Event Photography - Kandi's Masquerade Party

Friday night we had the opportunity to attend a masquerade party hosted by Bravo's Housewife, and former Xscape member Kandi. Originally I thought Kandi randomly rented this boutique for her masquerade party just as another event around Halloween, but the truth is much more impressive. This event was held in celebration of her one year anniversary of her store Tags located in Smyrna. Kandi encouraged her guests to have a good time with plenty of dancing (including pole dancing), good food, and she even provided little gift bags.

I attended with my three friends from left to right, Julian Lark (Editor and Chief of Kontrol Magazine), Casting Director Esquire, and Angela Mincey (Lifestyle and Articles Editor for Kontrol) who holds up her Tags gift bags. Check out Kontrol blog on Kandi's Event.

Kandi ensured the party maintained its energy by joining in dancing and even performing a few of her own hits.

This random lady surprised me in her classy attire by expertly jumping on the pole in this prom like dress. I never seen anything like it, but I was impressed and had to share it with you all.

Event Photography - Bare Chest for breast cancer

October 28 Ebony Steele, radio personality from the 107.9 Rickey Smiley morning show, hosted Bare Chest for Breast Cancer. The event featured Atlanta's most popular male models from athletes to actors, students to entrepreneurs all in the name of charity. The venue was at Opera Nightclub, one of Atlanta's upscale night clubs located in midtown. Ebony's event is intended to be a fun and entertaining way to bring young women together and highlight awareness of social needs. I arrived early enough to choose the best seat in the house, and watch Ebony vigorously pound the models to be on top of their parts.

Early in the show TI made an appearance in support of his friend Ebony. Before he came on stage, we were both backstage merely feet away and I did not even recognize him. Fortunately my seat in the audience was located closest to the stage so I was still able to get very close shots.

Here a stylist helps prepare a model before he rips the runway.

Illustration - My Nieces Piece :)

Here is a small project I created for myself of my 3 amazing nieces. I decided this year I would create illustrations of them starting with my oldest niece who birthday is in October. This means I have to wait til next year to illustrate my youngest niece Krista already past. In the picture above is my oldest niece Ria to the left, in the center is my brother (and a great father) Ricky, to the right is my second oldest niece Erica :)

Illustration Design - Web Banner

Here is a web banner I designed for a client 2 or 3 weeks ago. I enjoy my illustration projects, and this one required a style slightly outside my usual comfort zone, which people say is like Disney. This particular character was all about the curves and angles, creating a seductive yet mysterious appearance. There was many variations of this banner, but here are a few of my favs. I do not believe that any of these were the final selection, but I still wanted to share them with you all :)

Photography - Motion

Its been long over due for me to dust off my keys and type up another blog. I've been pretty busy, but I haven't made time to write about it. Here's a shoot I did almost 2 weeks ago with one of my beautiful muses, Alysa. These was shot with my Nikon, but I also got some great shots with my canon film camera. My aim was to capture motion, like in the top one, but I found the bottom one to be absolutely stunning. At first my fear was that the shadows were to distracting, but I found a beauty the way they angle across her, complimenting her pose. These shots are all about the intensiveness of her eyes, looking directly at the camera. To get the correct exposure, these shots required a quick shutter speed, and a shallow depth of field. I feel this shoot produced shots that made leaps and bounds from our first shoot together long ago.

GRAPHIC DESIGN - Model Workshop

This is for all the upcoming and/or potential models out there. Attendance to this workshop would be extremely beneficial for the non-experienced and experienced model, even the experienced model should strive to grow and take every opportunity to further themselves in this industry. The class is taught by the casting director, Esquire, who has coordinated and casted for successful fashion shows such as The Candy Shop fashion show, and also casts for MTV. Celebrity photographer Allen Cooley often heads photography workshops and has done many shoots of well known celebs such as Trina, Lil Kim, and many more. For the flyer design I teamed of with celeb web designer Lorenzo Turner, who often mentor and critiques my design work- Lorenzo Site

EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY - Official BET Hip Hop Awards Pre Parties

Gyant, a social media personality hosted one of the first events I attended that night for the BET Hip Hop awards. Supported by big sponsors such as Comcast, BMI, BET, Fuze and more, this beautiful event took place in the often overlooked venue "Aurum Lounge." This place may be one to consider for birthdays and other special events if you would like to do something a little out of the norm. One of the highlights of this event for me was seeing Kelly Rowland among the crowd, a member of R&B group Destiny Child and the lovely Dondria, who sings "You're the one".

Another event to note was the private, invitation only “An Evening of Luxury” hosted by Polow da Don, BMI Producer of the Year, and Interscope Geffen A&M Records. This event introduced Belvedere Vodka’s newest “luxury” vodka, Belvedere Intense Unfiltered. Some of the most beautiful and elite of Atlanta joined in on the celebration along with several celebs such as LLoyd, who also performed, Princess of Crime Mob, Terrence and Rocsi of BET’s 106 and park, Keri Hilson, Rasheeda and many more. For more information check out: Kontrol Blog