Tomorrow I head to one of my favorite places on earth, Key West. Only living 6 hours away we make sure to make at least one visit a year to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of the beautiful island. This year we will be going at least twice. Half of the drive is breathtakingly gorgeous. One of these trips I am going to make it a couple day journey down (or back) to photograph the upper and middle keys as well as Key West. There are some great locations I pass on the way down, but never stop since we are always anxious to get there or are traveling with other people.
This trip we are making with about 10 friends to celebrate of their birthdays including my wife. While most of the time will be spent relaxing and pub crawling up and down Duval street, I hope to find some time to do some shooting. I want to walk around Mallory Square to do some candid portraits. This area is jumping with activity in the late afternoon with street performers which should make for some nice shots. Also a great location for sunsets. Look for my images from Key West next week.
When I return I have been asked to photograph a friend’s daughter’s first softball game on Tuesday. Then on Friday and Saturday I will be shooting Funk Fest 9 in Punta Gorda. Funk Fest is a music festival held in the downtown square and will feature the band “Here Come the Mummies”. They are amazing musicians who put on an awesome show.
I had a great week shooting this week and am really happy with the portrait session I did with my friend Dani on Monday. I have added a few of those images below. Hope everyone has a great week!
So after only 9 days the Monarch Butterflies have emerged from their chrysalises. I missed the one that “hatched” yesterday, but saw him flying around on my lunch break. Could not get him to stay still for a photo. Today at lunch a second one was fresh out of his chrysalis which I could tell since they cannot fly well with their wings still wet. I was able to get some not so great images of him at the time, but got much better ones which I have posted below when I got home from work this afternoon. He even climbed onto my finger for a couple shots. Shooting butterflies is not easy and takes patience, but watching them go from caterpillars to flying around in just over a week was really cool. Need to buy some more milkweed plants to plant around the pool to increase our population.
I hope you all have enjoyed the photos I have been posting on Facebook and Instagram (some are on my website as well) from the awesome Hops and Horns event that Matt and Nick Nemec of Edgewater Events put on last weekend. It was a top notch event as expected, and made me even more excited for Funk Fest which is March 2nd and 3rd. Get your tickets now! They have a great lineup and its an amazing concert. Looking forward to photographing that, especially Here Come the Mummies. This is the 9th year of Funk Fest and I have been to the last 5, but this is the first I will be shooting.
This coming week I have a few shoots I am looking forward too. On Saturday I am headed up to St. Pete to celebrate a friends birthday, and will be brining my camera for some shots around the city as well as a few portraits. On Monday I am shooting some portraits in Sarasota. I have some great ideas in mind for this particular model so I’m excited to see how they turn out. I will be sure to add some of those to my site and social media. On Tuesday I am shooting a house for realtor near Port Charlotte Beach. I will be shooting at sunset to get some dramatic shots to help show prospective homeowners the beauty of that area on the water. Then next Friday we leave for a long weekend in Key West. More on that in my next blog post, but my goal is to do a lot of shooting while there.
Busy week for me this week. On Monday I got to
shoot another home going on the market for The Houseman Team of
realtors which was fun as always. I enjoy going into all of these
homes, seeing their setups, and all the cool features. Every house
seems to have something I love. With this one it was a huge jacuzzi
tub in the guest bathroom. I will add a photo of that below.
On Tuesday night I decided to take another step in
expanding my photography tools and purchased 2 more lenses and a
MacBook Pro so that I can work remotely, rather than just on my
desktop. I’ve never been a fan of Macs, however people swear by
them for photography editing and graphic design so I’m gonna give it
a go.
Yesterday I was contacted by another realtor
through my website (first contact from the new site!) that I know in
the area who would like me to shoot a house on the water in Port
Charlotte. I am excited and looking forward to that for next week.
Today I had a video and photo shoot for The
Houseman Team. They have joined The Griffin Group of Keller Williams
Realty, and need to redo some of their branding. The shoot was fun
and I can’t wait to see the finished product. They will be having
someone edit all my footage since that is not a strong suit of mine
yet. Something I want to expand upon, but wouldn’t be comfortable
doing it yet.
Saturday I will be shooting another great
concert event put on by Edgewater Events (link below) in Downtown
Punta Gorda. Nick and Matt Nemec are doing an awesome job in bringing
musical entertainment to our town. Really stoked about that as
shooting concerts is one of my favorite things. It mixes two of my
loves, photography and music! Can’t wait to post some of the images
for everyone to see. Also looking forward to finding time to play
around with my new lenses. They are specialty in nature (extreme wide
angle, and super telephoto) so I should get some great perspectives.
Look for some more landscapes and wildlife photos in the near future.
https://www.edgewatereventsllc.com
