could frame the scene by bringing in the monitors until they were visible in the screen. All equipment in this shot is arranged, including the desk lamp and the computers in the foreground. We had a blue blanket in the car and we brought that in as a background. Fortuitously, the blanket was thin enough that the sunlight coming in through the window it was covering provided some light just behind Ted.

We set up an SB-800 flash with snoot, camera left, and aimed right at Ted's face and chest, 1/4 power. We put a Vivitar 285, camera right, 1/4 power, behind and to the right to provide rim and hair light. Finally, Heather stood next to me with her Canon 580EX, that had the handmade grid, 1/8 power, and put a little more fill light to Ted's left side of the face because the light from camera left was leaving some shadow.

We also saw in our test shots that the lamp was provided nice reflected light onto the foreground laptop so we positioned it until it was pleasing to our eyes. Ted's right foot is resting on a bucket of cat food, but we left that dark so you couldn't tell. Here is the test shot with me sitting in, gosh I look awful.

Nikon D200 camera exposure was 1/10 sec, f/5, ISO 100. The slow shutter speed helped to provide the ambient light to a level that was pleasing. Lens was Nikkor 17-55 mm f/2.8.

Almost Free Photography for Children 5 & Under

I'm always thinking about how I can give back to the community in some way using my talent in photography. I was inspired to make the following offer of almost free photography for children 5 and under and I added this to my website also.

In support of the efforts of Amber Alert and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, I now photograph children 5 and under for a small administrative fee of $25. This is so that in the slim chance a child becomes missing, the authorities will have a high quality photo to alert with.

Kalinah

I had a great photo shoot with Kalinah who is a first-time model. She's very natural and had no problem with posing. Here is a small collage of the images.

Peabody Glen Health Care Center Valentine Party 2008

Peabody Glen Health Care Center Valentine Party 2008
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

The Peabody Glen Health Care Center sponsored a Valentine's Party at the Peter A. Torigian Community Life Center. Heather and I had a great time photographing the event. There was so much energy in the room and the DJ was super-duper at getting everyone to dance and wave napkins around.

Ako @ WAS

Ako @ WAS
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

Akonwara [sometimes aka Nathalie] is a really cool and hip dancer and model. In this photo, she was dressed in the clothing style of Japanese street fashion called Fruits. Here is a blog entry that provides a great description of this fashion trend. You can also see other Ako's images here, and my earlier blog posting here. Oh right, and here is a bunch more photos of her.

Space Shuttle Endeavor

Space shuttle Endeavor
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

I went on a family trip to Orlando and we visited the Kennedy Space Center. The space shuttle Endeavor was on the launch pad awaiting a targeted launch of March 11, 2008. This viewing tower was about a mile away. This is a stitched image from 11 images.

Boston Skyline @ Night

Boston Skyline Nightime
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

Over in East Boston is LoPresti Park where this photo was taken on a cold evening. This is stitched together from seven images. This panoramic photo is among several images hanging in MA state senator Steven Panagiotakos'
office.

Winner, Best of Show, Commercial Industrial Photographer's of New England

Hey fans, my panoramic portrait of Stephen Finn's interview for the Larry Stark documentary won best of show in the Commercial Industrial Photographer's of New England print competition. It's displayed on their website and I grabbed a screen capture to show you.

Lily at Western Avenue

Lily at Western Avenue
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

I had the pleasure of working with Lily, who is a very talented model. She's creative with her posing and very professional, and all around fun girl to hang with. You can see her Model Mayhem portfolio here.

This photo was taken using one SB-800 flash, on 1/4 power, to light up most of the area around Lily. You can see that it was at camera left by the shadow on the wall. Another SB-800, 1/8 power, had a color temperature orange gel and snoot, to direct light into the face and chest area. Camera was set to tungsten white balance about 2500K. ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/125 sec.

I also found a cool link tutorial about mapping text onto irregular surfaces so I used it to write Lily's name on the wall.

Ava Art Custom Framers

Ava Art Custom Framers
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

My friend Kathy is a custom framer who will come to your location and help you choose frames for your art. She will look around and make suggestions as to where to hang the framed pieces. In this day of disappointing and poor customer service, Kathy is a breath of fresh air. Please be sure to visit her website at http://avaart.com. After she frames my photographs, I'll photograph the framed images and post them to this blog. Check back in another week.

Gillette Stadium - New England Patriots Football Stadium

Gillette Stadium - New England Patriots Football Stadium
Originally uploaded by carltonsoohoo

Now that the New England Patriots football team has won all of their regular season games and broken countless football records in the process, I thought it would be a good time to post my panoramic image of their home stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. This stadium is called Gillette Stadium and it is where the New England Revolution Soccer Team plays as well. Click on the photo to see it larger on my Flickr page. To see the photo in full 360° rotation, click here.

I was there to photograph the Special Olympics Massachusetts 2006 annual gala, which was held in the Fidelity Clubhouse. This image was taken just before the festivities began.

To see more 360° views of Gillette Stadium, visit here: http://panospin.com/somagala/
To see the photographs from the SOMA gala, visit here: http://panospin.smugmug.com/gallery/1942262

The people on the field below were the film crew that was filming "Gridiron Gang" that starred Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. We were too far up to get a close view but someone said Johnson was down there somewhere.