Fixed Focus Photography

Portrait Session with Mary – Orlando Portrait Photographer

Cory — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:42:06 +0000

A couple of months ago I shot a portrait session with Shanice (scroll down to see her images) and since then I have been asked to shoot a session with her mom, Mary. Mary really liked how Shanice’s images came out that she wanted to get in on a session as well. I was excited about that because having the opportunity to shoot both mom and daughter really brings out the similarities between both of them. I was looking forward to seeing that.

We decided to shoot at Hollis Gardens in Lakeland Florida right off Lake Mirror. A beautiful location that is a prime area for photography portrait sessions and weddings as well. There was actually a wedding photoshoot going on while we were setting up which was interesting. It turned out to be a beautiful day and a perfect photography atmosphere.

Please take a moment and go through the images below and leave comments!

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Alexandra – Fashion Shoot – Orlando Portrait Photographer

Cory — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:03:40 +0000

I joined up with a local meetup group, The Lakeland Shooters, awhile back and have been attending photoshoots off and on with them. It is a good way to get out and meet new people while working on ideas and themes that I might have never had the opportunity to try out. This weeks theme was a Fashion Bikini shoot at the Sand Dunes of Carter Park in Lakeland. There were four models and about 30 photographers that attended. Alexandra was one of the models that I had the pleasure of shooting. I finally got a battery pack for my studio lights so this was the perfect time and place to test them out on a location shoot and I am glad I did! Looks like I will be taking these lights with me more and more now as I loved the quality of light over just using speed lights.

Back to Alexandra… A beautiful model that has pervious modeling experience. Didn’t have to direct her much so that was nice. Since this was a beach/bikini/holiday theme and props were encouraged, I dug out my old snowboard and boots that I had from living up north. Thought they would go really well with this scene. Alexandra was very accommodating with putting on the boots and hat and that made the whole scene come together. I was very happy with the results and look forward to shooting more fashion ideas like this!

Check out the photos and leave some comments!

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Portrait Session with Shanice by Orlando Portrait Photographer

Cory — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:48:49 +0000

Had a great photo shoot with Shanice over the weekend. We met up in Winter Haven, Florida at a park location that had this cool amphitheater. I am not sure if this has ever been used or how often events take place there but all I knew is that it was open to the general public and it had electricity. Electricity is key here because I wanted to experiment with my studio strobes on location. This location was ideal for this. Couldn’t have found a better spot. We had to shoot during the mid day sun so natural lighting wasn’t going to be ideal. This place was covered so problem solved there! Weather was perfect, but there was a little breeze that made me run to my lights a couple times trying to prevent them from falling over. No big deal though.

We shot for about an hour and a half and got some great images! Check some of them out below and leave comments!

Disney Festival of the Masters by Orlando Wedding Photographer

Cory — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:21:13 +0000

Last week Mary and I decided to check out Disney’s Festival of the Masters event that was happening in Downtown Disney. I heard about it by reading the Lakeland Ledger on Friday afternoon. In fact, it was the only way I heard about it which kind of surprised me. For those that don’t know, The Festival of the Masters is an annual event at Disney that is basically a giant craft fair. When I say giant, I mean I don’t think I have seen a craft fair this size before. It pretty much too over the entire Downtown Disney area and the vendors were not selling the typical craft fair junk you can get online. This was good quality stuff and a lot of very cool things.

The main reason I wanted to go was the Chalk drawing event. They had two classes. One was high school class, and the other was the adult class. Some pretty cool stuff and I give credit to the artist out there creating all this. Check out some of the photos I took of the days events.

Enjoy!

Maureen and Douglas Wedding – Sand Lake – Orlando Wedding Photographer

Cory — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:58:20 +0000

We had the honor of photographing Maureen and Douglas’s wedding on August 31 on Sand Lake in Orlando. They hired us to cover their intimate ceremony on the lake during sunset, an amazing sunset to say the least – more on that later, and we were excited to be a part of it. They are planning on having a full reception later down the road when family can be present but they didn’t want to wait on the ceremony plans. Personally, I love photographing small intimate weddings. I know other photographers that love shooting the huge venues, 8 tier cakes, twenty person bridal parties, etc…, I, however, think when that much going on, a lot gets lost in the what is supposed to be the happiest, most important day in the lives of the couple. They tend to worry too much about the small things that will never be noticed by anyone but them. In contrast, small intimate ceremonies show pure love and affection between the couple and everyone I have photographed, this has shown to be true. Maureen and Douglas’s wedding was no exception to that.

