BOOBY WHO? BOOBY U!

i was very fortunate to be asked by some of the organizers of the rethink breast cancer  foundation to help with their annual fundraiser aptly titled the "boobyball".  this very worthwhile and fun event will be held in calgary on october 24, 2013 and tickets (still available) can be purchased through their website.  proceeds from the event go to support the rethink breast cancer movement, whose aim is to bring awareness and visibility to a new generation of breast cancer supporters while providing support and research funding specifically to the young women afflicted by this disease.

of course i was willing to lend a helping hand to the cause and instead of providing direct monetary support, i chose to donate my time and am proud to offer up my services as a professional photographer  as part of their silent auction.  if you do attend the event, you will see a host of donated prizes and services offered by local businesses and your job is to bid on the items you like and wait and see if you won once the bids close.  you can bid as many times as you like and previous bids are always visible so all you need to do is monitor the items you are bidding on and be sure you are the last name on the list when time is up!

below is the poster ad i have prepared for the event, which will be showcased alongside many other great businesses.  it truly is an honor to be asked to help out and my only hope is that i can generate a few hard earned dollars for the foundation.

booby ball poster ad
courtesy: me

last year's event was camp themed and was an absolute blast, complete with live music, food and drink and fun activities to keep the party going to last call. this year the the theme this year is booby U, a take on college life and everything associated with those impressionable years *cough cough*. unfortunately, i won't be able to attend this year because of scheduled (routine) surgery, but i'm asking you to dust off those letterman jackets or cheerleading skirts and come out to support this great cause!


de jesus "i like boobies" out.

WEDDING SHOOT: ALLISON and RYAN

i have been very fortunate to work with such amazing couples and families in my short career and i'm very grateful of the time they have shared with me, often times allowing me to see a side of them not many people even their closest friends get to see.  make no mistake about it, i'm the hired help - someone my clients chose because i'm able to capture genuine moments without need to fabricate the emotion.  i'm simply the person behind the camera - the real beauty of the images you see are because of the wonderful people i work with who open themselves up and allow me to see vulnerabilty, joy and happiness in its natural state, the way it would look when the cameras aren't around.

Allison and Ryan are a perfect example of what i'm talking about.  they chose to break tradition and made arrangements to see each other for the first time on their wedding day before the ceremony and chose their home as the place of their meeting.  i was fortunate enough to be the third person in the room when they first met and there is no way to explain in words the genuine excitement both Allison and Ryan felt when they first laid eyes on each other.  i was able to witness that uniquely private moment with the happy couple and i can honestly say it remains to be one of my favorite moments as a wedding photographer. thank you Allison and Ryan for allowing me to capture that moment and share my vision with you and your family and friends.



authenticity is about soul.  and soul is about finding the things in life that are real and pure.  authenticity and soul is what enables me to share great images with you and i hope you enjoy them.

de jesus. out.

MANNY VS THE MEDIA

it's been a week and i won't validate the atrocity boxing fans witnessed in last week's title fight between manny pacquiao and timothy bradley.  i was compelled to write and vent about it here, but i encourage you to do a google search on the fight results and it is clear that my opinion wouldn't be unique at all.

instead, i wanted to post the column i did write before the fight that talks about how the match itself was being overlooked in favor of the persona that manny pacquiao has developed in recent months.  whether it is a distraction now or in the future, only time will tell and i'm sure boxing fans will agree that using last saturday's match isn't a fair benchmark to know what this version of manny pacquiao is really like.

bonus: the good folks at mabuhay also encouraged me to contribute a photo for their monthly feature entitled "mabuh-eye".  big thanks to the editors for the opportunities they've given me the past few years.  and a big congrats to my good friend jeff cruz on his recent engagement.  who in the heck would want to have the pressure of photographing his wedding?

courtesy: mabuhaycalgary.ca

de jesus. still fuming. out.

