Prom 2013

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As a photo studio, it made perfect sense for us to add Tuxedo rental as a secondary line of business. This prom season is proving that our decision was right. Dressing the part is half the fun for juniors and seniors attending prom. Most high schools kids we rent to are excited about the look. A majority of them go for trendy contemporary style designs and some stay with very tradional time tested styles. James Bond certainly made an impact on the aesthetics of these boys when it comes to style.

CHECK LIST FOR BOYS ATTENDING PROM

  • Get a color swatch of the dress your date is wearing to prom
  • Match the vest and tie/bow color with your dates dress. Rent a two tone vest to really compliment the dress color of your date
  • Order a tuxedo ensemble that suits your body style, Modern fit, traditional fit, slim fit . . .
  • Pick out shoes that have a support to last on a dancing floor for a couple of hours without discomfort.
  • Get a hair cut one to two days before the prom
  • Rent a Microfiber shirt instead of a cotton shirt to feel comfortable around your neck
  • Consider a western style tuxedo if you want to look unique
  • Consider a higher end tuxedo designer like Tony Bowls, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Cline  . . .  if you want to look like you know style.
  • Order a corsage for your date (Major points)
  • Purchase an accidental damage waiver from your tuxedo rental store (Usually $6)
  • Look like a million $$$ at your promImage

http://www.chromaticsstudio.com

1233 W. Oak Street, Zionsville, IN 46077

Celebration Of Smiles

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CS_Image

Professional Photographers of America (PPA) Charities presented a check for $70,000 to Operation Smile at Imaging USA in 2012, bringing their total donation to almost $600,000 which equates to almost 2500 children’s lives being changed with the gift of a smile.

2012 was the first year my studio participated in the charity event. This April we are celebrating our second year supporting this fine cause. This event provides a great opportunity to update your personal portrait for a very nominal donation for a good cause.

Don’t Miss A Celebration of Smiles April 13, 2013 For a minimum donation of $24, you’ll receive the gift of a portrait mini-session and a desk-size portrait of yourself or a loved one. 100% of your donation goes to Operation Smile, which can repair a smile for as little as $240!

We thought you would want to know about a very special promotion we will be participating in with an elite group of photographers from around the country. On April 13, 2013 we will host “Celebration of Smiles Day” a wonderful opportunity for you to update individual portraits of your family members and at the same time support the work of Operation Smile, which treats children around the world who suffer with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities. Along with other participating members of Professional Photographers of America (PPA), we have pledged to donate 100% of each $24 donation made to PPA Charities, which has chosen Operation Smile as its charitable partner. Recording the smiles of children and their families is our greatest pleasure. That’s why we believe so strongly in the work of Operation Smile. Each year this incredible organization of more than 5,000 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, and special¬ized health care professionals, perform free reconstructive surgeries for children suffering with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities. One in ten will not survive to see their first birthday. Those who do survive often live in isolation and pain. More than 100,000 children are born with a facial deformity each year in Operation Smile’s 26 partner countries. We hope you will join with us in helping to make this vital work possible. As always . . . we look forward to creating some truly wonderful portraits of you or your family members.

Join us, won’t you?

Haroon Ahmad

 

Capture your sensual , beautiful soft side

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I know many women who wonder how they would look if you were photographed by a professional capturing your most playful, sensual and beautiful self? At Chromatics Studio we offer just such a service for women who want to give their significant other the gift of Boudoir portrait or album. We respect our clients privacy and treat their images with utmost respect when it comes to publishing. We are very careful and do not publish any images unless the client grants the permission to do so.

These portraits make a great gift for Valentin’s, Birthday’s and Holiday’s Boudoir Bride portraits are exceptional gifts for your husband. We will make you feel sexy, glamorous and beautiful and you will cherish these images for a long time. You don’t have to be young, fit and thin. Boudoir is about enhancing your positives to create a very sensual image that you will feel great about sharing with your husband, fiance, boyfriend . . .Here is an of images from a recent Boudoir session.

 

Haitian Child Art ~ Little Pleasures In Life

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My friend David Poindexter runs an organization called ‘I’m in’ (www.im-in.org ) coaching character, leadership and purpose to children in schools in and around Zionsville, Indiana. Last spring break (April 2012) David took a group of 11 Middle and High schools children to Haiti on a mission that was conceived by the 8th grader Madeline Mann from one of David’s soccer camps. These children were joined by 2 coaches, 4 community volunteers and 2 medical persons on this trip.

This team gave their spring break on painting a school in Haiti just outside Port au Prince. They placed a ceiling on a hospital and helped displaced families with remote medical clinic.  At the end of their mission, this team offered children in this small town a chance to paint whatever their little heart’s desired. These kids were given a plain piece of paper, some color and paint brushes.

David had asked me to document 308 of these pieces of art created by children in Haiti who were displaced by the earthquake. I shot these in my studio recently and  I chose a few of them for this blog. It was not surprising to see a family or a home theme in so many of these drawings. If you ask David, what was the best lesson learnt by the children he took to Haiti on a mission? He will tell you, the recognition that happiness and pleasure comes from within from the smallest things in life such as doing what is right.

