We love supporting local talent here in Naples, be that local artists or artisans or musicians. Some of our favorite bands come from here and around the state and we hope to continue working with some of them. We had a portrait shoot with guitarist Freddy Maysonet.

Yes, this is Naples! It’s not all sunsets and beautiful palm trees. On a beautiful and early morning, we went exploring and found just the perfect spot for some gritty portraits of the musician.

Freddy’s hands are magical when he wraps them around a guitar. Listening to him in person is really the only way to hear this man play….Take a listen where you are at though as you look at his portraits.

Sample by Freddy Maysonet

Tags: fine art portraiture, naples portraits by Astrid
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Even though we are pretty much Naples natives, very used to hurricanes and the waiting game that we must play with them as they make landfall, it was no different with Fay. Yeah, Fay hit Southwest Florida as a tropical storm, but it kept us up regardless! To be precise, the rain and wind kept us up…

Add to that the fear that our pool would overflow and our coughing Ali laying next to us; and you could say we had a restless night. The pool came dangerously close to overflowing and at 4:00 am, Rene grudgingly trudged out in the rain and wind and drained some of the pool water.

We spent the last end of the morning collecting massive amounts of avocados that had littered the backyard like mini-bombs (can’t wait to make guacamole!). And we spent most of the day lazily playing and doing, uhm, not much. But then we made a spur of the moment decision to head to the beach after we saw little glimmers of the sun finally appear. I’ve gotten really good at predicting great light at the beach and my gut feeling didn’t let me down this time around!

It was SO magical and we are totally glad we made it to our spot! We had a bit of cabin fever in us and getting out to see our favorite beach was just what we all needed. The long paver pathway was flooded, but it was a wonderful adventure and as we made our way to the beach, we were greeted with the sounds of the crashing Gulf and lots of wind.

I managed to snap a few shots of the wonderful palm trees that line the coast and in the slides show down below, you can see them flowing in the wind. The beach, the light, the salt air and the wind….it was amazing….and the sunset was one of the best we’ve seen in a long time. And while there was no visible sun setting, the colors of that the sun created against the full clouds were like a technicolor|HD|80’s neon|flourescent|trip explosion!

Whenever you see a painting of a sunset here in Florida and it’s all pinky and baby bluey and you think to yourself, “Gee, what was this painter ON when he/she painted this sunset ?” Believe what you are seeing! It’s not some artist’s rendition of a Florida sunset gone wild. The sunsets down here really are pink and orange and baby blue and the ones right after hurricanes and tropical storms are downright amazing. Ali even got into the spirit of things and brought her camera to capture the magic.

The show after the storm was really incredible but I’m totally glad everyone is safe and I hope Fay leaves Florida and the rest of the coast alone! Here’s to a perfect day and to a safe hurricane season here in Florida!

~Astrid~

Tags: daily photo rambling..., palm trees, ramblings... by Astrid
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Look at these fabulous thank you cards I picked up from a little gift store here in Naples! The moment I saw these I knew they were the perfect thank you cards for sending to my bride and grooms! They are so stylish and yet so simple and elegant. That’s always the sign of great design!

~Astrid~

Tags: brides, daily photo rambling..., design by Astrid
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My apologies! It’s been a while, I know I know! I’ve had a slew of shoots lately and it seems as though I am always playing catch up! It’s also two weeks before school starts for Ali, and that’s a big deal around here as our lazy summer schedule is about to end. And we are scrambling to enjoy the last bit of summer that we have left!

So we hosted an end-of-summer barbeque for friends and family and conversation drifted to a plant I have hanging off the edge of our patio roof. It’s a wax plant, and to be precise, it’s called a Hoya, typically native to southern Asia.

Well, this plant has been in my family for a long time. My aunt acquired a rootless, shriveled up clipping from an old friend and she managed to nurse it to health. From that, clippings found their way to my mom and then from my mom down to me. Now, let me tell you that I have never had much luck with plants up until now. In college, pretty much the only plant that could survive me was a cactus. And even then I managed to kill ‘em! But this one clipping of this flower is so special to me, that I’ve kept the darn thing alive for years. And it blooms the most amazing flowers you will ever see. They are tiny star shaped flowers which all crowd together to form a perfect round ball shape. It’s a vine and she loves to crawl, but being the bad plant mom that I am, I have her hanging. She should be on a trellis or something, right?

Well in any case, no palm this time, but I wanted to share this amazing little bloom that graced our presence during these last few weeks of summer. Ali has learned to swim under this bloom, we’ve had many a friend over under this bloom and spent many a lazy afternoon sipping wine and enjoying what can only be called as a summer full of perfect days…..

~Astrid~

Tags: ramblings... by admin
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I did some test shots today with the d700 of my girls, this time using ISO 3200 and 6400. Again, WOW is all I can say. I know, it’s hardly an original thought, but I just don’t have much else to say. Let me let the images and the specs speak for themselves!

• ISO3200
• 1/50th of a second
• f1.8
• all natural light
• RAW - increased the exposure by .5 of a stop using ACR
• Sharpened, no noise reduction applied at all!

• This is the 100% crop of her eye….amazing for 3200!

And here’s the doozy!

• ISO6400
• 1/60th of a second
• f1.8
• all natural light
• RAW - no exposure tweaking
• Sharpened, no noise reduction applied at all!

• This is the 100% crop of her eye @ 6400ISO! While not the smoothest, WHOA! We are talking about 6400ISO here! It’s sandy, but I can TOTALLY live with that for the added bonus of shooting in a VERY, VERY dark room, with little window light on an overcast day. I have to send Nikon a BIG THANKS and a standing ovation!

Tags: daily photo rambling..., togs by Astrid
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I took some portraits of Ali during dinner with my brand-spankin’ new Nikon D700. Let me tell you that I haven’t been this excited about a camera since I bought Nikon’s film camera, the F4s back when I was working for the newspaper here in Marco Island.

The D700 is absolutely everything they are saying it is and more! This camera, along with the D3, is revolutionizing how professional photographers shoot. How you ask? High ISO performance. It’s really incredible! I’m not a techy-type photographer, but having gone to college for photography, I do know my stuff well. The biggest problem with high ISO performance has been film grain with film cameras and digital noise with digital cameras. But that’s slowly changing for digital cameras as I’ve seen some FANTASTIC images coming out of the D3 at super high ISOs (like 6400+) and now with the D700.

What’s fantastic about the D700 is that it’s a full-frame camera as well. So my lenses rock now! Here’s a portrait I shot of Ali at the dinner table. We have a huge spread of sliding glass doors that lead out to the pool and the natural light that comes in through here is nothing short of AWESOME. This image was shot in low light, with a blend of natural light coming in (the coolish light to the left of her face) and warm tungsten lights (the warmer lights on the right). The light wasn’t very bright and it was already around 7:15 when I shot this. I did absolutely NO post production on this image other than sharpening and cropping.

• ISO1600
• 1/80th of a second
• f1.8

1600 isn’t too high, but look at that! No noise whatsoever and look at the clarity of my lens, even at this low Web resolution. I did experiment a bit with low-light portraits at 3200 and 6400 but haven’t had time to post here, but they too, look fantastic. Wow….I’m so excited at the prospect of being given a bit more wiggle room to work with less flash and more natural light. I LOVE my new camera!!! :)

~Astrid~

Tags: daily photo rambling..., togs by Astrid
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