THE FIGHT ISN'T IN THE RING

here's a link to my latest article at mabuhay calgary - a column talking about the mega fight that is on, off, and then on, and then off again.  the posturing is annoying, but what's more annoying is that instead of covering the event, i'm covering why it might not happen.  to read it straight from the website, click here.

courtesy: mabuhaycalgary.ca

these fighters, these promoters, this industry... many years looking cowardly.

de jesus. still waiting. and out.

WINDOW TO INFINITY

from concept to production, the development of a commercial project is one of my favorite types of projects i get to work on.  i am very lucky to know talented people who sometimes need my help in developing a part of their own creative work by enlisting my photo "expertise".  throughout my blog, you have seen examples of various projects other than weddings, and as much as I enjoy working on weddings, these creatives really challenge me to think outside the box and find ways to use the tools at my disposal to make something work that may have not been there at first.  today's blog features an exciting and challenging project that took a few weeks to develop: album artwork to match the personality and tastes of a very talented musician.

cam mcburney is an instrumental rock guitarist inspired by the greats like joe satriani and stevie ray vaughan.  even without lyrics, his music tells various stories and is in its own way a personal diary of his thoughts, opinions and experiences both good and better.  armed with a guitar, a computer and a unique understanding of songwriting assembly, cam has managed to self-produce albums that unfortunately not many people have heard of quite yet, but it is sort of like an undiscovered indy treasure that "people in the know" are very proud to be a part of.

cam approached me a few months ago while he was working on his third album and had a conceptual idea of what he was after for album artwork.  the third album, titled "window to infinity" was to feature the human eye in all of its detail.  the pupil, the iris, the eyelashes was to figure prominently on the artwork drawing direct parallels to the album's title.

in order to really get that close to the human eye and have access to the kind of detail we were looking for, it was clear that we had to attack this with a macro perspective.  so i enlisted the help of a beautiful model (kaila - who has the most intensely hypnotizing blue eyes) to help us out while i hooked up the elinchrom lighting gear and slapped on my nikkor 105mm f/2.8 micro lens to make it happen.  and after an hour of shooting and various lighting situations, we managed to get the following straight-out-of-camera images:

what did i tell you about her eyes?  amazing eh?

on its own, these images were pretty good and with a little bit of clean up type quick edits (i.e. saturation, exposure and crop) we could have probably thrown in some text and made it work.  but i thought it was missing a little something extra, something to really make this image really pop from a delicious steak to a savoury filet mignon.

so i tinkered a bit in photoshop...played with different tools, tried on different filters, changed hues and a combination of each.  but anything i was trying wasn't really doing it for me.  the sizzle wasn't there. so i left the computer for a while to think about it without staring at it.  and then it hit me.  it was so obvious, why didn't i see it at first?  kaila's eyes, so blue - like giant watery pools of ocean that flowed in some sort of continuous motion without end.....kinda like infinity.  WHAT??!?!

so i sat back at the computer and went at it.  my mission was to give the iris some detail to transform the image into a flowing pool of water, while still making it look like a photographed eye.  and so after several attempts using liquefy and a handful of treatments to choose from, this was the edited image that was selected:

and after a final round of touch up edits here is the completed product:

sometimes transforming an image into something completely different than what was straight out of camera (SOOC) is what is needed.  i'm not a photoshop expert, but there are times when photoshop achieves exactly what needs to be. you can have all the right gear, the right equipment, the right model...but the process from camera to final product is sometimes where the real creativity takes place.

check out the album cover but more importantly, check out and indulge in some of cam mcburney's music on itunes (here) - featuring his new album, "window to infinity".

it's all in the eyes...the true windows to the soul.
may your lenses feel clean.


de jesus "brown eyes" out.

CELEBRITY GOLFERS

in case you didn't get a chance to read my latest column on celebrity golfers on golfwrx, you can find the article here.

screenshot courtesy of golfwrx.com

again, big thanks to golfwrx for giving me the opportunity to write with them on all things golf.  as many of you know, i'm very passionate about the sport and this is definitely a big step in checking off one of my bucket list items.

de jesus. waiting for "spring to swing"...the sticks.

