Fall Festival - Halloween
Last week I was doing a volunteer work, doing Fall and Halloween Portraits at my son’s School (Plantation Elementary School).
This year theme was “To the Infinity and Beyond”. I got a colorful backdrop and used a really nice “prop spaceship”, for this Photo Shoot.
Here are some samples of what we got for this year “Fall Festival”
Holiday Portraits - How to take great pictures.
Let me start explaining that for me, photography is the art of capturing a special moment (digital or film). Anybody can take a picture but not every person taking pictures is a Photographer, and there is a difference between a picture from an average person with a average camera and a picture taken from a good professional photographer with a good camera, lens, lighting, props, etc.
Here are few sugestions to make a nice Holiday Portrait;
- Who is your subject?
First decide if you are shooting only one person or the whole family. This will help you to descide about your composition and how to set your camera (if you’re using a DSLR camera)
- What do you have as your background and what props will you use?
Sometimes you just need a good idea to make a great picture, other times you will need backdrop, pine tree, sled, fake snow, etc.
- What kind of light?
Here is what makes the difference between an average picture and a professional one. You need to decide if you’re using window light and reflectors, strobes, or continuous lighting. This year I’ve been trying to use only my new set of 4 continuous lighting (3,000 watts).
Here are some samples of my Holiday Portrait
School Portraits - Holiday Portraits - Tips and Suggestions
This week I was shooting some Holiday Portraits for one school here in my city. I love to shoot kids Portraits in my home-studio, but it can be very challenging when you have to do it in a school.
Here are some tips and sugestions to help you with your next school portrait session:
Time: Remember schedule your day with some extra time, you’re not shooting only one or two portraits. I might have dozens, if not hundreds of students on that school.
Bring your background and Studio Lights - I don’t like the idea of having to pack my strobes, soft boxes, backgrounds and etc. It takes time pack it from your studio, set up at the school, pack at the school and set up back in your studio. But if you are concerned with the quality of your work, that is what you should do.
Assistants: You should bring at least one or two assistants to help you with setting up your equipment, organizing the students and going over each student package and order.
What lights to Bring:Last year I brought three strobes from my home-studio 1- main light, 2- Fill, 3- hair light (notice that I chose not use a background light - I wanted something a little different from past years). The images came out amazing, but I remember how challenging it was to keep the students focused in looking to my camera instead of pay attention on my strobes every time they’ve fired.
This year I brought four kits of my continuous fluorescent lighting and it made a huge difference. I could use an aperture of 4.0 to blur more my background.
Here are some samples of this year Holiday School Portraits
What do you think?
Most of people know me as Wedding and Portrait Photographer, but I also have Bachelor in Physical Education and Master Degree in Sports and Training.
As a parent of a 6 years old boy and as a soccer coach, I want my son to keep practicing soccer during the summer vacation.
Some parents have asked me if I would coach their child too, and I thought it would be a great idea if we could get together and practice at least once a week.
Our training sessions will be held every Wednesday from 5:30pm to 7:00pm (June, July and August - City of Hollywood, Florida).
CLICK HERE for more details.
Kindergarten poem - BabyBrother…
This week I had the honor shooting a family portrait session at Jaime Camara Jr. and Maria Alice’s ranch (an amazing place with features more impressive than most houses that I know). Jaime and Maria Alice are one the most respected couples of the State of Goias and Brazil.
I started the family portrait session at 5:00 pm, and shot until their son lost interest helping me. LOL! But, I had more than 90 minutes with Marcelo, Fernanda and their son, Francisco, and we had so many great shots that it was hard to select only few images to post here.
After the session, I stayed there to shoot Larissa’s birthday party (Jaime and Maria Alice’s daughter). Larissa, Juliano (her husband) and Felipe (her son) are a great example of a beautiful Brazilian family.
It was a very selective party for her family and closest friends, and everybody were very casual and friendly.
I want to enjoy this post to thank Larissa for having me at her wonderful birthday, and also congratulate her on her pregnancy.
Since I couldn’t bring all my gear from USA to Brazil, I did my best to work with as much available light as possible.
Here are few samples of that day…
Yesterday, I had a great experience shooting here, in Fort Lauderdale , FL. The weather was perfect and I couldn’t wish for a better model to shoot.
Josh, is a ten years old young man with a very promising career into the modeling and acting industry. Handsome and with a great smile, Josh made my work a lot easier and with some increadible results.
I also need to thank Josh’s dad and mom to be there supporting and motivating him all the time.
I am also blessed to have a great wife (one the best Photo Stylist of USA Esat Coast) that was there helping me with the lighting, props and styling (It doesn’t hurt to have a great Photo Stylist helping you once a while - LOL). If you need to contact her, here is her Photo Stylist Website
If you need a Professional Photographer in Fort lauderdale or Miami area, CLICK HERE
Here are some of Josh’s images from our Photo Shoot yesterday.
I was raised Catholic, and even if I don’t practice my religion as much as I should, I still like Christmas Time.
For me, the best thing about Christmas is that most of people enjoy more their friends and family this time of the year and that for few weeks, during the month of December, people come at you with open hearts smiling and wishing you Merry Christmas.
But this was before I came to America.
This December, I celebrate exactly 10 years since I first came to Florida - USA.
I was lucky enough to watch at first sight the beauty of Las Olas Boulevard Christmas Lights and the beautiful people walking at the streets.
After that I noticed that people would approach me wishing me Happy Holidays and not Merry Christmas. It took a long time to understand why people were doing that - in my mind, a holiday without a name does not have a meaning.
