Paul Barrios Photography

One of my favorite times of the year is Halloween. Why? I love seeing all of the creative costumes people come up with and enjoy getting a laugh.

This year, however; of all of the interesting costumes I have seen, my friend Steven Greenstreet drew my attention for his "throw back" costume in honor of an old childhood book I read, "Where the Wild Things Are". With the movie debuting this past month, Steven decided to parade around in a costume portraying "Max", the "king of the wild things" who one evening plays around his home, making mischief in a wolf costume. This year, Steven was the one making mischief around on the Rock Creek trail.

A few months ago I joined Model Mayhem. It's a cool site where photographers, models, and make up artists can network and work together on various projects.

Eliza is the second model I have had the opportunity to work with and it was a lot of fun. I have been practicing more editing techniques for portraits and wanted some practice and she just wanted updated pics for her portfolio. We decided to meet up at Sly Horse Studios in Rockville. If you are in need of a space to shoot I highly recommend them. For $35 an hour you have access to all sorts of equipment and space to do some amazing pictures.

Overall this was fun and I look forward to working with Eliza on some projects I have in mind like, "Trash the Dress" which will be a lot of fun!

This weekend was a non stop weekend of shooting. SOOO many pictures to go through.

Let's start with my engagement portrait session with my good friends Mark and Hannah.

Mark and Hannah are a couple that ooze cuteness. I have known Mark for a number of years and have always wanted to see him with a special girl. Hannah is that girl. Her and Mark are so in love and I really enjoyed being able to do their engagement pictures. I can't wait to second shoot at their wedding with one of my favorite photographers whom I also look up to; Kenny Kim. I will definitely feel like a rookie shooting with him but I know I will learn a lot.

Okay, time to go through more pictures from the weekend.... a wedding, a studio shoot, and another eSession.... STAY TUNED!

So for the past two weeks I have really dedicated a lot of time to lighting techniques and incorporating more Photoshop into my editing (Thanks Israel). There is so much to learn!

This past weekend I got to shoot with my friend Marnie. A Lululemon educator by day, Marnie is making the jump into modeling. When she emailed me to ask if I would do a shoot for her I was happy to do so. Not knowing what to expect, I packed my entire trunk of goodies that included my 4 light Speedotron Kit (now powered by my Elinchrom Skyport wireless kit... I couldn't help myself), 10' x 12' backdrop, softbox, multiple umbrellas, and I even busted out the D3. We converted her apartment in DC into our very own photography studio. The two of us really didn't know what the shots would look like but I must say these are some of my favorite pictures to date.

I love, love, love shooting with my friends. It makes the experience so much fun and this is one of my favorite shoots thus far. Thanks Marnie for making my job so easy and fun! Here is a "sci fi" version of my favorite shot.

So recently I have gotten into golfing. My dad has been playing for quite some time now and he really wanted me to learn so that finally after all of these years we could have some father & son bonding time. How many times have we played in the last month? Twice. I am enjoying the sport and really like the mental challenge it presents.

I met Andrew Lee at Caddie Master; the shop where I buy my gear. It's a cool shop and you should definitely stop by if you are looking for golf gear. In talking with Andrew, I wanted to use him as a sports model and take pictures of him on the green. He agreed and we went out at 6:30 in the morning to shoot.

I was joined by my good friend Peter Bang on this shoot. I am always happy to work with Peter. He was also so kind as to let me use his "Alien Bees" portable strobe for this shoot. The lighting came out great!

Inspired by an old poster I have seen of Tiger Woods, I turned the shots of Andrew into a mock poster and I am looking into getting it printed. Maybe the shop will use it. Who knows? I had lots of fun and hope to do more shots like this in the future.

Okay so as many of you know, I currently have a lot of time on my hands these days. It's actually not so bad. I am finally getting around to getting a lot of stuff done that I was too tired or too busy to take care of. You know, cleaning up the basement, going through junk in the garage, and finally watching Zack Arias' "One Light" instructional DVD. All I have to say is that I have no excuse for not making time for this earlier! I have struggled through countless technical blogs and experiementing only to find that this video, which I have had for almost 6 months, made sense!!!!

For all of you want dramatic pictures you can do one of two things:

1. Invest in Photoshop and all of the amazing actions out there on the web to get you the results you want.

2. Learn how light works and how to use your camera (yes... that machine you are holding in your hand) to start to get that amazing and dramatic look to your shots!

This is one of the finest instructional resources I have found to learn about using light to your creative advantage. Now all of those other sites make sense to me. Next step: find a way to attend the Joe McNally Workshop that will be held later this month.

For now... these shots make me happy! The creative gears are definitely churning now!



Thanks to my little sister Leslie for being my test dummy. I love the funky PJs HA HA HA!