THE FACTORY IS OPEN

Hi everyone!

 M O V I N G!!!!!

Yaay! It has been a minute and I know, I know, I have seemingly been brimming with promises of my latest shenanigans and have yet to deliver; but I am here to let you know that I am moving post for the last time (I promise)  in a while (lol the caveat)…to my business blog.

It has been a lovely few months on this portal and I really had a nice time blogging here. This is not like a farewell speech so I bests can it and just tell you where I’m at now… so…

Please check me out there from now on and kindly if you have any thoughts, let me have ‘em…

http://chocolatephotographynyc.blogspot.com

It’s where I fulfil my preview promises of the last 2 posts here so get to clickin’

xoxo

Also bubbling under…

Yep another preview lol. I know, I am bringing all of these to you soon. So stay tuned ! FYI: Jess and Miles are just the cutest…

Preview: chemistry, love and sushi …

…all in one beautiful day! Ok I am back and I bear a most lovely photo session with me. The Chemistry between these two is palpable, I mean, there was not one posed moment; I did not have much directing to do! Brooklyn Bridge Park was bright and beautiful (despite ‘fluky’ forecasts of cloud and rain sheesh;p), everything just flowed between them and I just clicked away like a paparazzo; came away with hundreds of shots and don’t even know where to begin my selection now (whatever shall I do ;p).

Afterward we went to dinner and I went to a Sushi palor (intentionally) for the first time in years… ) So thanks guys for allowing me a glimpse into the charm…

Here is a preview…

Baby Makes Three!!

I had a lovely time at this Maternity session with this lovely couple who now have their cute cute baby…

As of the time of this session, there was no theme color as they wanted to be surprised and did not check the sex of the baby! Tres cool! I did suspect it’d be a boy though ;P. He is such a bundle of joy from the pic I’d seen; key word, “bundle”  - get ready for some sleepless nights guys! Lol jes kidding. I welcome him to the world and can’t wait to get my lens on him…

Preview: Baby makes three…

Guess who?

March Madness

Oh whee oh wow. March Madness. How many times have I heard that phrase and never once thought it would ever apply to my life. Afterall it usually has to do with sports and ahem let’s face it…heheh oh well.

Anywho March has been a crazy month and I have skipped out on some blogging. A lot of stuff behind the scenes. Work has been crazy, I have had guests and I finally met my niece. I have a photo of her at age one at home and at work and nearly everyone who’s seen that picture that didn’t really know me would always ask if she was mine. Now, that’s always a hard one to answer: she is mine but she is my sister’s daughter really…however, how do I answer them, “no she isn’t mine”?  That’s the catch 22 because she is soo mine and I love her so.

Valentine’s day – what’s love got to do with it anyway?!?

…uh huh that’s right yes. I said it. What.

If anyone knows the answer tell me…ha! LOL yeah yeah so the ol’ sarcasm about Saint Valentines day will fade soon, I promise you; infact I daresay everyday brings me just that much closer to the inevitable demise of my (healthy) skepticism about the day and all it has come to represent in modern society BUT till then y’all… I do LOOVE you all for reading though so haha here is some love candy from my heart to yours I guess blah blab lah dee dah…all that sickly sweet sticky stuff ;>

Now that we’re done with the pleasantries, I will hop to …today my girl Ashley and I went to one of New York Fashion week’s shows and wow the whole thing was like a whirlwind (took like maybe 40 fast mins – who knew those things took so short heheh) and was just like clockwork! Wow! My first real fashion photoshoot and what a revelation, apparently such fashion photography is easily the EASIEST to shoot it seems. It was just filled with lovely lighting, frenzied shutterclicks and approving applause and/or stares -  the light is perfect, the moments are all rehearsed and the models are all aiming straight for you and your ugly lens heheh. I shot away like a fat kid in a cake shop!  And wow what a contrast to, say, wedding photography for instance, now that is another kettle of ish, as I was explaining to Ash afterwards. I was not in the photographer’s pit but I was able to scrunch in on the sides and no one accosted me so hey ) I clicked away. . .

The designers are these 2 sisters and the line is called Eliptica. I especially like the fact that the styles are nice and realistic – you can actually WEAR these clothes out on the street and not look like you just broke out of the windows of a haute couture shop…

Here are a couple of my faves from there and thanks again to my lovely fashionista friend Ashley who got me in. Wuv you girl!

