Wilson Kelly Album

(click on image to enlarge) 

       I did the design and photography for Wilson Kelly's next album.  I had an idea of both of these location and the exact lighting I wanted for a while but never had the right subject to be able to use them, so when Wilson called me up to make his HipHop album everything fell in to place.  I knew I wanted the inside and outside to be two page spreads and these locations fit in perfectly.  For the outside I lit him with strip box, about four feet away, high, and angled down for the front and a tight grid to add separation on his back.  On the inside I used the same lighting but there were far away just out of the shot.

(click on image to enlarge) 

Age old festival in El Salvador

    
      When I was in El Salvador with La Ruta Inka I had the chance to witness a magnificent festival.  This festival has been going on between two towns since El Salvador was a colony of Spain.  All the people of one town get the statue of thier saint, San Christobal and hike up a montant to a cave where they camp over night.  The next day the mayor or town leader  puts San Christobal on their back and the whole group hikes back down to the other town.

    At the other town the town's people are lined up waiting with a statue of their saint, San Lucas, for San Christobal to arrive with his people.  Once the two saints get closer a group of people from both towns are dressed up in costumes that represent their Indian and Spanish ancestors start to dance with machetea in the middle of the main street as San Christobal comes into town. 

      The saints are carried buy town leaders and are brought little by little toward each other.  This represents when both the saints met for the very first time to unite both towns.  As they are carried toward each other they stop three times and are tilted forward signifying the three times they greeted each other on their first meeting.

  

      At the last tilt or greeting the crowd that is made up of people from both towns cheer and trow confetti.  After all the cheering, all the people line up in two lines and greet each other, one at a time like two high school teams would do after a game here in the states.  This greet consists of both participants holding each others right hands like a hand shake and raising them up to their foreheads.

     Once every one has greeted each other they walk together to the center of the town and dance traditional dances, celebrate their union, and eat typical foods.

Sent out promo pieces today!!!

Sent out promo pieces today!!!

Contact at

(401)-855-3800

diego@dcorreal.com

www.diegocorreal.com

Workshop with John Ricard HipHop photographer

      In December I was invited by John Ricard, a great hiphop photographer, to a lighting work shop in his studio in Manhattan.  A lot of the information from the work shop I already knew from attend Hallmark and from assisting, but there was a a couple of great tips I learned, as well as getting to use some of John's awesome equipment.

      One of the points that John said that stuck with me was that for what ever portrait you are hired to do your subject wants to look good, that is your job as a photographer is to make that person look their best.  So before trying to make a crazy image, just try to make your subject look their best.  From reading about sport photography they always talk about having a safe shot, that is the shot that is not over the top but you're sure that what you good is good, then you can go and experiment with something more wild.  On all my shoots I have always tried to have a minimum of three set ups but they were just any three, now I have made sure one of the set ups is 100% about making my subject look great above everything else.  

     The second tip that has helped me a ton was when bring in you lights closer to you subject there's less fall of on you back ground. But the subject can't move as much or the f-stop on them will change on them.  This has help me working in my studio that I have set up in my garage, it's a small space and I was having problems with my lights spilling on my background and not getting a pure black.  On the other hand having you lights farther away form you subjects gives your subject more room to move, like for kids or action shots.

     It was also awesome being able to shoot with John's Profoto Magnum Reflector and the PML by White Lighting, I've set these up assisting on shoots but I have never been about to shoot with them.  I really loved the PML and planing on getting one soon.  These are my two favor shots and if you would like to see what John had posted on his blog about the workshop click here.

NYC holidays with my Hallmarkers.

            Back in December I got in contact with two of my photographer friends, Sam Turco and Gray Ricker.  I had graduated with them from Hallmark Instude of Photography and hadn't seen them since the summer, so since it was Christmas and we were in New York City we decided to get together and go check out Rocefeller Center's tree and then take a walk to Times Square.

            When we were at Rockefeller Center I notcie there was a huge crowd of people with camras and decide to go see what was going on, when I got there it was Cam Newtown.  Newtown at the time was starting quarterback for the Auburn Tigers, was nominated for the Heisman Trophy that he went on to win a few days later, and was going to play in BCS National Championship Game.  Friends jokingly have called me paparazzi a lot of times be for, but while trying to get a shot of Newtown it was the frist time I have ever aculy felt kind of like one.

