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Blue Men group? Green Women Gang!

11/22/2010

What is the best way to spend Sunday morning? To throw a funky photo shoot. I wanted to cover myself and my friends with ridiculous glitter for a while, and it eventually happened yesterday!
We had out little Halloween at the back yard this Sunday: terrorizing my roommates and neighborhood children with our looks, fighting over the fake rat, licking black salty candies and posing in front of the photo camera. What a treat!

Thanks to Marcos Molina and Tetyana Gyunter for this wonderful experience. It was fun!

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Fun memories from a photo session with Luis Ortiz

10/12/2010

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I met Luis Ortiz this summer. Both of us worked at the Richards Group, the biggest advertising agency in Texas, famous for its iconic Chick-Fil-A cows and many other great ads. Ironically, I met the most creative photographers under the least creative circumstances. Thus, we met with Bill Reeves, an award-winning photographer when both of us struggled with the theories in Advanced Research Methods doctorate-level class at UT. Similar story with Luis: both of us worked in brand planning, studying and analyzing consumers to help building a strategy for effective communications campaigns. Our creative colleagues were bragging about cool shoots with the sport stars and celebrities while we, as planners, were crunching numbers from syndicated databases and screening the footage from customers’ interviews and focus-groups. Yet, fairly soon we discovered that Luis likes to take pictures, and I love to model and create my own artistic look.

It was a very fun photo session. We agreed to shoot in early morning to catch the sunrise light. I intended to radiate the mystery of the East, wearing oriental outfits, jewelry, and makeup.

In the best traditions of a Murphy law I woke up at 4 am with a gigantic mosquito bite on my face. Thus, one of my eyelids was swollen causing an overt asymmetry across my face. I tried to apply some ice and to disguise it with a ton of makeup, and I was somewhat successful in restoring my face.

We decided that Luis will pick me up at 5:15 am, expecting that we will arrive to the location and start shooting around 5:30. Both of us assumed that since it is early September in Texas, the sun raises before 6 am. When we arrived to the destination as planned at 5:30, we discovered that it was dark as in a coal mine with no sign of daybreak. We googled the weather channel, and discovered that we should expect the crack of dawn no earlier than 7 am… We tried to take some shots at night, and apparently stepped into somebody’s poop, genuinely left on the grass either by a homeless person or a dog. At any rate, we realized that we have higher chance s to run across some homeless dudes or wild animals or their doo-doos than to see a ray of light in the next hour or so. Thus, we had plenty of time to grab a breakfast before the sunrise. We began to drive around Dallas trying to find a place that served breakfast so early. After a fairly long drive, we eventually found Denny’s restaurant that was open 24/7. I graciously entered the front door in my eccentric attire. By the looks I received from Denny’s customers and staff, I felt like an alien landed on Earth. However, we began to chat about the social psychology – another topic that both of us are very interested in - and quickly forgot about being under the scrutiny at the restaurant. In fact, while we chatted, we missed the sunrise.

We rushed to the location again, and started shooting. It was a lot of fun. It was very easy and comfortable to work with Luis. I believe, he has a good eye and will continue taking a lot of great pictures in the future.

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Blue Men group? Green Women Gang!

Fun memories from a photo session with Luis Ortiz

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