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Then afterwards, all in the name of love, and also considering how much Saint Valentine must be rolling in his grave to see how love and his day have somehow narrowed down to being one for couples only and for singles to be again made aware of their erstwhile ‘singlehood’ (some of my dear friends have coined it “Single’s awareness day” – apparently if you are in denial all year about your status, this is the one day in the year that zaps you to reality after which of course you are free to go back into your blissful state of denial…), I figured I’d just (grudgingly howbeit) be a good sport this year and play along by going to see a love/romance photo exhibit of the uber cool and talented British photographer Chris Craymer. I personally love his editorial work and style and think he is very creative with his style…again typically I waited till it was closing tomorrow and I had to catch it before it was gone (as usual :S).

Last year, he published a photobook titled “Romance” from which a few of the photos were exhibited in this set. They were all for sale at different prices, including the frames and the wonderful thing about it was that the proceeds would go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Anywhoo so as per my adventures here this time, this is a smaller gallery we were at and I saw no signs prohibiting photography which I found to be unusual. I actually looked for it – after being accosted once or twice at a photography exhibit by some over enthusiastic curator, as you can imagine, I have learned the hard way to respect myself and keep that camera on lock . So there was no such sign and we were pretty much left to roam free once we got in there i.e no curators on our necks, nothing! So of course what did I do…? hahah!

heheheh hey  y’all know it is an art form right, err because lol just a few of his images were a bit risque …

hahahah this one of the trolls is one of my faves hands down teehee. Yes ke, even trolls must have love in their life what.

Playing with the light Pt II and other stories…

Happy New Month y’all!

Here are a few more shots from my little (mis?) adventures with lighting. Yeah I can say it’s been a bit of a challenge this whole thing with lighting and just fully understanding the dynamics of it. I tell you, it’s got my mind spinning something fierce!!! There had better be some light at the end of this tunnel (all pun intended)…

Enjoy…

Oooh yeah I did say…and other stories! Oh me oh my, this is the old age the legend had. Which seemed so so far away from moi…oh well. I started this here post with the noble intention of including more shots from other little gallivanting of mine – those were the other stories. So I better hop to…

The other day, 2 of my lovely girlfriends and I headed to the Brooklyn Museum. The last time I was there was four years ago, such a shame because the Brooklyn Museum is a masterpiece in every sense of the word, sprawling – the BK has its gems and the museum sure is one of them. Anyway I went solely that day, had to go that day to catch the last day of the French painter James Tissot’s “The life of Christ”. You can read a bit about him and it on the photo of the wall I took, if you can see it (if not please google…). It was the last day of the exhibit which last took place 25 years ago so you KNOW I had to catch it before it was gone.

Also I went to see the photography exhibit “Who shot rock and roll”, an exhibit of iconic photographs taken of rock and pop artists over the last thirty years or so. That was a treat. To read a bit more about the process of the photographers and their inspiration in taking those shots, or the circumstances under which the shots were taken made it all the more interesting. Inspiration is the lifeblood of all things art, I believe. Without it, art cannot breathe.  So yeah I so love photography exhibitions! The only thing I don’t particularly love about them is the fact that you are usually not allowed to take any photos :S. That sucks and being the lil miss stickler that I am, I always come away without nary a shot. But not this time, not on the astute Ms. A’s watch, who encouraged me to sneak some already and that they my girls had my back hehehe… so with a bit of trepidation, I dared a few…thanks Nneks! Let’s just hope I don’t get caught (tsk tsk not like on this blog there is such risk of it happening )
Enjoy

On our way to the photo exhibit we bumped into our peeps ( a popular year round staple of the museum…)

heheh I told ya: Then a whole board devoted to my own very peoples, the Yoruba.

Then headed to the very exhibit

The above is the interesting story of the photographer and the subject’s (in the next photo) interaction…

You know whose photo (which I was too jittery to shoot as I thought the curator was coming ;P) was right beside this next one right…

Above, iconic shots of Ms. Turner and of Little Richard…

Another interesting one of Tina Turner (you can tell I love her right) and the commentary is below…

Seriously, what is rock and roll without the Beatles?

Some crazy “unconventionals”

Can’t resist this one of Jimi Hendrix

There were many more very interesting shots but alas I could not get them all but I did make out like a bandit considering…

One last one

Dear God, HAITI…

…in Christ’s Name, Amen.

Ripped right out of the status update of my dear friend on her Facebook page a day after the 7.2 earthquake shook Haiti:

“Don’t even know what to pray for… Families to be reunited, lives to be saved, damage to be limited, pain to be bearable, strength to rebuild, hope to be alive, healing to be divine, miracles to be happening, faith to be unwaivering. Dear God, HAITI. Amen.”

