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Philadelphia Model & Actor Taylor Nicholson -Portrait Photography Philadelphia
March 26th, 2012
Philadelphia Model & Actor Taylor Nicholson -Portrait Photography Philadelphia
Design Creatively
With a uniquely creative outlook and a passionate drive toward success, Taylor Nicholson has revealed herself to be yet another star burning brightly under the radar in Philadelphia and poised to burst onto the scene in the film industry. Combining beauty, drive, and intelligence is sure to create a winning combination for this young & talented woman.
Raised in the bustling small town of Dillsburg, PA (which features a New Year’s Eve Pickle Drop!), Taylor was initially interested in studying Film and Production, but quickly found that it was design where she excelled the most. Currently a student at Philadelphia’s Drexel University where she is majoring in Graphic Design, she devotes her spare time to modeling and acting. In addition to being an actor and model, she is available as a Philadelphia Graphic Designer for hire »
She was a competitive figure skater at a young age but let competitive skating take a back seat after suffering a back fracture in high school; these days she skates just for the love of it. Charitably, Taylor has also been an active participant in The American Cancer Society’s “Relay for Life” as well as a Recreation Counselor for a United Cerebral Palsy summer camp serving children with special needs. With close ties to her family and a desire to “set a good example” for her younger sister, Taylor isn’t content with being just another pretty face, but has squarely set her sights on being a beautiful person too.
Take a moment and check out Taylor’s website, twitter feed, portfolio on ModelMayhem, as well as her listing on IMDB.
Taylor’s Website »
@taylortweethart Twitter »
Taylor on ModelMayhem »
Taylor on IMDB »
Taylor and I got together to shoot some portraits for general use. From headshots to lifestyle candid shots with my own take on them, we had a blast walking around Philadelphia’s University City and capturing these images!
These images were captured with one Ranger Quadra on a pole with a 17” Beauty Dish. Strategically placing Taylor to use the sun as our second light and taking advantage of overcast moments we were able to get some great lighting patterns! Check out some of the best shots of the day!
Tags: Commercial Photographer, Commercial Photography, Composition, Fashion Photographer, Headshot Photographer, Headshots, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Model, Model Headshot, Model Photography, Outdoor Photos, Philadelphia Beauty Photographer, Philadelphia Commercial Photographer, Philadelphia Fashion Photographer, Philadelphia Graphic Designer, Philadelphia Headshots, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photography, Philadelphia Model Photographer, Philadelphia Photography, Philadelphia Portrait Photographer, Photo Shoot, Unique Philadelphia Photographer
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Zahra: The Baltimore Model Photo Shoot
January 13th, 2012
Zahra: The Baltimore Model Photo Shoot
Raised in the Baltimore area by a pair of successful lawyers as parents, Zahra Moore was primed to have a bright future in public office, politics or law. She was introduced to modeling at a very young age but did in fact pursue a career in politics. After bowing out of the political theater she found employment elsewhere and now as a young woman wanted to give modeling one last hurrah and get some photographs taken. Enter the photographer.
Harsh Fashion Light
Zahra and I decided to go for a harsh and contrasty fashion look and found a great location here in South-eastern Pennsylvania that fit the bill.
It takes village
Big thanks to my assistant, Chris (and my Uncle) for the day! As well as our hair and make up artist for the day, Amanda, from Cakeface by Amanda for her incredible work! You’re the best, girl!
Below are some of my favorites from the shoot!
Tags: Commercial Photographer, Commercial Photography, Creative Philadelphia Photographer, Fashion Photographer, Fashion Photography, Fitness, Headshot Photographer, Headshots, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Model, Model Headshot, Model Photography, Model Shoot, Outdoor Photos, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Commercial Photographer, Philadelphia Editorial Photographer, Philadelphia Editorial Photography, Philadelphia Fashion Photographer, Philadelphia Fashion Photography, Philadelphia Head Shot Photographer, Philadelphia Headshots, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photographer
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Musician Photography Bridgeport, PA: Brodi Valos & Gethin Lewis
January 2nd, 2012
Musician Photography Bridgeport, PA: Brodi Valos & Gethin Lewis
Relaxing in Nags Head
After spending some quality time relaxing and shooting some photos in the small coastal town of Nags Head in the beautiful Outer Banks of North Carolina I hooked up with Brodi and Gethin on my drive home to shoot some photos for general purpose use and for promotional material for their music.
