Posted in: Photography Business | Photography: Learning and Teaching | portraits

A few more shots from my portfolio workshop.  Preston Castle is kind of a spooky place and I would not want to spend any time there alone, but there are many beautiful spots, also.

The above photo was taken in a little garden area in the back of the castle that was quite unexpected, considering the dilapidated state of the castle.  It really did remind me of a fairy tale and Naomi’s outfit is perfect for this setting.  She is a wonderful model and a dress designer.

Inside the castle was not such a pretty picture, although it made for pretty pictures.  The only light available in this hallway was a big bank of large windows on either side of the hallway.  This is the main hallway on the first floor.  It goes from the front door of the castle through to the back where the infirmary was located.  The windows were incredibly dirty making for the most marvelous diffused lighting that a photographer could ever hope for.  The model in this shot is Namantha and her skin tones and large eyes were beautiful with this light.

There was a lone male model available during the workshop.  His name is Ricardo and he was wonderful to work with. I wish there had been a few more male models so that we could have done more couples shots.  But, here he is looking very GQ.

Ricardo was in great demand, so I was happy to catch him and Namantha wandering around the castle without a passel of photographers hounding them.  I grabbed them for a shot I had in mind in the upstairs hallway, which was much brighter than the hallway downstairs.  Another photographer tagged along with me and so we were able to set up a bunch of shots without being bothered by the demands of the more vociferous photographers.  I had in mind a kind of high school, young love with lots of edge shot.  Here’s what I got.  Okay, so I’m still learning, but I like the shot.

They were also able to pull this one off, which is quite different from the one above.  This is more of an engagement type of photo.  By the way, after we were done with this shot, Ricardo turned to Namantha and said, “Hi.  I’m Ricardo.  I don’t think I’ve met you.”  Heh.

We also had a makeup artist helping the models get ready.  Her name is Sabrina Britschri and she has a business called “Envy” in Elk Grove, CA.  She was wonderful and did a beautiful job.

Next installment will be all about the pin up models, who were SO MUCH FUN!

Enjoy.

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  • November 20, 2008 - 4:55 pm

    Lesley Cox - I love all the colors in the first shot. I was amazed that the place had such a pretty area. What wonderful models you had. That must be a lot of fun to take pictures of people who know what they’re doing!

  • November 28, 2008 - 6:29 pm

    Julie - They are all beautiful Karen! love, Julie

Posted in: family

Cue the James Bond Music.

This is not Vermont, in case anyone was wondering.  (I may return to Vermont photos later.)

This is Preston Castle in Ione, CA. I attended another one of those wonderful Mark Behrens Portrait Workshops over the weekend.  Beautiful models and fabulous location. Preston Castle is an abandoned Home for Wayward Boys owned by the state of California from 1893 until 1964, when it was abandoned for a more modern juvenile detention center (located next door to the castle.)  The castle fell into terrible disrepair, but has recently been marked for restoration.  The light in the castle was provided by the large windows and a few electric lights here and there.  Tripods were a necessity, for the most part.

I’ve been on a photographic outing to Preston Castle before with my camera club (El Dorado Camera Club.)  However, the only people involved were the other photographers and generally photographers don’t like to be photographed (a little odd, but it’s the way it is.) The only way to catch most photographers in a photo is to wait until they are busy concentrating on something and then, quick, take their picture. (We had about 40 photographers at this weekend’s shoot so it pretty much looked like this all over the castle.

This workshop was truly exciting because I love to photograph people in interesting places.  And there were interesting people and interesting places aplenty.  Like these 1940’s style pin up models.

And this very striking Russian model (who is the same model as the James Bond girl above).

There were also these guys who were perched on the roof of the castle and were apparently part of the greeting party.  I bet this place is really creepy on Halloween.

Here’s a very small photo of the castle that I took a couple of months ago when I was with my camera club.  Pretty cool, huh?

I may have some more photos of this workshop to put up tomorrow, or I may return to Vermont photos…

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  • November 17, 2008 - 3:06 pm

    Lesley Cox - I keep saying I want to go there and check it out–ever since your last post about it. I love the pin up girls! You got lots of neat photos. How nice to have models!

  • November 17, 2008 - 4:26 pm

    p baker - Who’s stormin the castle? Awesome place and the photos
    ain’t so bad neither.

Posted in: fall | landscapes

By natural selection the four of us gravitated to different roles.  My husband became the driver and the chef.

Vince became the planner…both for the trip and for the meals.

My friend, Debbie, and I were along for the ride and took the photos.

So, our first stop for Day Three was at an Apple Cider place.  There were tourists everywhere.  The place was packed.  Aside from the wonderful apple cider, the big draw was apple doughnuts.  Vince, the food planner, purchased two wonderful doughnuts for us to share.  I’m not a big doughnut fan, but those doughnuts were pretty good.

Next stop:  Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory.  Again, there were lots of tourists, but it was well worth the wait.  We took the tour, wandered around the gift shop and ate a sample Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.  I had never had Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream before…and now I wish I had never tried the durn stuff, because I’m hooked.

