Liv and the Downpour

When I first started having an interest in photography, I was about 17 and recruited my sister and her friends (who are 4 or 5 years younger) to be my models.  It's always fun shooting with them again because they've grown from silly middle schoolers to beautiful college girls.  Today I photographed Liv, one of these girls and my "happy model."  She's always smiling!

She came by apartment and we picked an outfit, figured out her makeup and headed to the local ice cream shop/mini golf course, The Windmill, to shoot in their overgrown driving range.  I'm still on my 50mm f2 prime kick, so had that on my Pentax K20D.  It was bright but overcast, so the natural light was beautiful - no flash photography, please!

We didn't really have a set plan, mostly just "pretty pictures in a field."  But the weather decided to give us a more exciting shoot than we had anticipated when it started raining.  It had POURED earlier in the day but cleared up.  This wasn't as terrible, so we continued shooting and laughed about the rain and thunder and how the sky certainly didn't look all that bad!

Thankfully the storm didn't last very long and there was even a rainbow after!

Luckily we got in the car before the rain started up again, because on the way home it absolutely poured!!  Gotta love Pittsburgh weather.

Verona Rock in the Park for BarSmart

About two years ago, I did some freelance work for a website called BarSmart.  It's a pretty cool site, so when founder Paul emailed me earlier this week asking if I could shoot at a concert for him, I was all about it.  Despite being there for 4 hours, I only photographed two bands - Sunday Morning (a No Doubt tribute band I did promos for last summer) and a set featuring Billy Sheehan and Reb Beach.  They were ridiculously awesome.

I got there, hung out with Sunday Morning for a bit, met another photographer named Wes, and took pictures.  Sunday Morning rocks at what they do, and they're all over the stage, which makes for a super fun show.

And then....it started raining.  The band took it quite well, and continued playing.  The horn player, Steve, is pretty much my hero - he got a woman in the audience to give him an umbrella to cover his laptop.  Once a tent was rigged to protect the back part of the stage, Steve started running around, giving the other band members momentary shelter under the umbrella.  One of the best moments at a concert ever.

 Rain slowed as Sunday Morning was finishing up, but keyboardist Mary Beth, who is a model of mine, and I went to my car to acquire umbrellas because we knew it wasn't going to hold off.  We were right.  It rained.  A lot.  Of course, it's hard to hold an umbrella while shooting, so I kind of gave up after awhile, especially since the crowd was huge.  Like I said before, the guitarist and bassist are pretty well-known, but the I think the singer and drummer are local.

As you can see, it's raining.  I was impressed that they didn't cancel - everyone was real troopers.

Beer might have helped.

Yeah, it was awesome.  I mean, I was completely drenched, and could not wait to drive the hour home and put on dry clothes, but it was a great show, and the rain made for interesting photos.  I'm happy.