The wedding ceremony took place dockside on Sand Lake, Orlando. For anyone that has been on the lake, you know how big the lake is and that it is mainly surrounded by upperclass homes and celebrities. There are, however, some spots that are not sealed off by armed gate keepers and this place happened to be one of them. What made this place so perfect was the location of the dock and the sun setting directly behind it. Earlier in the day we were worried because it was raining all day. We were preparing for the worst. Then about 5pm, the skies broke and it started to clear up. When the sun started to set, it made for the most beautiful sunset I have seen to date. The sky was fire red and breaking through the clouds which made for an amazing backdrop. The ceremony went off without a hitch!

I wanted to stay all night and shoot that sunset, but they had reservations at Christini’s in Dr. Phillips. They invited us to join them which we were very gracious for, plus this gave me the opportunity to photograph their first meal together as husband and wife. I have never eaten at Christini’s before, but this place is top notch! Amazing service, amazing food and an awesome accordion player that was a walking jukebox. This guy knew every song that was requested and could transpose it to the accordion perfectly. Being a musician myself, I have a new found respect for the lost art of playing accordions. I highly recommend Christini’s in Dr. Phillips!

Well, enough blabbering, here are some of the photos from the wedding. Hope you enjoy and please leave comments!

Tampa Bay Strobist Photoshoot – Orlando Portrait Photographer

Cory — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:56:17 +0000

Lately I have been getting more involved with local meet up groups on meetup.com. I am an active member in the Lakeland Shooters MeetUp group and I have just recently signed up and attended the Tampa Bay Strobist Group. The strobist group focuses mainly on off camera flash techniques and getting that desired effect from it. They have an outstanding turn out of local photographers and models and is a group of very nice and very helpful individuals. Photographers range from beginners to Master Photographers and models range from beginners to highly experienced. It is awesome to belong to a group of people that are so passionate about their profession.

So this past Sunday I decided to head on over to St. Petersburg, FL to attend my first event. They themed this event as strictly off camera flash session with a model and 3-4 photographers rotating at 10 minute intervals. It worked out fairly well and I got some new ideas and met some great people. Having only roughly ten minutes and switching off with other photographers really makes you think on your feet. Have to be quick and move on the fly. A lot of that I was used to because in the wedding world of photography, you have to be able to think on your feet and be quick about it.

Here are a couple of shots from the event.

The model is Gina Marie who was very fun and a pleasure to work with. I look forward to working with her again.

Maternity Photoshoot – Orlando Portrait Photographer

Cory — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:25:33 +0000

A couple of weekends ago, We had the chance to photograph Jessica for her maternity portrait photoshoot in Orlando. Jessica is 38 weeks along and is having a prefect pregnancy and she looks amazing! We normally do not do a lot of maternity shoots so when this opportunity came along, we jumped at the chance. We would, however, like to do more Maternity portraits in the future. We set the time later in the day to catch that awesome Florida magic hour sunset light and also because it has been so hot out I was worried that with the heat and her being very pregnant, things might not go as planned. We spent about two hours in a couple of different locations and with a couple of different outfits. We shot until the sun went down and ran out of light. We had a great time and I believe the results represented that.

At the time of this blog post, we learned that Jessica had a beautiful baby boy, so we would like to say a big Congratulations to you!