When driving for 7+ hours it is sweet relief to have a break worked into your driving plans. Mine came as I rolled into Bridgeport, PA. It was a brisk, cool evening and the light was amazing. All the photographs I shot using a single light on a stand an toyed with what I could using the ambient light (what little there was) in the scene.
Brodi Valos
Brodi Valos is a talented and perpetually hard working musician/recording artist who performs throughout the Mid-Atlantic region with Philadelphia-based group Dirty Electrick. Brodi, who himself hails from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is recognized for his roots rock sense of style in fashion, performance, and in his music videos.
Inspired by classic music icons such as AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, & Ray Charles, and even my all-time favorite group, Social Distortion, Brodi creates a wonderful blend of Rock and Country in his tracks that you’re sure to enjoy.
Did He Just Say ‘Ron Paul’?
Brodi is a man after my own spirit and, like myself, views Dr. Ron Paul as the best of the candidates for presidential election in the upcoming 2012 Presidential election as we rapidly approach the conclusion of the Republican Natl. Primaries.
Check out and ‘Like’ Brodi’s Facebook Page.
Gethin Lewis is a musician and guitarist from Philadelphia, PA who, along with playing music with Brodi, creates his own Psychedelic brand of music. A great personality and a bunch of fun to photograph!
We had a great time hangin’ out and shooting these photos and spent some time chatting after we put the camera down. Check out some of my favorites below!
Tags: Bridgeport Music Photography, Bridgeport Photography, Commercial Photographer, Commercial Photography, Composition, Conshohocken Music Photography, Headshot Photographer, Headshots, King of Prussia Music Photography, Lifestyle Photographer, Music, Music Photographer, Musician, Outdoor Photos, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Commercial Photographer, Philadelphia Editorial Photographer, Philadelphia Headshots, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photographer, Philadelphia Music Photographer, Philadelphia Music Photography, Philadelphia Musician Photographer, Philadelphia Musician Photography, Philadelphia Photography, Photo Shoot
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Fashion Photographer Philadelphia – Fashion Designer + Me + The Camera
November 21st, 2011
Simplify! Man!
Often as a photographer, I get far to caught up in the gadgets and gear that make my work possible and as they distract me from the fundamentals of why and how I shoot, I start to lose a little bit of what gives my work a “shot by Nathaniel Dodson” feel.
I’d venture so far as to say this happens to most photographers, but when this gadget-ism strikes I pony-up and strike back by heading out to a shoot with only a single fixed length lens and a reflector as my light! This is just to force myself to make due with what I have and use the light available to ensure I am not “losing my touch” on the basic essentials of how I shoot… this is of course assuming that I have some kind of touch in the first place (debatable). Stepping back and simplifying in both design and photographic work can be greatly beneficial! I love it!
She’s a Fashion Designer… or a Rockstar
Kelli is a local working Fashion Designer who also has a passion for modeling. We got together to shoot some photographs and had an easy-breezy time capturing a few nice frames. She was great!
Simplifying…
Getting together with Kelli I had previously decided that I would be significantly lightening my gear and carrying only a few things out onto location in an effort to focus on simplifying my approach –which had started getting a little out of hand. (Note: I brought one light with me for this shoot, an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra with the 39″ Deep Octa Softbox.)
Below are a few of the photographs we captured. My shot(s) of the day turned out to be a series of black and white fashion photos which I absolutely love.