Here is a typical example of how are vacation generally went.  Debbie and I wandered around taking photos of the area (you can see her in the background),  The men, after wandering around to look at things that they found interesting, usually found a place to wait for us to get done with our picture taking.  I don’t think they suffered too much. (Note the maps and brochures in Vine the Planner’s hand.  He was always ready to plan and to find a place to eat.)

Ben and Jerry’s had an ice cream graveyard.  Each flavor that is no longer used has it’s own little tombstone and a poem about it’s demise.  The one my husband is leaning against says:  “Peanuts! Popcorn! Peanuts, popcorn! Mix ’em in a pot! Plop ’em in you ice cream! Well, maybe not. 2000-2000”.  Doesn’t sound particularly good to me either.

After Ben and Jerry’s we went on to Montpelier, the capital of Vermont.  More about that in my next issue.

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  • November 15, 2008 - 9:41 am

    John Wilson aka MontereyJohn - Well, it’s been awhile since I dropped by, so here I am, lucky you 🙂

    Well, I brewed a pot of coffee and baked a cake waiting for this page to load. Wow!

    Having been a very patient doobie, nice work!

    Glad you enjoyed Vermont. It is a beautiful place.

    Even more glad for your relationship with the guy!

    Take care.

    MJ

  • November 15, 2008 - 3:40 pm

    Lesley Cox - That looks like so much fun, and the perfect time of year to enjoy it! How nice to have the guys to plan and cook and chauffeur. You guys had it made!

Posted in: My Life

Yes, today is my husband’s birthday.  Here is a brief primer on him.

He’s very handy and fixes things around the house.

He’s athletic, but never shows off.

He doesn’t mind helping me out with my career, and loves a good adventure.

He doesn’t mind posing for me (I won third prize at the county fair with this one).  He is rather Cary Grantish, isn’t he?

He’s an excellent cook.  Here’s a bit of trivia…he’s interning at a local fine dining restaurant.  He wants to be a chef when he grows up.

And, here is my fabu husband making leaf angels in Vermont.  One of the things I love about him is his playfulness.  Although, I think he misses Minnesota, where he was raised.  You can take the man out of Minnesota, but you can’t take the Minnesota out of the man.

Happy, happy birthday.

(I’m taking a break from the slow moving narrative on Vermont, for which I promise to return.)

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  • November 8, 2008 - 10:11 pm

    Lesley - You’re a very lucky woman to have such a great husband (but I think he counts himself lucky as well!) I have witnessed his helpfulness in person, and can attest to the fact that he’s not only a great pack mule, he’s very handy and patient as well. Happy Birthday!!!

Posted in: fall | Fine Art | landscapes

So…we recovered from our day at four airports and a bad hotel experience.  It was fairly easy to recover when we began driving around the Burlington, VT area.  Burlington is the largest city in Vermont, but it only has about 40,000 full time residents.  There were at least 3 colleges that I saw, which I’m sure drives up the population of the city.

Hubster and I had some time to kill before picking our friends up at the airport.  So, we headed down to the pier area of Lake Champlain.  The ferry was just leaving the dock for New York State and so we watched it’s departure.  Then we walked around a little, exploring Burlington and the famous Church Street Shopping area.  Church Street is in the very center of Burlington and about 4-5 blocks are blocked off to auto traffic.  At the end of Church Street is…surprise…a very old church.  There were also all kinds of shops and restaurants and people walking around enjoying the beautiful fall day.

After we spent some time on Church Street, we got in the car and headed south to Shelburne, which was about a 15 minute drive.  We found this little park-like area and decided to get out and see what the locals were up to.  As we moved closer to the water we noticed this lady sitting on a large rock admiring the beautiful fall colors.  We talked to her a bit about the Vermont area and she gave us all kinds of information.  In fact, she sort of set the tone of our entire vacation.  We would frequently refer to “the Lady on the Rock” who had imparted all sorts of Vermontian information.  She became a sort of oracle.  A few days later we visited the rock with our friends.  I was secretly hoping that “the Lady on the Rock” would still be there, but she had moved on…probably sitting on another rock somewhere on Lake Champlain granting information to other lucky tourists.

After that, it was time to pick up our friends at the airport and we took them back down to Church Street for a wonderful lunch at a pub/brewery.  We wandered around Burlington for a little while and then we headed off to our destination at Smugglers Notch.  The drive to SN took us about an hour and it was a beautiful and colorful drive.  We got to SM as the sun went down.

When we opened the door to our condo…the view was breathtaking. We had a small deck and this was the view we had from the deck.

This was going to be a great adventure!

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  • October 27, 2008 - 10:04 pm

    Lesley Cox - So gorgeous and picturesque! Sounds like a fantastic trip. I’ve never been back east at all. Hopefully someday!

  • October 29, 2008 - 9:28 pm

    Leon - I could sit there all day for sure. Nice colorful images. Someday we’re gonna have to head out east in the fall, me thinks.

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