Even the inhabitants of  ’under-a-rock’ land are aware of the catastrophic events of the past couple of weeks. I was already home from work with no working TV or internet (you don’t even wanna know…) and seemingly cut off from the world, and frankly beginning to enjoy this ‘new, simple’ life of mine, when I was stopped dead in my tracks by Yahoo.com (alas I can’t lay claim to being successfully purely amish, I had my smart phone on me…) with immediate scenes from a scale breaking earthquake that had just hit Haiti. The first thought that came to my mind was ‘oh *coworker (names withheld)’ and then it was ‘oh the children’ and then it was oh my goodness gracious, where does a country begin from this kind of natural disaster, that even in its ‘top form’ could not provide the most basic of social amenities for its citizens. How? WHO? Government? Even the President’s palace was literally broken in half and the country’s parliament was meeting outside under whatever shade they could find.

I am not about to give a history lesson on the island nation of Haiti but in a nutshell, it has not been paradise for more than a number of years. The earthquake could not have occurred in a country less equipped to handle a disaster of  such magnitude. All I could think immediately was, ‘God have mercy and keep your children safe. Keep the missionaries from our Church safe, keep everyone safe’ – but you know some prayers even as you are praying them, you know that they are past being answered. Not EVERYONE was safe. Not everyone would be. People who survived the initial incident would perish in aftershocks, children would be lost looking for their mothers who might be lucky to still be alive under the rubble or worse be crushed to death under it. There would be a 6.0 scale aftershock in a matter of days afterward. There would be mass graves filled with hundreds of thousands of bodies, some unidentifiable. There were casualties. Hundreds of thousands of casualties. But you have faith and pray anyway. You hold your breath and hope, you pray. Your heart cannot help but wrench at the thought of poor kids who were already poor in every material sense, who would have lost their parents and guardians in the quake,  of mothers who watched their mangled babies helplessly. MY heart was full.

Before long, Facebook was on tenterhooks, the online community buzzing with people from all over the world responding with an overwhelming outpouring of concern and sympathy for Haiti and its nationals home and abroad. Everyone seemed to be of one mind and heart; how to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti. The whole thing just made me know that there is good left in the world aplenty. In a matter of hours, text message donations were in heavy traffic to the Red Cross and Yele. People were mobilizing. Technology is a beautiful thing. The world really becomes a global village because truly it does take a village. And the village mobilized.

From the ashes of devastation, the embers of hope for Haiti are still fanned. I hate to be the bearer of unpalatable information (actually it is not me but the Word of God) BUT if anyone is so inclined, I would remind them of a chapter in the Bible; Luke 21 verses 7-11 in which Jesus speaks to these kinds of disasters as being signs of the end of the world. Now, reading this in print is one thing but actually seeing it happen almost live (and this is just on television) is quite another. Tough to take.

As for Haiti, the only prayer I have left is that God will use this as a point of transformation for that nation. Give the survivors the strength and heart to rebuild and I know it is possible, with the help and compassion of the rest of the world. My help and your help. You say $10 is nothing but in the grand scheme of things, it is major. Within 24 hours, millions were already raised by the Red Cross and Yele Haiti just from text messages! This is a continuing process.

So. Please don’t forget Haiti. Do something, donate every other month or something if you can manage it.

Here is a helpful link from CNN’s ireport impact your world website:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/

Playing with the light…

Well I am back and happy to report that for once, photos will exceed text in my post hahah! Just now as I picked my title, I am taken way back to when I was a kid and we had just moved back to Nigeria and NEPA (National Electric Power Authority) – the ConEd of Nigeria as it were (only that they never really supplied power/electricity – they were highly specialized in “seizing” power and were mostly responsible for taking it away…;s) would always abruptly shut off the electricity and power supply. My parents said the first thing I always asked, and I would shout it into the air, was “WHO is playing with the light?!? C’mon stop playing with the light, turn it back on….”

I remember back then, to my utter childish dismay, this light did not turn back on and there would be a flurry of activity as my Dad scrambled for his trusty flashlight and as Mom rallied to light a lantern while Daddy went to turn on the generator. In the mist of this feverish activity, I would realize this aint no joke at all…

Oh Nigeria my country. Topic for another day.

In the meantime please view my recent adventures with wireless flash and lighting of subjects (and some good old fashioned pp work)…