Tags: Allentown Photographer, Bethlehem Model, Bethlehem Photographer, Boyertown Head Shots, Boyertown Headshots, Boyertown Model Photographer, Boyertown Photographer, Boyertown Photography, Commercial Photographer, Commercial Photography, Fashion Photographer, Fashion Photography, Gilbertsville Photographer, Headshots, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photography
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Model + Fashion in the Park – Bethlehem, PA
November 9th, 2011
Distinct Pleasure
Yasmine is an talented and beautiful young Egyptian/Moroccan/Turkish college student(/model) attending college right here in Eastern Pennsylvania. I had the distinct pleasure of working with her about 2 months ago shooting some general purpose portraits and was delighted with how they turned out!
There was a bit of rain in the forecast for the date we’d picked to setup the shoot, but decided to press on and make it happen rain or shine! Typically when a shoot gets cancelled due to the weather forecast, the weather man ends up being wrong and we get beautiful weather, it’s only when we decide to ignore the forecast that the forecast stands true!
We ended up with a very cloudy sky that morning and there was a brisk breeze which occasionally cut through our location all the while we were shooting further enhancing the cool/damp early-autumn air and, in the end, combining to make beautiful shooting weather throughout our shoot. It worked out wonderfully and we got lots of very soft, wrapping light! Photographer’s dream!
Yasmine did a great job and totally rocked the shoot! Check her out over at her profile on Model Mayhem which is located here.
Below are a healthy spattering of a few of the shots which I loved most from that rainy and overcast morning in Bethlehem.
Tags: Allentown Photographer, Bethlehem Commercial Photographer, Bethlehem Lifestyle Photographer, Bethlehem Model, Bethlehem Photographer, Bethlehem Portrait Photographer, Commercial Photographer, Commercial Photography, Editorial Photography, Fashion Photographer, Fashion Photography, Headshot Photographer, Headshots, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Model, Model Headshot, Model Photography, Model Shoot, Outdoor Photos, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Commercial Photographer, Philadelphia Editorial Photographer, Philadelphia Editorial Photography, Philadelphia Fashion Photographer, Philadelphia Fashion Photography, Philadelphia Headshots, Portfolio Building
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Photographing Janice Lavranos – Bethlehem, PA
October 13th, 2011
Model: Janice Lavranos
Jenny is a young and up n’ coming model located in the Allentown/Bethlehem area of Pennsylvania. We got together a little while ago on a nice evening and shot some great frames for her!
Below are a few of the images we captured.
Tags: Allentown Model, Allentown Photographer, Allentown Photography, Bethlehem Model, Bethlehem Photographer, Commercial Photographer, Commercial Photography, Composition, Fashion Photographer, Fashion Photography, Headshot Photographer, Headshots, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Model, Model Headshot, Model Photography, Outdoor Photos, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Commercial Photographer, Philadelphia Editorial Photography, Philadelphia Fashion Photographer, Philadelphia Fashion Photography, Philadelphia Headshots, Philadelphia Photography, Photo Shoot, TFP
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Sheltered Turtle Acoustic Guitar & Percussion – Philadelphia, PA
October 6th, 2011
He’s Korean!
The percussive and distinctively finger-plucked acoustic guitar sound of musical moniker Sheltered Turtle, is produced by the young and very talented musician Henry Nam. Henry is a young musician born in Korea and raised all over the world, from San Francisco to Germany!
Henry of Sheltered Turtle and I hooked up to do some shooting for his latest album and press material. We did a very simple on-location shoot with a reflector and a simple light.
Guitar Melodies
You definitely are going to want to check out his music, he’s got some great stuff! Check out his music and go ahead and buy some music by visiting Henry’s website where you can also learn more about him and his music!
Visit Sheltered Turtle By Clicking Here!
Below are a few of the images we captured during our shoot.
