Sometimes it just all comes together. The weekend of this shoot had us in the possession of a 50 Megapixel medium format beast of a camera called the Pentax 645z. We had it in our posssession for about 36 hours and determined to make the most out it. Saturday night we took it out to Reveille Peak Ranch in Burnet for astrophotography, Sunday afternoon we photographed a wedding with it, but Sunday morning I called together a small team that I like to use when testing out something new. My friend Jenny Lynn (I think I am the only one who calls her that, reminds me of an old fiddle tune Jole Blon) has been a muse for me since we met. We struck up a quick conversation about Avedonand Suzy Parker and now she is always first to go when I am trying out new toys such as really expensive cameras.
This little creative project called for red. Red walls, red apple, red hair, red lips, red dress. Jenny Lynn scouted an area not far from her house in South Austin that held promise with red brick walls, aluminum cutouts and other little touches. Adrian with Revelry Beauty arrived at the happy in the morning time of 6am to get started on hair and makeup. I arrived too after shooting star trails the night before. My voice sounded like an old diesel starting up. Adrian however was chipper and awesome as always. After good amounts of caffiene were imbibed off to the location where we had 45 minutes of decent light before Jenny had to go to work and I had to go photograph a wedding.
But sometimes when you have the right creative team, it all justs comes together. Even when the pc sync cable is it’s unreliable self, even when the hotshoe is giving your radio triggers trouble. You just make pictures. And let me tell you, the files from that beastly Pentax 645z are outstandingly detailed and fabulous. We pulled 4 stops of shadow detail, and the dynamic range I feel truly shows off the combined beauty of Adrian’s work on Jenny Lynn. If you ever get the chance to shoot with a camera such as this, you better bring your checkbook with you because it’s going to be hard to give back. I feel bad that these are downsized version, because the originals are 6 times larger! Really impressed with the Pentax. Good menus, well built, weatherproof, and not as heavy or bulky feeling as it looks. We really enjoyed our time with it, putting it through the paces. I hope the lens choices improve in the near future to truly be a complete system.
Back to the photos after that little technical tangent. Most ended up being natural light that you see on the post because we had good morning light filtering in through the trees and privacy fence creating natural “cookies”. On the strobed photograhps we utilized a silver beauty dish for sharp contrasty light. One of the great parts of having working with Jenny Lynn so many times is her ability to find the light. Love models that pose with the light instead of the camera, makes for dynamic photographs I believe.
Well we hoped you enjoyed this little detour into one of our side creative projects. Hoping to have a few big ones this year as well.
–JB
Josh loves a good adventure and some of his favorite wedding and engagement shoots have involved “getting crazy” or going somewhere special to the couple.
Josh is a Texas native and long time Pflugerville resident. He started his photography business in 2009 and has never looked back. His photo business even allowed him to be daddy-day-care before his two sons reached school age. Over the years his business has expanded to include just about every type of photography including automotive, editorial portraits, corporate events, sports and food. Through it all, he has continued to love wedding photography for genuine moment, the fast pace and the diversity of subjects it offers. Josh is a co-founder of North Austin Pfoutographic Society and a resident instructor at Precision Camera & Video in Austin, Tx.