I’ve owned the domain since college. Three years ago I re-upped it’s registration and I contracted my good friend Greg Vilines at Webnormous to begin work on the site. Then a combination of producing an album, playing in a band, get married, and having his house burn down slowed Greg’s progress on the site a bit. A combination of helping with the album, buying a house, running a photo business, general laziness, and getting engaged slowed me down too. I know my excuses aren’t as valid as a house fire, but regardless of the timing, it is finally LIVE!
Greg built the whole thing from scratch and he did a damn good job on it. I know I was a difficult client at times but in the end we got it all worked out. There will be a few tweaks made in the coming months, but since it’s 99% done, we figured why not launch it? This will be a soft opening for my six blog readers and facebook friends until I get it 100% finished.
Keep in mind the new site isn’t going to be a replacement for the blog- just think of it as a “best of Alex the Photo Guy.” I’ll still keep you up to date with my crazy photo antics here on the blog, so don’t stop reading!
Let me know what you think! Many thanks again to Greg who did all the hard work. All I did was take a few photos. If you need a website, let me know and I’ll get you in contact with Webnormous.
Apparently going out of the country means you forget about all the work you wanted to do before you left. My sister, who attended Auburn for undergrad, sent me a text last night that read “hey- you still haven’t blogged about that Auburn wedding! I want to see the pix!”
Sorry for the delay! I had a great time in Auburn for Regan and Jeff’s wedding weekend. Everything was beautiful and was at a cute little chapel right across from Samford Hall on campus. There were hints of rain, but never caused anyone any problems. Regan looked beautiful in her dress and Jeff looked distinguished with his silver vest and tie. The reception was definitely a party! I have so many pictures of people dancing you’d think they were at a downtown NYC club and not an antebellum home in Auburn. Afterward I went out with all the bridesmaids (and their husbands) and ended up eating pizza with a few friends from the wedding in a hotel room until 4am. Most photographers don’t get such a royal treatment…
The Schnorf | Hunt wedding was this weekend in Midtown Atlanta and it was so much fun! I plan on working on all the other fancy schmancy wedding pictures later (beautiful church btw)- but first, I was way too excited to get these up on the blog! Keri, my lovely assistant/fiance, was kind enough to help shoot this wedding with me and man (woman?) the photo booth. Keri works for beer and pizza, so she’s the best assistant I could imagine for the job. She was awesome, but so were her subjects!
And now without further ado- the Photo Booth! Available from Alex the Photo Guy wherever alcohol and sombreros are served… (p.s.- I recommend full screen)
Two weekends ago I had the pleasure of shooting a good friend in a makeshift studio in his living room. Though Lou and I work together at Wells Real Estate Funds, we both have outside endeavors and passions that just happen to involve blogs. My blog of course is all about photography and his is an inspirational site based on self betterment. As he puts it, the Lou Davis blog is about “becoming the best version of himself” through various life challenges and goals.
Lou was looking for some new photos for his blog and I was recently inspired by Zack Arais’ blog about white seamless backgrounds, so I figured I should give it a try to push myself beyod my usual “available light” photography bounds. Lou and I met for brunch at Ria’s Bluebird Cafe and from there went to PPR to pick up the background. I usually do my local Atlanta shopping at Showcase, but for some reason PPR was $25 cheaper for the exact same background. From there we went to Lowe’s to pick up a sheet of tileboard and (very poorly) secured it to the roof of my car. Luckily we were only headed half a mile.
Lou was a good sport as I spent so much time screwing around with settings that I neglected to give him good direction. Luckily he was a natural model, even if he needed a little direction from the peanut gallery (a few friends drinking and playing poker in the kitchen).
Here’s a shot of the setup in Lou’s living room. White seamless on my background stand with one softbox on the right loaded with my Canon 580EX. Also had a Vivitar 285 flash on a chair aimed at the background (though it’s hidden by blue cardboard as to not spill light onto Lou). Ideally I would have had 2 flashes aimed at the background, but the Canon 420 EX I borrowed from a friend unfortunately didn’t have any manual settings, so it was of no use firing only at full power.
Here are some of the final photos, starting with my favorite:
These were taken months ago and I just got around to finishing them up. Evelyn is a co-worker of Keri and I. She was approached by a friend of hers asking if she’d like to get into modeling. Evi, being as modest as she is beautiful, was very reluctant to do it but after some convincing from friends and her husband she decided to look into head shots.
This is where I came in. I had never done true headshots before- just kid portraits (this shoot happened before the “Glow Atl” photos you can see a few entries down), so this was a freebie for a good friend.
In fact, I think I was paid in taco bell and asthma attacks. An odd combination I know, but we did the shoot at Evi and Nathan’s house in Buford. I can usually control my allergies to her cats by taking Claratin and staying away, but when I get into “photographer mode” I move quick. Moving quick leads to sweating, hightened heart rate, and increased breathing… which leads to increased allergies apparently. Had to take a few breaks throughout the day- one of which for taco bell.
Without further ado, here is Evelyn. Remember to click on the individual photos to get the full effect. And don’t worry, she’s fully clothed in all of the photos- just some creative angles.
The next day Curt and I went to Mt. Rainier and hiked and camped there. It was absolutely gorgeous. The mountain was amazing (and intimidating), the flowers were blooming all over the place, and the views were incredible. I can’t say we even made it halfway up, though we got close. We had views of a glacier and waterfall and came up on the most amazing bathroom I’ve ever seen. Aside from a delta flight, I can’t say I’ve been to a toilet at such a high altitude. We camped at “Cougar Rock” campgrounds. The name was incredibly misleading as Curt and I found no older single women looking to prey upon younger men. Maybe it just wasn’t hunting season.
These first few pictures were from a “rustic garden” on the way to the park. It was too ridiculous not to stop and take pictures. I’ll stop and let the pictures do the rest of the talking… fun trip. Highly recommend it to anyone looking for some beautiful scenery and good camping.
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to head to Seattle and Portland for work. Since it was essentially a free flight for me, I decided to take advantage and bring Curt along for the ride. Neither of us have really spent any time up there, but we heard the hiking and camping was awesome. Absolutely the truth.
This first post is photos are from camping on the west coast at Rialto beach (near the town of Forks, WA where they filmed Twilight). We drove from Seattle to the coast and it was sunny and 75 degrees the entire time…. until the last quarter mile. The scenery literally changes in a second to fog, mist, and 65 degrees. The beach was like no other place I’ve been. It felt like we were hiking the Scottish coast. Fog, rocks, driftwood, rock formations… it was pretty amazing. Very different than Florida’s white sands and abundant amounts of retirees. We camped just off the beach that night, built a fire, cooked some hot dogs, then hiked back the next morning.
My goal was to get these photos up before I left for Chicago tomorrow. I got through editing about 60% of them and realized it was midnight. Luckily, the ones I hadn’t edited were the Mt Rainier daytime shots (to be in the next post), so they really didn’t need any editing. They were great straight out of the camera- even shooting RAW!
Check out the new “lightbox” feature here on the blog. Click on a photo and you can look through the entire post’s photos in a lightbox format.
