Here’s a little video I shot at the beach a while back on what I do to get prepared for a beach shoot, weather-wise.

Here are some links to some of the things I mentioned:

• Oakley Surf Report
• The Weather Channel
• Surfline.com

A few weeks ago, I was shooting with my homie, Monica Renée. About halfway through the shoot, I started to get bored. I say that in a good way, of course… Monica is amazing to work with and I knew we were getting awesome shots… it’s just that I felt like trying something new. I was inspired.

Most the time, when I shoot on the beach, I use a combination of artificial light and natural light. I use the natural light as a secondary light source, positioning it as a rim light. I use my strobe as the main, or “key” light, positioning that in front of the model. However, those of you who shoot with natural light know about the “golden hour” and how the sun is in a sweet spot around that time. The light is soft and warm…but, it’s also low enough to the horizon to act as a main light source and not create any funky shadows.

On this particular day, I flipped Monica around, shooting towards the shore and away from the water, using the sun as the key light. To add a little “something special” to the shot, I added a little artificial rim light. I placed my strobe directly behind and to the left of Monica; the strobe was modified with a diffused beauty dish. To add a little bit of “warmth”, to the strobe I added a yellow gel directly to the middle of the beauty dish. The effect was subtle…but I think we got some pretty awesome shots. Here’s the diagram:

And here are some shots of surfer girl, Monica, using this lighting setup…

I always encourage people to try and see things a different way and to not be afraid to try new things. And when I say “people,” that includes me as well. :)

He’s been playing around more and more with artificial light…and I remember when I first dabbled with off camera flash and strobes. I remember it being overwhelming; even though I had a pretty good grasp of lighting of the natural variety, a lot of things went over my head. What sort of lights do I use. Where do I put them? How far away do I position them from the model? How many lights do I use. How do I trigger them? What are modifiers?

The fact of the matter is a lot of these questions will never be answered definitively. There are so many different combinations and possibilities that there is no one right answer.

Anyway, my cousin started telling me he heard about this thing called “the Triangle.” He was told it was a pretty basic lighting set up and that he should learn it.

It’s true, in glamour photography, there is a staple. A go-to lighting scenario, if you will. It’s no secret: you see it everywhere in glam mags…and the best glam photographers use this set up in different variations…but it’s essentially the same. This is what I believe the Triangle is, in its basic form…

The idea is to sandwich your model between two light sources by placing your lights opposite of each other. For instance, imagine a box and your model is standing in the middle of the box. You position your lights across from each other like so…

And if you happen to be using one light and the sun, you would position your model so that the sunlight hits the back/side of the model at a 45 degree angle…and then you would position your key light diagonal from the sun.

The other day, I had a fun beach photo shoot and here’s a perfect example of the Triangle light set up…

During this location shoot, I used two lights: my key light was a strobe into a diffused white beauty dish on a boom arm, and my accent/rim lights were the sun to the left of the model and a strobe to the right of the model into a bare reflector.

I find that accent/rim lights add a little something special to an otherwise boring/ordinary photo. They key is using rim lights correctly. But, I’ll save that for another blog post when I share some of my photographic pet peeves. :)

Sophie is a Hooters girl from Hooters of Mission Valley… And we got the chance to shoot last May at the beach. Seriously, I totally lag!

She has a real girl next door look about her… Not to mention, she’s a total sweetheart! The weather was a little gray and cloudy, which is typical for here in San Diego, but we got some awesome shots regardless. Hope you enjoy!

First, let me just say that I haven’t had the best luck with Vegas over the years…it seems that every time I plan on going out, I get sick. And not just mildly not feeling well, but really really sick. But, I came out anyway since I thought it would be fun…and it was, despite the fact that I was feeling under the weather.

Any who…so I hooked up with Terah, a local model from Vegas…and she came out for an evening shoot in the suite. She was a blast to work with…and even though the shoot wore me out, we got some amazing shots. Here are a few…

I always get myself into trouble because when I do actually get into these spring cleaning moods, I start finding old pictures, CDs, letters, and a bunch of other stuff and before you know it I’m doing a little more reminiscing and a lot less cleaning. It’s not a rare sight to see me reading old letters while sitting in the middle of a pile of crap. :)

Well, I was over at Ennis’s place today and he came across some old behind the scenes footage we had shot while shooting our homie Candace…almost TWO years ago! It was the first time we had shot with Candace…and we got some pretty sexy sunset shots together (click here to see the shots).

