Selling Out

Since the freelance gigs haven't exactly been rolling in lately, and I'm still doing modeling trade work on the side until I can build up a name for myself, I decided to try preying on my neighbors for extra cash...
Here's a flyer I recently fashioned (Click to Enlarge):

My Weekend

I had an interesting line up of assignments this past weekend...

Friday morning I found myself at the Mighty Mud Mania in Scottsdale. I was a mud-splattered mess at the end of it all, but it was fun to see the kids getting into the fun.





Then Saturday morning I headed down to the Salt River (AGAIN) for Halloween on the Salt River. Just like I figured, the only people dressing up for the event were the employees.


Saturday night was spent at The Sets in Tempe where they were putting on a qualifier for the World Series of Beer Pong Tournament.

Role Reversal

One of our writers is working on a feature about role reversals in modern relationships... The couple in this photo was great to work with. They did everything I told them to do for this shoot. They were a lot of fun.

Walking with Dinosaurs Press Conference

This morning I went to a press conference at the U.S. Airways Center that was hyping up the Walking with Dinosaurs Experience that will be coming to Phoenix in September. I realized when I got there that there weren't going to be any of the life-size dinosaur puppets set up like I had hoped, just a visually uninteresting stage and three speakers.

Luckily a group of kids from the Tempe YMCA showed up and got a little lesson about dinosaurs from a local paleontologist. Here the kids get a close look at a T-Rex tooth. (Click to Enlarge)

Branching Out On My Own

Since I've been shooting more covers in the past months I became a member of a modeling database website called Model Mayhem (www.modelmayhem.com) where I've been going to find cover models for the College Times.

Since I'm currently on a modeling freeze at work I decided to do some collaborative shoots with local models on the side and do some trade-for-portfolio work that I hope will eventually turn into paid work once I've built up more of a name for myself.

Yesterday I met up with a local model in Mesa named Ad'ee who is working on a themed collection pertaining to social issues (i.e. drug addiction, anorexia/bulimia, etc.). We tackled "Domestic Violence" at this session. Her best friend, Amanda (wearing my suit) helped out... Ad'ee's a little smiley in a couple pictures, but I think it makes it look more sinister and sadistic...

Cuatro de Julio

I know, I know...I'm a little behind.

But here are my requisite fireworks photos from the thing at Tempe Town Lake.

Phoenix Science Museum's Upgraded Planetarium

Today I headed over to the Phoenix Science Museum to get some shots of their newly improved planetarium. The Phoenix Planetarium now boasts the most technologically advanced system in the world and is much more than just a presentation of a few stars. It was really pretty fascinating.

Unfortunately, I was only allowed to take pictures when there weren't any people in the theater, so I tried to include the seats in the foreground to give the planetarium some sense of scale. If you get a chance to shoot there, I would say that this is one of those rare assignments that warrants using a fish-eye lens because of how huge and encompassing the ceiling screen is.

There were nebulae...

Our moon...

A close-up tour of Saturn's rings (notice the rows of seats and you'll get a feel for how immense this screen is)...

Lastly, the curators put every little extra the system had to offer up on the screen for me. They turned on all of the constellations, the cardinal directions, a scale showing the course of the earth through the solar system at each month, and a 3-dimensional grid of the universe...Really amazing.