5/23/10 – Irvine, CA – UC Irvine freshman Pratik Panda gets in the right mindset as he poses for a portrait.

On the same day as the fencing photoshoot, I also had another photoshoot. Once again I wanted to shoot something unique that doesn’t usually get much recognition. I have always loved playing ping pong and for part of this past year it got pretty big in my dorm between a few of us. I have always seen photos of actual ping pong matches but had never shot one myself so I attempted to create the perfect illustration. I set up a backdrop behind the table, two lights from the sides and big soft box right above my head. After some spray on sunscreen, water, and natural sweat, we were able to get a nice glistening on the skin. This photoshoot was prompted by the 2010 UCI Photolympics.

We even tested out spraying water into the shot, which had potential but didn’t work out.

My friend and fellow photographer Lee was there to help me set up equipment and also stand in as a test subject.

5/23/10 – Irvine, CA – Jessica Enriquez keeps her eye on the ball during the ping pong photoshoot for the 2010 UCI Photolympics.

I usually like to get both a female and male subject for most of my photoshoot sometimes one might just look more natural than the other. I think Panda looked a little more natural and fierce in his photo but I still liked this one too.

Below is a shot of the kids from the dorm who came out to help.

5/23/10 -  Irvine, CA – UC Irvine Fencing team member Alex Helmintoller poses for a portrait.

When the 2010 UCI Photolympics were happening I knew that I definitely wanted to enter the max amount of photos in the portraits category. I like shooting athletes and I wanted to do something unique. Luckily Alex from my dorm was on the fencing team at UCI and was willing to help me out with my photoshoot. He brought all his gear and we headed out late one night to shoot these photos. I also wanted to get a female subject wearing the outfit just to see what it would look like, so Jaclyn Wang also accompanied us on the shoot. The photos of Alex and Jaclyn both turned out great, but I could only select one to submit so I went with the one of Alex. Below is the shot of Jaclyn, along with a shot of our crew for the night.

From left: Jaclyn, Ian, Scott, Alex, and Panda. Viento residents along with their RA Scott Roeder (Middle) take some fun pics after finishing up a photo shoot with the band “An Abyss Called Home”.

One of my residents did a Q&A piece on a local band for OC Weekly. We were thinking of a place to shoot and decided on a locker area about 100 feet from my dorm. It actually turned out to be a pretty cool location to shoot at. I shot the photo below for the article.

Nikon D3, 14-24mm @ 23mm, 100iso, f/10, 1/250, manual

Below is a screenshot of the photo with the article.

It also just happened to be fancy friday at my dorm (a day where we all dress fancy for fun). With a few more of my residents helping out, we didn’t want to waste the lighting setup on just one photo so after I was done with the band we all stood in for our own photoshoot. The camera was set to timer and we tried our best to get the timing right. Jumping in our fancy clothes might not have been the best idea seeing as somebody ripped their pants (see last photo).

Nikon D3, 14-24mm @ 23mm, 100iso, f/10, 1/250, manual

Nikon D3, 14-24mm @ 23mm, 100iso, f/10, 1/250, manual

Nikon D3, 14-24mm @ 16mm, 100iso, f/10, 1/250, manual

Nikon D3, 14-24mm @ 16mm, 100iso, f/10, 1/250, manual

Nikon D3, 14-24mm @ 24mm, 100iso, f/10, 1/250, manual

Below are a few of my photos from the shoot.

Canon 40D, 16-35mm @ 17mm, 100iso, f/8, 1/100th

Canon 40D, 16-35mm @ 20mm, 100iso, f/10, 1/125th

Canon 40D, 16-35mm @ 20mm, 100iso, f/8, 1/80th

Canon 40D, 16-35mm @ 16mm, 100iso, f/8, 1/80th

Canon 40D, 16-35mm @ 32mm, 100iso, f/7.1, 1/80th

Canon 40D, 16-35mm @ 27mm, 100iso, f/7.1, 1/80th

Check back for more…I’m still trying to keep the updates more regular.