            After all the fun at Rocefeller Center, my friends and I walked to Times Square, took a few pictures, and had dinner.

            While at Times Square an older couple stopped us and ask Sam to take a picture of them.  Funny part is they explain to her how to use the camera and how it works not knowing they were talking to a group of photographers.  That shows you, you never know who your talking to.

The art of extracting balsamo

                   While I was in El Salvador with La Ruta Inka the department of tourisum took us to a town that is one of the major exporterters of balsamo in the world.  Balsamo is the sap/oil that comes form a tree, that is used for medicine, chap stick, hair products, and has many other functions.
                  The balsamo farm that we were tooken to was a farm that used very old tecenics to extra the sap and keeps the tree heathy for futrure use.  The way they collect the sap is by climbing up the tree, by wrapping a rope around their hands and the tree to pulling them selfs up it.  When they are up in the tree they burn the top layer of the bark to make the tree extract a sap that it uses to heal its self.  By waving their hat they control what parts of the tree the fire burns.  After they have the area brunt and it's extracting the sap the place rags in that area.  After a few days of the rags soking in the sap they collect them all up and take them to the next process.

                   The reason they use this process is because by burning the bark they are able to let the tree heel its self up and then after a year or so they can do the process again unlike the other way of just cutting the trees down for the sap.

           The next step is to collect all the rags with the sap and place them into a cloth bag that they put into a pulley/lever system.  They pour boiling hot water over the bag and use the pulley/lever system to drain all the water and oil out of the rags.  Once it is all collected the separate the balsamo oil from the water and bottle it up for sale.

It's always a fun time with Wendy Hope

Images by Wendy Hope

              I have been working with glamor, fashion photographer Wendy Hope and its always a blast!!!  Her energy is great, it's never a dull moment, and the people she get for her teams are just so much fun to work with.  The image on the top is 3 different shoot I have assisted Wendy on, and its awesome to watching her come out with great images with so much energy.  Check out her blog to see where these images were used.

Image by Wendy Hope

Location shoot for Izulec Beauty Salon

        
               In December I did a photo shoot for Izulec Beauty Salon, that consisted of a group shot of all the staff.  They wanted one image to put on Christmas cards to give out to clients.  There's a big field in Lincoln going to the Community College of Rhode Island that I have been wanting to use as a location for a long time about didn't know what a good subject would be for it.  So when I got this job I thought that location would be great for this shoot, big area for a large group and the tones of the trees and grass would like great with the blue outfits they wanted to wear.
               I knew that I didn't just want them to be standing there so I got a table and chair set to pose them around to add some layers.  So about an hour before the subjects showed up I arrived to the field where I places the chairs and table where I wanted, placed a huge white sheet(20'x10') on a back drop stand that I was going to use to shoot strobes threw, and added a accent /hair light.  After metering all my lights I realized that I wasn't getting enough light from the to strobes firing threw the sheet, the accent /hair light wasn't going to do much, and I wasn't going to be able to over power the sun to nock out the back ground as much as I wanted too.  So I moved to the acsent /hair light behind the sheet to fire with the other two and got the look I wanted.  The lights I used were 3 White Lighting strobes; 2 X1600 and one X800.

Day full of knowledge in El Salvador

                       After having to sleep in the highest point of El Salvador Ministerio de Turismo de El Salvador or the department of tourism took us to La Palma where we went to a museum to seen the history of the Salvadoran currency, from the coffee bean  to the US dollar.  After the museum they had a a huge dinner set up for us that included fireworks.  Once we were done with the awesome dinner they took us to a military base where we were going to camp for the night.  The next day we were woken up by the base's military band, they played while we ate breakfast and pack our things to get ready for a long day.

             The first place the department of tourism took us was to a small town that is one of the largest exporters of balsamo.  As soon as we got off the buses we were greeted by the children of the town and another band playing for us.   Next they had a demandstrtion on how the get the balsamo oil.  Balsamo is the main ingredient in conditioner and is also used for medicines, I will post the whole proses in a later posting(Click here to read about balsamo).  After the demonstration we went to a balsamo farm and showed us how they extract the oils from the trees and some of us had a chance to try it for our selfs.

     

             We had learned a ton about balsamo and we were on the rode again.  The next stop was a small town where we had the honer to be a part and witness a great festival that the locals they have had since when the Spaniards had colonized El Salvador.  To read about this festival click here.