Aaron Riveroll | Photographer

Again, I am going to do my best to try and keep up with this blog thing. I swear I’m not a slacker!:)

Another recent Hooters photo shoot I did was with Chelsea from Hooters of Riverside. She came down to the beach for her calendar submission photo shoot and we got some amazing shots! More on that in a second. I have to just say that occasionally, I suck and make mistakes. Lord knows I ain’t perfect… :)

Now, I’ve mentioned several times that you can’t let the client know about your mistakes or screw ups. You have to know what you’re doing at all times, or at least LOOK like you know what you’re doing. And on this particular day, I had changed camera bags from my usual Crumpler shoulder bag to my DaKine camera backpack. I like the backpack better than the shoulder bag, especially when I’m doing a shoot on location or at the beach because it’s easier to carry all of my camera gear plus lighting equipment on my own. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Crumpler shoulder bag, but it’s a little awkward and heavy. Like your mom.

Well, I had managed to get all of my essential camera equipment into the backpack…except for my CompactFlash cards. Dude, I didn’t even have one in the camera! At this point, everything was set up, but I had no memory cards and I was totally stressed because I had forgotten something so small, yet so essential. I had no idea what I was going to do! Chelsea was getting finishing touches on her hair and makeup and was pretty much ready to shoot. To drive back home and get my CompactFlash cards would have meant losing about 45 min. to an hour of shooting time…not to mention looking like a moron and making my model wait for me. I tried calling friends to see if they could run me out one of their cards, but reception on the beach is terrible and no one was answering their phone anyway. I told everyone I was going to run to my car for a sec…and as I was running back to my car I remembered something. The stereo in my car has the ability to play MP3s. And these MP3s were stored on CompactFlash card. I grabbed the card out of the player, ran back to the beach, reformatted the card, and was ready to go.

The moral of the story: don’t forget your CompactFlash cards. I was really really lucky that day. But don’t ever let your clients see you sweat either. Wear deodorant. :)

Now, about the shoot. I have to say that Chelsea was amazing to work with. For being her first photo shoot ever, she was pretty damn awesome. She definitely brought her A-game. I was totally impressed. You could tell in her attitude and conversations we had in preparation for the shoot that she was really serious about what she was doing. She went and hired one of my best make up artists for the shoot as well as getting a bunch of brand-new, super cute Chynna Dolls bikinis to shoot in. The end result were pictures that I can see definitely being published somewhere. Needless to say, we will definitely be shooting again soon!

Anyway, here are a few shots from the shoot. Hope you enjoy!