A Dress In The Field

This is another bridal portrait of Melody. I had a lot of fun on this shoot, but not nearly enough time. We got rained on once we started getting comfortable, but we still walked away with several great shots.

I started playing around with textures in a few of these photos, to the prodding of my future sister-in-law Kelsey Essmann. I trust her eye and her taste, so I applied some overlays to this shot to give it a little more depth.

Family Is Everything

This is a picture of the Soto kids during a recent family photo shoot.

Shot with my 15mm fisheye lens while laying on my back. Triggered a hot shoe flash with a pocket wizard that was laying on the ground next to my head, under a shoot-through umbrella that was stuck in the ground.

If you're looking for some fun family portraits before Christmas, I'm booking dates the weekend of Thanksgiving in Hampton Roads as well as December 14th through 17th.

The FRINGE Report

One of my favorite shows on TV right now is FRINGE. I like it so much that myself and my two friends Ian and Craig have started a live internet show where we talk about the previous week, discuss theories, and make predictions about the coming shows. We started this show only a couple weeks ago in conjunction with the starting of the second season of FRINGE. Check us out Wednesdays at 9pm EST at theFRINGEreport.com.

I took these photos and created this composite to help promote our show, as well as provide a classy user icon for the myriad of social networks that allow to you present yourself as a 80-pixel-wide square icon. I modeled the light and composition after the official FRINGE Season 1 DVD cover.

Lady In The Water

This is from an older photo session with Sara. We were losing the sun very quickly on the beach that evening, and I was juggling two models and one light in the sand. I'm so glad I didn't have to worry about cables. That is worth the price of the Pocket Wizards.

I did a lot of post production to this image. I'm not usually a fan of over "Photochopping" an image, but I like how this almost looks out of this era.

Printing Over The Ocean

I'm going to be at the Over The Ocean show at the Norva tonight in Norfolk, Virginia. Not only am I going to be taking pictures during the set, but I'll be sitting behind the merchandise table for the better part of the evening, selling this piece, and 5 other like it.

I was commissioned by the band Over The Ocean(who are also some really very good friends of mine and excellent musicians) to create some art that utilizes the the lyrics from some of the band's songs.

These pieces are not available for purchase online, and can only be found at one of their live shows until sold out. They are 8"x8" color prints on semi-glossy paper.

It has been a long time since I've done any sort of graphic art, but I'm very pleased with this series, and will continue to post more here for purchase and conversation.

If you find yourself in Norfolk, Virginia tonight, please do stop by the Norva and treat yourself to some music and art.

Andrew and Sara

I wanted to share a 'treated' photo.

Although this was shot with the Nikon d80, this photo was a mistake. Like an amateur, I wasn't properly focussed, so I chose to put some 'action' on it in an attempt to save the moment.

I wanted to replicate the feel of a photo from the sixties, shot with a bad polaroid or diana camera, which has the tendency to be a little soft.

Dear Nerds: Done in Pixelmator after cropping and initial color correction and RAW processing was done in Aperture. Paper texture applied with screen overlay with brush strokes of multiplied color. I de-focussed the distant background(the part that I had in focus) and adjusted the curves to crush the blacks and give it a lot of contrast. Meh... it's art.