I have a company called Optical Panacea with my business partner UFC fighter: Urijah Faber. We make unique artwork involving the UFC fighters. We recently got to do a shoot with Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis, a light heavy weight contender. Sometimes when you meet these guys you don’t know what to expect because their persona they have on TV are completely different than they have in person. Well on TV Phil is down to earth and funny, exactly how he is in person. I think we were mainly laughing the whole time. You wouldn’t know he was a fighter unless he told you because of how friendly he is. However he is a pretty big dude with big hands and feet, I would not want to get punched by this guy for sure.

The sales vp of Broncolor was nice enough to let me try out some of his gear which a couple Scoro power packs. What is unique about these power packs is that they are able to do strobe effects. So you can actually catch a person in movement. This technique makes for some really interesting images. Thank you Greg from Broncolor!!!

Check out these links

http://www.philmrwonderful.com/

http://broncolor.com/

Arianny Celeste and Hasselblad feature…

I have been working with UFC fighters for the past couple years and have always wanted to do a shoot with Ring Girl Arianny Celeste. After meeting her a couple times I still wasn’t able to secure a shoot. Luckily, Urijah Faber later texted me that Arianny wanted to work with me. Bing, bang, boom I got a date to shoot. Around the same time, I had been asked by Hasselblad to do a small feature on one of my shoots. I knew this would be a perfect joint opportunity.

After some stressful days leading up to the event, everything fell into place. As usual I made my call to Phu Styles to help me style the shoot. She showed up with amazing wardrobe and accessories. Christy Jewel, my favorite sales rep from Calumet, hooked up some Profoto gear. Matthew Frary from Hasselblad came with his videographer Victory (an amazing talented photographer). On top of all that, my good friend Mike Aniff supplied me with some very unique guns for the shoot, a customized AR-15 and a Colt handgun.

We began the day with a video interview about myself, which I felt went pretty smoothly. Usually I’m super awkward but this time I felt really comfortable. Victory was a great interviewer, she made the process real easy I will be done editing them soon and they will be posted.

From the left: Matthew Frary, Victory and me.

After Arianny was done with her hair and make up we were ready to shoot. We did it all relatively quickly as usual and the pictures turned out great.

From Left: Phu Styles, Arianny Celeste and me

Arianny’s website
www.ariannyceleste.com
www.twitter.com/ariannyceleste

Styling by Phu Styles
www.phustyles.com
www.twitter.com/phustyles

Makeup by
Suzy Friton 
http://twitter.com/#!/Suzesuzeq

Hasselblad
www.hasselblad.com

Behind the scenes by
Petro Rosel 
http://www.twitter.com/#!/petrodoesit

TL;DR
Did a photo shoot with Arianny Celeste and interview, good times.