Space Shuttle STS-135 Final Flight – Orlando Event Photographer

Cory — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:11:36 +0000

We are one of the lucky ones to be selected in the ticket lottery for the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-135. The way the lottery works, was that you had to sign up to be a part of the lottery way back in May. Once you met the that deadline, you then had to wait for the actual lottery drawing which was held in June. About a week before the drawing, I received an email stating that I was selected and a list of instructions on how to “play”. Well, once the date came, I logged in using the supplied username and password to see what I had been selected for. Now for anyone who has ever been to Kennedy Space Center to photography this event, knows that the causeway is the best possible viewing location for the general public. The best spot it the VAB or Vehicle Assembly Building but you need VIP access for that. VIP access usually entails either having a family member as a worker get you in, you are media, or you are truly a VIP (think President, Congressmen, other Political Figure, etc). Since I am just NIP (Normally Important Person), I got to fight for the remaining 20000 or so tickets that were available. So the best spot being the causeway, second best spot in Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. KSCVC unfortunately doesn’t have a direct view of the launch pad, but it does have a lot of activities to make the long wait not so bad. The third and last spot for viewing is the Astronaut Hall of Hame complex.

We left our place at 4:00am to make the hour and a half drive over to Kennedy Space Center along with all of the other crazies. Surprisingly no traffic until we hit the security check point. Once through the gate we walked around and scoped out a good vantage point. A lot of people were already packed into the grandstand area and I am sure they arrived there at 2am sharp when the place opened. We found a little place by the Astronaut Walk of Fame and set up camp. Turned out to be a great spot with a clear direct view of the launch. We were the only ones over there until about 2 hours later when others started packing in. We met some nice people and talked about the experience. I thought we were crazy for getting up at 2:30am, some of these people drove across the country to see this. A couple of people from Michigan and others from Texas… That is pushing it for me. Much better view on TV.

The overall day was very overcast and the forecast called for rain. We highly expected the launch to be cancelled. About 10:30am, the clouds started to burn off enough that the launch was given the OK to proceed. Thankfully we didn’t get rained on at all. The actual launch was beautiful for the first 30 seconds then the shuttle disappeared into the clouds and it was all over. About 30 seconds after that the sound wave hit us with the constant roar of the rockets. That is a great feeling.

After the launch we packed up and headed for the door. I had an idea that if we were one of the first ones out, we might beat all the traffic. Well, we were probably one of the first 100 or so cars out. Not bad I though, until we were stopped at the end of the causeway bridge. So there we sat in our cars. It was later I found out that they don’t open that bridge until 30 minutes AFTER launch. Just enough time to let all of the other Titusville and Cocoa Beach traffic to catch up and merge all into one. With the help of Google Maps I took a short cut through the airport over to 95 and was home free. A good 3 hour drive home. Overall well worth it, just wish it wasn’t the last time.

Enjoy a few photos of the launch!

Brianna Fay 3 Month Baby Portraits – Orlando Portrait Photographer

Cory — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:54:58 +0000

I have known Pat and Denise for many years, well I have known Pat a lot longer actually. Pat was the singer in my old hard rock band, Mourning Yesterday, so when I found out that he was having a daughter I was very excited for him and I wanted to be one of the first to photograph his little girl, Brianna. I got that chance this past Saturday.

So Saturday, we drove over to their place on the east coast and had a reunion of sorts. I hadn’t actually seen Pat and Denise in about a year (where does the time go?) so it was good to catch up. It was hard to believe that he was a father. I mean, I always knew he would be a great dad, but with all of the hell we used to raise in the band, and knowing what we got away with, I think he will keep a tight leash on her, lol. Actually he was probably the most sane one in the band, next to me of course. Ah the memories!

At first sight, I was amazed how much Brianna resembles both Pat and Denise. She is so cute and adorable. She was great to work with and didn’t fuss at all. I can’t wait to see her grow up and look forward to photographing her more in the future.

Here are some favorites from the shoot! Please leaves comments as well!

Anna Maria Island Portrait Session – Michelle and Jeffrey

Cory — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 16:55:50 +0000

I love the beach, especially over on the west coast of Florida and around Anna Maria Island and the Bradenton Beach area. I lived over there for a number of years and I always jump at a chance to make it back over that way. That chance came when Michelle and Jeffrey contacted me to shoot their one year anniversary portrait session on Bradenton Beach. I had the pleasure of being their wedding photographer the year prior so it was great to see them again, and to be able to shoot their anniversary portrait photography session.

It was a perfect day for shooting, beautiful sunset as the Gulf always displays, and a great atmosphere. If you have never been over to Anna Maria Island, I highly recommend it.

Here are a few samples from the session. Enjoy and leave comments!