But I threw this video together from the footage we found…hope you like. :)

Photo shoot with Candace from Aaron Riveroll on Vimeo.

So Angelica came down to LA for a spell last year for some gogo-ing and such…and she hit me up for a shoot. We ended up shooting on a very HOT afternoon in Laguna Beach. But let me tell you, the conditions could not have been more perfect.

We played around with some cool outfit sets she brought…did a little natural light stuff as well as some with the strobe. most of these shots were taken with one light or just the sun…but the last few actually used two lights; one key light and another unmodified strobe just to the right of the model (left of me). I’ll have to share more shots later…but these were taken towards the end of our shoot.

I was starting to get a little burned out with beach shoots and I was excited about how this shoot turned out. I got to play around with different techniques as well as adding different/more lights to the mix. I really dug the results…especially since I know you gotta change things up sometimes to keep things interesting. :)

We finished off with some killer sunset shots…the sky was off the hook that day. Several people, including one lady who lived in the area, were down there as well – right next to me, as a matter of fact – taking pictures of the sky one way or another.

But these are definitely some of my favorite and sexiest beach shots I have done…everything worked out great…I hope you enjoy.

Check out Angelica on Twitter too. :)

Okay, so I exaggerate.. I only sort of sucked. . :) But armed with just a camera and a reflector, we got some pretty hot shots that day.

A few years go by and we run into each other at a bikini contest, so we decided to get together and shoot again.

We originally planned on doing some beach stuff., but because the weather was sort of iffy, we decided to do some studio stuff…and it gave me a chance to try out some new techniques as well as use some new materials that will make studio shots a little bit better (more on that in another post…). But it was fun to shoot with Monique…even more fun to hangout and grab In and Out after the shoot. :)

Stay tuned for more pics coming soon…we’ve got some great ideas, we just need some good weather. :)

Here are the shots…

While we were doing this shoot, a drunk dude walked by the club and asked for a beer. Unfortunately, the club was closed so because he wasn’t able to get his beer, the dude told us to continue our shoot and that we were “so Hollywood.” Whatever that means. :)

Apparently Ally and I were just too damn Hollywood for him. Too much sexiness does that to you.

So, it had been about a year or so since I had the chance to shoot with Ally. Last year we had a fun beach shoot…so when she hit me up a few weeks ago for a shoot at Bar West, uh, hello…of course I was down.

We ended up shooting some super sexy swimsuits and some foxy fashion/casual stuff too for some submissions she has coming up. All in all, we got some killer shots…

Hopefully it won’t be another year before you see some pictures from us again.

In the meantime, enjoy these.

So needless to say, when Playboy’s Miss February 2009 called me up a couple months ago and said she wanted to shoot with me, I nearly passed out.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little bit. :) But seriously, I can now die a happy man.

Jessie and I met up in La Jolla on a gorgeous January afternoon…just days before my birthday. We wanted to do something a little more fashion-related…not just your typical glamour at the beach stuff. So, we set out to do just that. Her first look, which was a super cute teal Chynna Dolls crochet bikini, fit perfectly with the scene. I blew out the background a little and did my typical faded fashion look in post for a 70′s SoCal feel. Sorta dreamy, but totally sexy.

Second look was a red crochet one-piece that we set in front of the gorgeous sunset. It really set fire to the beach.

Our last look, as it was getting colder, was a simple pair of jeans. And no one wears them better.

All in all, it was an amazing shoot. Not only is she totally beautiful, she’s super sweet too. Thanks, Jess, for an amazing shoot!

My homie, Ennis Rios, was on location as well capturing a little video…so hopefully I will have that up soon to share as well.

Check out the pics here and on a post over at TheSmokingJacket.com.

And follow her on Twitter too. :)