On 4th of July, you say “Happy 4th of July” - On Thanksgiving, you say “Happy Thanksgiving” - so… Why that on Christmas, people were wishing me Happy Holidays and not Merry Christmas?
I understand that you might not share the same religion or believes, but when you wish me Happy Holidays, I certainly don’t feel as special as when you wish me Merry Christmas (for me Happy Holidays mean “Happy Commercial Shopping Time”) .
And if you are Jewish, I would prefer you wishing me Happy Hanukkah, because Hanukkah means something important to you as much as Christmas is to me.
So for this Christmas I will wish you MERRY CHRISTMAS and I will be ok if you turn back to me and wish me HAPPY HANUKKAH.
Merry Christmas to All!
Paulo
Today the PPGF Association (Photographers) had a great family barbecue at John U. Lloyd Beach State Park. Ok… It was more a Picnic than a barbecue, but since we are in America… let’s say that it was a barbecue. OK? 
Everything was perfect; a lot of people from our association showed up with their families. My wife and my son (Peggy and Ryan) came with me, so we could have some good time together.
As I said, everything was great; good food, great people and a perfect weather. What else can you ask for?
Here are some more pictures of our beautiful day. Enjoy it!
That is it… I hope you have enjoyed.
Please, leave some comment below. Thanks!!!
Once again is Father’s Day.
Sure I have been celebrating Father’s day since I was born, but I was celebrating it from other perspective (as the son). And by the way… In Brazil, we celebrate Father’s Day on “Second Sunday of August”.
Four years ago father’s Day started having a completely different meaning to me… Ryan was born in MAY of 2004, and a month latter I was celebrating my FIRST OFFICIAL FATHER’S DAY.
I don’t want to take to much of your time explaining how great my life has been this last four years, or how proud I feel seen Ryan growing up to be the extraordinary person that he is (at least through my eyes). I would have to write a book just to describe my last four years of fatherhood, but instead I wanted to show you only the beginning… and maybe you can understand what runs inside my heart!!!
Please whatch the video (Ryan’s First Year - around 10 minutes long) and Multiply my feelings X 100 times :-)
Click on this Picture to watch the show!!!
Today was the last day of the Power Lab, a FREE Bible Summer Camp that my son Ryan was going for this last whole week.
They had a great program and I was very impressed with the program and all the decorations that they created for this Power Lab. I was so impressed that I offered my services to come on their last day and take some pictures for them, so they can use the pictures to promote the next Power Lab.
Anyway, I don’t want to get to much in details here… I just want to show you few pictures that I took there.
Here they are:
Leave a comment. OK?
Thanks!
Today was a great day… I took Ryan to his first Tennis Class in the morning and latter Peggy wanted to have some pictures done so she could send them to her agent in Boston. She wanted some very casual pictures with some kid and a set of clothes from Old Navy (who better for the job than our son RYAN)
Here are few shots… I will post a slide show with more pictures tomorrow. OK?
And here is Peggy’s Website!
Enjoy it!!!
As I promised you few days ago, I would post some pictures of my 3 days vacation at Disney World.
Few months ago, I had to go to Orlando to a Videographer’s Convention, and I enjoyed the occasion to bring Peggy and Ryan along. I was going to my classes and they bought a 4 days PASS to Disney. At the time, they just used 2 passes and they would have to use the other 2 passes the next 6 months.
After Simon’s Bar Mitzvah (2weeks ago), we decided that would be the perfect time to have a little vacation.
OK!!! LETS GO TO DISNEY…
I thought that because all the kids are still in School, it would be perfect to go there on a week day (Thursday and Friday). Does anybody work? How about the economy?
For me, it was a huge surprise that the MGM and Magic Kingdom had that many people in. It was not as bad as Christmas time (believe me), but it did have a lot of people walking around. You will see one of the pictures that I took from one of the rides saying “wait time - 70 minutes”. Can you imagine stay in line for that long? In each park would have 2 or 3 rides that you would have to wait at least 60 minutes in line.
Just one more thing before I show you the pictures…
I AM GLAD THAT I AM BACK…
Wow… I need to apologize to my readers for these many days without a post…
One week ago I shot Simon’s Bar Mitzvah, created two collages with few of the good pictures that I selected and uploaded all the pictures to my PICTAGE account. After that I thought that I deserved few days off, so I got my wife and son and drove to Orlando for a three days vacation.
I took some nice pictures of Disney and all around… let me download them and I will show you latter. OK?
Today I will be shooting a Engagement Session at Vizcaya and latter I will be shooting a Boudoir Session.
As you can see I have a full SUNDAY ahead.
I will keep you posted. OK?
I wanted to upload some pictures on my last post, but I didn’t have a subject to shoot other than my son, and he was not on the mood. So I took just these two shots.
That was in my TV room with a little light coming from a french door on his right hand side (camera settings: NO FLASH - AV - f/1.4 - 1/30s - ISO 100)
At night, just before we went to take a shower, he was goofing around wearing my tennis shoes and using my socks as gloves. So I grabbed the camera and took some more shots.
I decided that I would shoot with the same conditions as I do when I shoot my indoor events using my Canon 580EX II Speedlite TTL Shoe Mount Flash + THE LIGHTSPHERE from Gary Fong. NOW, the camera setting was on MANUAL - f/1.6 - 1/80s - ISO 100 (PS- On most of my indoor events I shoot ISO 400).
