Amy and Eli

Amy and Eli were married in Palm Desert on May 9 at the Desert Falls Country Club. The ceremony was on the golf course with reception following inside. There is an expanse of fairways around the wedding site and i was surprised at how beautiful the enviroment was (I grew up here and have seen alot of golf courses). They were a lot of fun to photograph and prioritized the celebration of their marriage. I felt great freedom to be creative and enjoy my interactions with the bride, groom, and loved ones. These are a few images from the day.

From the rehearsal:


Getting ready:

First sight of the bride:

Ceremony with pictures of the pair:

Reception:

We had a great time.

These and others available at www.joelcmmins.com

Agriculture and Photography

When people think of Palm Springs they don't often think farming, but the Coachella Valley is a major player in western states agriculture. I have to admit I felt like I had traveled to another place to photograph a bell pepper harvest, but in reality I was only 20 minutes from my home in Palm Desert. This assignment gave me the chance to take a more photojournalistic approach to my imagery. Being out in the fields at sunrise and hearing the low hum of the tractors as they idle along receiving bucket after bucket of hand picked bell peppers gave me lots of great compositions and the sense of being immersed in an environment. I had fantastic natural light all morning, even at the packing shed where the peppers travel by conveyor to be washed, sorted and packed within minutes (literally less than one hour)of being picked. The following are a few favorite images.

OK that was fun shooting, time to get back to work. Here's a nice report portrait.

This is shot with two tungsten gelled flashes and a WB of 3200K (warms the tones just a bit over the 2950K tungsten balance). The flash for the subject is diffused through a 43" shoot-through umbrella and the background flash is grid-spotted onto the conveyor. The light blue cast in the frame is daylight.

Environmental Portraits Strike Back

This week has been very busy and I will probably spread my posts out as I get time. This series is from the Palm Desert Chamber of Commerce. These are a few "candid" Staff shots (I use the term candid very loosely).

The image below was shot mid morning with a lot of competing natural light as the building was designed with massive glass elements on both sides. I elected to use a single SB-800 flash fired through a 6ft by 8ft white muslin which provided a giant key light source off camera left. the muslin was parallel to my lens and in front of me enough that the infra-red master would trigger the flash. I also uses a small flag to prevent lens flare as the flash was basically perpendicular to me.There is nothing but daylight here in the next frame but I liked the composition and I admit that I abandoned a three light setup after fighting the sun and loosing to get this shot at near mid-day just out of the direct desert sunlight. Lastly, this portrait employed three flashes all gelled to tungsten. the first and closest (to camera) flash was bounced off a white muslin that both shielded the subject from daylight and diffused the source enough to get a soft and even glow. The second flash was fired through a grid spot onto the old photo next to her to add interest and give continuity to the warmth of the gel. the last flash is subtly fired into the etched glass down the hall- again for interest and continuity. This was a fun and challenging shoot with highly mixed light great architecture.