Tags: Headshot Photographer, Headshots, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Model Shoot, Music, Music Photographer, Musician, Outdoor Photos, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Commercial Photographer, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photographer, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photography, Philadelphia Music Photogra, Philadelphia Music Photographer, Philadelphia Music Photography, Philadelphia Musician Photographer, Philadelphia Musician Photography, Philadelphia Photography, Photo Shoot
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Scott Kelby in Philadelphia – An Attendee’s Perspective – Light It, Shoot it, Retouch it. Live!
September 27th, 2011
Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it. Live!
As the calendar swings into Autumn in the Philadelphia area a different presence descended upon the city of brotherly love as the superb Scott Kelby and the gang from Kelby Training rolled into town with the hottest show on turf, the highly educational and informative seminar, Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it. Live! Presented by the always entertaining Scott Kelby.
Junkies, Whack-jobs, & Nuts
Myself and three friends took the day and a short trip into the city to the PA Convention Center. There was pretty decent turn out for the event and there was no shortage of photographers spitting every imaginable bit of photo-jargon and babbling about snooze-inducing things like aperture, f-stops, ambient light, seamless backgrounds, fake eyelashes, and bass guitars (really, bass guitars were actually mentioned!). In short, it was a melting pot oozing with photo loving maniacs and sharpness obsessed creatures like myself and every other camera-tottin’ nut who attended.
Get this party started!
We kicked off the day with a brief introduction, gear overview and tethered shooting setup with Adobe Lightroom, but quickly jumped into the first shoot. Scott spent a little time shooting some wonderful beauty head shots using a variety of clamshell lighting techniques as well as his amazing back lit softbox background technique -if you’re not sure what this is… you should have been there! Or check out KelbyTraining.com for some tutorials on the method.
The Day went like this…
After the shoot Scott covered some great Photoshop and Lightroom techniques for retouching the images he had just shot. This was the theme of the day. Light. Shoot. Retouch. The rest of the day went something like this:
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Dramatic lighting class.
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Retouching those images.
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Lunch (Reading Terminal Market all the way, baby!)
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Edgy light for corporate type head shots or magazine cover.
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Retouching those photos and even creating that magazine cover!
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Athletic edgy light photo shoot (captured an amazing boxer photograph during this shoot).
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Retouching and editing those photos.
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Fashion/High Fashion photo shoot.
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Retouching those fashion photographs.
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Shooting images for a composite.
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Compositing a studio lit model onto an amazing location image.
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Shooting a different look for a composite.
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Compositing that image with a variety of industrial backgrounds to create some amazing artwork.
Tips, Tricks, Goodness all day
Add to that all of Scott’s mini-tutorials and tips all throughout the day and you have an amazing learning experience top-to-bottom. Considering the amount of tips and the quality of content, this was the best Kelby Training hosted event I’ve been to yet.
Funny guy, eh?
Scott also shared a healthy does of his comedic side as he fumbled around on stage for the 6+ hours he was there, ragging on himself, ragging on Brad (his trusty main-man), ragging his subjects (albeit, gently), and us, the audience! I wouldn’t rather have it any other way! Haha! It was awesome! Rag away, Scott, rag away. 
Dazzling
In this 6 hour spectacular Scott did an amazing job of starting at square one and building soup-to-nuts, everything. From brand new shooters to seasoned vets, everyone walked away with valuable tips, tricks, and glistening with an arsenal of new-found photography confidence and inspiration!
Thank you, Kelby Training!
A huge thank you to the crew who made this whole event happen and thanks for the great time you gave us all, Scott! Hope you enjoyed your stay in Philadelphia as much as we enjoyed having you! Look forward to the next time you swing through the Keystone state.
Tags: Fashion Photography, Headshots, Kelby Training, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Live Convention, Local, Model, Model Headshot, Model Photography, Model Shoot, Music, Music Photographer, Musician, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Commercial Photographer, Philadelphia Headshots, Philadelphia Musician Photographer, Philadelphia Musician Photography, Philadelphia Photography, Philly, Photoshop, Scott Kelby, Tour, Training, Tutorials
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Shooting Starving the Tsunami at the Abandoned Farm
September 7th, 2011
Starving…
I had the opportunity to photograph the band, Starving the Tsunami a short while ago. Starving the Tsunami is a Rock band out of South Philadelphia, check out their website and the music on their website right here.
