Sharing The Roijoy

I was talking with the owner of Parrot Cove Lodge in Belize, about their marketing and the kind of images that would tell their story in a way that stands out. Reading the reviews their guests had written it was apparent that the staff contributed highly to the very favourable reviews they were getting. So many people commented how amazing the staff were and so the caption came to life - “Amazing Staff For Amazing Guests”. Looking for a way to say this in a picture form and without needing a lot of copy, I came up with the idea of shooting the staff at Parrot Cove Lodge doing amazing things in their roles at the resort. In the main picture featured in this post is of one of the ladies who works on the Front Desk, and also has some accounting responsibilities. All the models in the campaign are actual staff and there were many funny moments setting up these shots. You should know that all the staff are actually shot in position in the scenes and no one has been photoshoppe...

My last post was in January 2016 and things have become quite surreal since then. My photography business is now based in Belize and there is someone named Donald Trump installed as the President of the United States of America. My own country is heading rapidly out of the EU, while drones and driverless cars have become ubiquitous. And we now have not just one dog but two — Jazz and Pepper. When I set up a photography business in San Francisco in 2009, I knew I would shoot campaign photography, products, portraits, and other things - except for weddings and nature/ landscape photography. However I met a lot of people in San Francisco who wanted intimate small weddings which were more like portrait sessions and soon found myself shooting weddings about once a month. And now after just over 2 years of being based in Belize, looking through my pictures I see how enchanted I have become by the amazing colours, weather, and the light of the caribbean. Our property is on the beach ...

Happy New Year to you and may it bring you wondrous photo opportunities to capture and hone your skills with. I spent the major part of 2015 doing travel photography and editorial shoots. I also have a good quantity of images to tag and prepare for the various photo libraries I contribute to. So even though this opening post for 2016 is mainly to say "Hello" and wish you the best for 2016, Here are my last image sales of 2015. In 2008 we were driving into the Hamanasi Resort in Belize. On turning a corner we were confronted with this view of a building being delivered to the facility. It has been licensed 3 times previously to being licensed again on December 31, 2015. And last but not least, this image also shot in Belize, of one of the Garifuna Settlement Day celebrations in 2009. This image has been licensed twice before being licensed again on December 31, 2015. And the clock continues to tick so off I go for now.

Quick Tip: One simple way to make your photos more interesting and dynamic is to experiment with shooting your subjects from different angles and viewpoints. Here is a scene shot on my desk using toys for my models. Here is the exact same scene shot from lowdown with a macro lens.

Here's a fast method for giving your images the popular desaturated look. It's a look often seen in film posters but you can see this look in many other places too. This method allows you to control how much or how little you want the effect to be visible and also gives you control over tone and individual colors. It's straightforward and uses adjustment layers in Photoshop so you can save the effect as an action to use on any of your images without starting from scratch each time. Basically you'll have created your own customizable filter. Watch the video and have fun!

I've been in Belize for the whole month of May and notice that once again my stats are acting as if they are affected by my global placement. I've commented before that whenever I visit Belize, the sales of my Belize located stock photos seem to increase. So once again when I look at my stats for those pictures I see that I have made 14 sales on 10 of my Belize images for the month of May instead of just 3 or 4. It is just an odd coincidence but I wonder how long it will last. Also it's always the older images that pop up too  — anyway, these are the images, if you licensed one of them, Thank you :) Apart from these I sold an additional 34 stock images in May.

There isn't a story to this. Just walking down 17th Street in San Francisco on a sunny afternoon, and these are a handful of views that caught my eye. Boyz on Bikes Who will be the chairman? Crossing genders Weed of wisdom Sun worship at Church Blooming house 17th and Abbey Car wash, yeah! Meditation Redhead Marching to the beat