Simon McConico is a photographer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin who shoots senior portraits, weddings, fashion, and commercial stock.
October 11, 2008
Moda3 Boardfest
I was a busy lil bee today. Shot two senior sessions, thought I was suppose to shoot a third (my mind has been all over the place lately), and stopped by Boardfest in the Third Ward after finishing my last session. There were skateboarders all over the place. I pulled over and, since I had all of my equipment in my car, asked a group of boarders if I could take their photo. I set up in a parking lot and almost got hit in the face by a few boards, but got some great shots:
Walk tall... hmm... well, that wasnt an encouragement to stand up for what you believe in (which you should do anyways), but was rather a reference to the front cover of the movie staring the Rock. Seth came out early one Saturday morning and we shot in Walkers Point, which is just south of downtown Milwaukee. As I was flipping through his pics I saw a photo that, if he had a 2x4 in his hand, looked just like the cover of that movie.
Seth was a cool dude. We were chatting about a ton of random stuff from Halo to walking like a Monkey at work. It took him a while to wake up, but once he did we were running all over the place. Kicking fences and jumping off walls, it was a blast until... the cops showed up.
Well, it really wasn't a big deal, but Seth brought his truck and I had his sister park it on the sidewalk because Seth does what Seth wants (or something like that?). His sister just moved the truck and we were all good. Check out the sweet photos below:
You might remember rainy day Ally from a few posts before. The Saturday we were going to shoot it was rainy and gray all day. No one likes that! Unfortunately she needed a photo for her yearbook and I was going out of town to San Fran the next week. What a conundrum!
Well, me, being the king of all things Ghetto when it comes to setups didn't let a little bit of rain stop us. Ally and her mom came over to my house where I set up a small head shot studio in a spare bedroom and we got her head shot. After the shoot we rescheduled the shoot for a later date and off they went.
I got back to Milwaukee in one piece and we met on Friday in New Berlin at a golf course behind a Walgreens. It was an interesting place, but we got some great shots there. After we ticked off the many golfers on the course (I think we saw one...) we went to a hotel across the street that had a gazebo in the back and a small courtyard area. We shot a bit in there then moved to another hotel that had a Grand Piano in the loby. Ally is a singer and loves music, so she wanted to get a shot with a piano. We got in the hotel and they were having a huge convention or something like that. There were people who looked like they just graduated from college or something like that and a bunch of business people milling about. Lots of people generally does not equil good for photography (specially when you are in a hotel lobby). We got in, I got set up, and banged out a few shots and got what we needed then moved out like a ninja. All in all it was a very fun shoot and it was hard to pick what to edit for this post. I can't imagine how Ally is going to pick the shots to order... Crazy!
The second part of my post is about the workshop that I attended while I was in San Fran. I first heard about Jose Villa and Gene Higa on the show fstop and beyond, a podcast about photographers and their lives outside of photography. I looked at their sites and was amazed at what I found. I had shot about 2 weddings before I saw their sites. I had never known that wedding photography could be so beautiful and artistic. I needed to learn how they did what they did. I saw that there was a workshop with both of them in San Fran and decided to bite the bullet and go.
Since then, I have found quite a few other photographers who were doing great things with wedding photography, but the work of Jose and Gene still grip me.
It was great to meet and talk with all of the other people in the workshop about their experiences and what they wanted to learn. There were about 20-25 people in attendence and I think I traveled the second furthest. There was a fantastic man from Colombia that had me beat... oh well... it isnt about who traveled furthest right?
We got a chance to go out and shoot with two models, Caroline and Tyria. Us man and women folk were split up into two and one group went with Jose first and the other with Gene, then switched. The shooting was fun, but the process and seeing how both of the pros approached the models and situations was what I was there to see.
Over all I am very glad that I drained my bank account to go out and learn from these amazing photographers. I hope that I get a chance to hang out with them again and next time be much better than I am now. Check out some of the images I shot:
I am a wedding, child, senior, fashion, commercial, and anything else photographer in the Milwaukee area. If it includes taking photos, count me in. Please check out my site and let me know what you think!