Rainy Day Go Away
We made the most of a rainy day and crashed an abandoned barn (with permission, of course) and as the sun began to peer out from behind the clouds later in the evening took advantage of some great light to capture some photographs that the guys loved.
Check out a few of the images we captured that day below.
Tags: Composition, Editorial Photography, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Music, Music Photographer, Musician, Outdoor Photos, Philadelphia Headshots, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photographer, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photography, Philadelphia Music Photogra, Philadelphia Music Photographer, Philadelphia Music Photography, Philadelphia Music Phototgraphy, Philadelphia Musician Photographer, Philadelphia Musician Photography, Philadelphia Photography, Photo Shoot
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Natural Light Shooting
June 7th, 2011
Natural Light Shooting
Penn University
A couple of weeks ago I photographed a student named Andrew Frechinella. He is attending Penn University in Philadelphia. I shot him on the UPenn campus in the University City district of Philadelphia. He’s wrapping up his very own PhD and was looking to try his hand at a bit of modeling.
I always love shooting in new locations, especially interesting new locations. The campus at Penn lacks no character, space, architecture, or visual interest of any kind. It’s a really great atmosphere. On campus has a certain look and feel, and only a few block from campus a very different look and feel, I love it! Versatility of location is always a major plus.
Wandering
We began the afternoon (very sunny afternoon) by wandering around outside of Penn first and explored some alleyways and streets and ventured onto the college grounds. Andrew was a rock-star, we took advantage of a construction site, empty café, and paparazzi’d a few random students (some of the best photos of the day, just kidding 
) and he killed it on campus, off campus, everywhere we went.
Production Shots
I really need to start taking some photos of myself taking photos… or rather have my assistant (typically my Uncle) handling a second camera and snapping some production shots so you can get a sneak peak, behind-the-scenes look at what I do. Maybe next time, there’s always (usually) a next time.
Technical Nonsense
Because of the insane sunlight (which is really not very good for great portrait photography) I stayed away from lighting anything with strobes or off-camera flash, instead I hung out with a pair of reflectors. A Westcott 6’ x 4’ reflector panel (Sunlight & Silver) as well as a smaller Silver & White 30” Lastolite reflector. In sunlight these things work like a charm and can light very well, put them in the hands of someone who can feather the light and make adjustments on the fly for you, and you’ve got a killer lighting setup; all with one measly little reflector (and one giant continuous light we call the sun).
I shot almost everything at f2.8 and around 1/200th of a second except when photographing into the sun; I adjusted for greater depth of field and stopped down to f8.0 and around 1/100th of a second for those shots. Throw in the reflector bouncing that intense sunlight back into the subject and you get great light. My ISO stayed at 100 all day.
I made a concerted effort to get away from shooting at a longer focal length this time around and stayed with my 50mm (nifty 50) and my 24-70mm f2.8. I miss the flat, compressed look of the telephoto but love the way it made me work using this lens and not having the 70-200mm to “fall back on”. Since that shoot, I’ve been using the 24-70mm a whole lot more. Objective. Completed.
Thanks!
A big shout out to Andrew for hanging around all afternoon with me and being totally cool with everything I asked him to do, job well done man! Also a shout out to my Uncle Chris for the excellent setup, reflector-holding, idea-bouncing, goodness; having an extra set of hands makes impractical or impossible shots practical and possible.
Tags: Fashion Photographer, Fashion Photography, Headshot Photographer, Lifestyle Photographer, Lifestyle Photography, Model, Model Headshot, Philadelphia Fashion Photographer, Philadelphia Headshots, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photographer, Philadelphia Lifestyle Photography
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