Astrid Munevar: In a word - Fun!

It had been months since Astrid and I first talked about doing a photo shoot, and Monday night it was about to happen. Due to circumstances that I won't mention (smile), she was late ... and had to leave early.

After she quickly changed and did her hair and makeup, we had a total of 51 minutes from start to finish (from first picture taken to last).  And I have to say, it was a wild ride!  Even counting 4 changes of clothes (5 sets of clothes total) within that 51 minutes, I still managed to take 694 images.  YES!  SIX HUNDRED NINETY-FOUR!

And this was not a "spray and pray" type of photo shoot.  The fact is, Astrid was just "that much fun!".  The speed with which she could change poses and expressions and do something different in between each shot was incredible.  Yes, I gave her some direction ... turn this way, bend your arm that way, hold your hand like this.  But mostly ... it was all her.  And in the end, I picked a total of 127 images to process and give to her.  That's more than 2 images for every minute we spent working together.  I'm not bragging ... I'm telling you it was all her! :)

The theme for the night was to be a Fashion / Catalog type of photo shoot.  To put on some clothes and (in most cases) try to "sell them to the viewer".  I say in most cases, because every now and then I threw in a different type of crop or pose or lighting, but we covered a lot of ground.

Check out some of the fun pictures we made that night:

Before and After Photos

Lately I've been experimenting a bit more than usual with my editing. Most of my photo editing is general cleanup work, but I've been trying to be a bit more creative. Some of my pictures have taken on a more HDR-like appearance, some look more like paintings, some times I add textures. I wanted to use this post to give you a sense of the changes that have been made by giving you a Before and After look at the images.

All of the effects are done in Photoshop using various plugins. I have found that I'm rarely satisfied with the output of any given filter or plugin. Instead, I usually have to create multiple layers and layer masks in order to keep the parts of each layer that I want while revealing other parts underneath.

As some have asked what plugins I use, the following are my most used:  Topaz Labs Adjust 5, Topaz Labs Simplify 3, Alien Skin Snap Art 3, Nik HDR Efex Pro and Nik Color Efex Pro 3 (I have version 4 but find it is much slower than version 3).

To view the BEFORE image, roll your mouse over the image and wait a few seconds for the image to load.

Progressive Maternity - featuring Becky

Most maternity pictures are scheduled to be taken near the end of the pregnancy - usually at around 32-35 weeks, when the mother's belly is well defined, but before she feels too big or before we start running the risk of an early delivery happening before the photo session.

 I met Becky just over a year ago when I was doing pictures with her and her boyfriend. I found out soon after that she was pregnant, long before she would be showing, and I quickly asked her if she wouldn't mind letting me do a "progessive maternity set" with her. Starting so early, we could show her figure long before any changes have happened right up until she delivered. She recently announced that she was starting to dilate so we did our final pictures and I can now show these to you. Hopefully she will soon be bringing her baby girl Lillian into the world.


8 Weeks - 18 Weeks - 29 Weeks - 35 Weeks


Below are some of my favorite pictures of Becky that were taken during this time:

8 Weeks



29 Weeks





35 Weeks



Becky is a gorgeous momma-to-be. I look forward to meeting Lillian soon.

Fitness with Michelle Ulibarri

Michelle Ulibarri is obviously a gorgeous gal with big eyes and a beautiful smile. But more than that, she is a professional model and a fitness and bikini competitor who is from Utah and is now living in Las Vegas. She came up to Utah for the holidays and we decided to get some fitness pictures done while she was here.

I had previously done some fitness pictures in my studio with a plain white background. While this makes the images very useful, the white background doesn't give them any context.

So I wanted to try something different ... I wanted to use a real gym, with weights and machines and all, to help give meaning to the pictures we would be taking.

One of my big concerns was that, today being the first Monday of the new year, the public gyms would be jam packed with new year's resolutionists. A fellow photographer friend, Steve Vogl, offered up a gym that we could use and so everything was set.

We started out fairly light (lighting Michelle up as well as the room in the background) and later on moved to more contrasty / controlled light images.  All in all, a very successful shoot.

Below are some of my favorite images from the session.