How to shoot what you love

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Most of my training as a portrait photographer came from my time at International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York city. Many students from ICP end up working for fashion magazines or periodicals that lead the country and the world in incredible trend setting photography. While I was studying portraiture I loved high contrast images that clearly display the classic lighting style such as this Rembrandt Style Lighting below of Christy Turlington modeling for Louis Vuitton. The light ratio in this case is very close to 8 to 1.

Rembrandt Lighting

The Key light is place high about 45 degrees to camera right and in this case NO reflector is used on the camera left almost throwing the left side in complete dark. I happen to love this light. The dilemma, when you own a studio and you are selling large wall portraits of beautiful subjects and the party responsible for paying for this work are the parents who want to see their beautiful child well lit on all sides, you tend to compromise. The way we as photographers end up compromising is by adding more fill light to the classic light patterns to make it more pleasing for our clients. The image below is a cross between a Butterfly pattern and Rembrandt light pattern. In this case a small amount of reflection is added to the camera right to make it almost a 4 to 1 ratio. That slight compromise allows you to shoot what you love with a twist. At the end of the day your clients have to love the image and it is your job to educate your clients on the esthetics and classic patterns of lighting.

My Love of Color

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Shooting Jewelry

I recently shot some beautiful pieces of jewelry for a job. Let me start by saying shooting jewelry is not an easy task. If you can satisfy a client shooting jewels, you can satisfy any one. The most difficult part of shooting jewelry is to know your depth of field and how much of it do you need to utilize for each piece. The best DOF offered by my Nikon D700 for these shots were f16 to f 22. This is counter intuitive to your thinking, because you naturally go for a large aperture like f2.8 but that creates a DOF so narrow that parts of a small piece may be thrown out of focus as it did in at least one of these images. The second difficult part is creating very stimulating colorful backgrounds that enhance but not over power the pieces. Adding a reflection of the piece really creates a nice dimension for the image.

In these images I have merged multiple exposures of the same image using different colors created by different white balance used. The best light I find for such images is daylight balanced LED’s. These images were a combination of ambient light with a little LED.

The best part of such a job is deciding what colors to use in the back ground to enhance the images. I love this part of photography. It took a little work to find out how to create the diffused colored background but in the end shooting on frosted glass worked in this case.

A Runner At Rest

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I took this picture of a runner at rest in a park recently and it made me think about why do people like to run as a form of exercise? when there is so much research that suggests heavy running elevates the risk of osteoarthritis by your 50′s. It can destroy your knees. It is hard on the ankles. It can cause sagging of the breast in women if not supported well. One can dramaticly increase exposure to the sun and risk skin problems . . . . On the contrary, you can shed weight, improve the tone of your skin, it can lower your blood pressure, it gives you a feeling of general wellbeing.

However, people who enjoy running are addicted to it and none of the above advantages or disadvantages ever strike them as a reason why they do it. When I was much younger, I remember going for regular jogs, and clearly remember a slight stimulation of my memory as well as creativity when I ran. I don’t know if I am right about that assumption or not, but I think increased blood circulation has something to do with your brain’s capacity. I think running is an exercise in jogging your creative brain. It somehow excites the pleasure point in our brain. What do you think?

An Image of Light

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I took this day before yesterday early in the morning when the sun was at a sharp angle from camera left and the light was skimming and skipping along the ground like a skipping stone. As I stood there looking at this scene, I thought this is an image of nothing. I took the image anyway, framed it to the best of my taste, exposed for the highlights on the ground to reduce the brightness of the sky behind. The image turned out to be exactly what excited me about the scene, Light !

What happened to Chivalry ?

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I shot this high school senior recently and enjoyed the session with him. Evan had some images in formal jacket and tie, and others in very casual outfits, which is the norm these days. I often wonder what happened to the value of presenting yourself in public at your utmost best. I believe when you look the part, you are forced to act the part. So part of the issue with many in the younger generation is that since they dress so casually in public, their behavior takes on that same mood. I would hate to make a generalized statement about this, but I really think dressing the part is very important in setting the tone of one’s behavior and actions like, courtesy, politeness, accommodation, generosity, charity and compassion.

I love when kids dress like Evan did in this image for his senior pictures. I like being casual and I understand that one can maintain all these values while being casual but there is something very nostalgic about a well groomed, well behaved, well dressed teenager ! Bravo Evan !

Helping ONE Child at a Time

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I gave a full day of my work to shoot portraits for a charity ‘Celebration of Smiles‘ on April 21st. Professional Photographers of America (PPA) supports the work of Operation Smile. Each year this incredible organization of more than 5,000 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, and special­ized health care professionals, perform free reconstructive surgeries for children suffering with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

Every three minutes a child somewhere in the world is born with a facial deformity. One in ten will not survive to see their first birthday. Those who do survive often live in isolation and pain. More than 100,000 children are born with a facial deformity each year in Operation Smile’s 26 partner countries. Each of client on that day donated $24 to the charity to receive a free portrait. We raised $240 that day, an amount that is required to perform corrective surgery on ONE child. THANK YOU to everyone that helped. This is my favorite image from that event.