BEAUTIFUL INTERIORS - TYN LOUNGE

unfortunately, i cannot claim to have designed the beautiful interior of one of our city's newest restaurants -  TYN lounge.  but fortunately, i do know who did and was given a wonderful opportunity to photograph his work at the restaurant. Desmond Desmarais, lead designer at labu design, wonderfully crafted the clean interior design to match the modern and energetic feel of the space and menu. for more on desmond's work, please visit his website here.

below are some of the images i took for labu design and TYN:

just to refresh your memory, here are the images of some of the delicious menu items at TYN that i took a few months back in a previous post.

please enjoy the photos, but more importantly please enjoy the restaurant and check out the food, ambiance and staff of one of the more exciting dining experiences in our city.

de jesus. out.

AND THE WORDS CONTINUE...

i am very excited to announce another new collaboration with myself and one of the major golf websites in the world. golfwrx is a community site for golfers and fans looking for tour news, equipment reviews and general golf news from all corners of the globe.  the main focus of golfwrx is to promote the game of golf for fans while providing unbiased, educational information for players ranging from the hacker to the seasoned pros.  the site itself averages about 1 million hits a month, which means they have slightly more traffic than there is on my blog (just by a bit though).

the partnership will allow me to write feature columns on a regular basis on all things golf and thanks to the editors, i have been given a lot of freedom on the topics and theme of each article.  as most of you already know, i am very passionate about golf and this new venture will allow me to share my thoughts with new and old fans while maybe, just maybe, allow me to appreciate the game even more (if that's even possible).  below are a couple of screen caps of my first article on the site entitled "super sunday hangover" and the link to the actual article can be found here.

big thanks to the staff at golfwrx for taking me on as a contributor for their growing website - here's to hoping for good things in the future!


de jesus. golf writer. out.

NO SHORTAGE OF WORDS

i am pleased to announce a new partnership between myself and the hard working gang at mabuhaycalgary.  as i've mentioned in previous posts, i have made contributions to the filipino news-magazine over the last few years on an as needed basis, focusing on the local community sports scene as well as serving a pseudo beat writer for anything manny pacquiao.

after some discussions with the editors and conference meetings with my agent, i was approached with an offer to write on a more regular basis, as a columnist rather than a journalist.  following in the footsteps of the greats such as bill simmons and rick reilly, how could i say no?  of course, i will do my best to put some sort of sports spin to whatever it is i write, but you can be sure that no matter what, it will be 100% authentic opinion whether you agree with me or not.  i have this sneaking suspicion that my following will be slightly less than simmons or reilly.  just slightly.

some of you may not know this, but i wrote a regular column back in 2000 for a small sports website based out of california. i was paid peanuts (literally....which explains my addiction to peanut butter) but despite payment, it was fun just writing and throwing my opinions out there for all to read.  some people didn't like me, but i also had a small (very small) following of regular readers that were fans. either really didn't matter as my young naive self preferred to be masked under a pen name so i was virtually anonymous to everyone.

to celebrate that first experience in "journalism", my feature column with mabuhaycalgary will be named exactly what i called it 12 years ago - "order amidst the chaos (OATC)". only now you know it's me writing and there is no pen name to hide behind. feel free to agree/disagree with my opinion, but either way please read and support us. it is hard work for our editors to put this together each month and we rely on your interest in keeping it going.  mabuhay yoke loves calgary.

originally printed for the Dec 2011 edition

de jesus. OATC. out.

P4P: MAKING AN IMPACT

photos by dennisdejesusjr.com

a shout out to my brother at pound4poundboxing who recently got covered in the december issue of mabuhaycalgary.  andrew is a certified boxing trainer in alberta and through the club, is doing some great things with local charities.  he also recently partnered with a facility in town (MMA University) to help develop his stable of fighters into competition ready shape - both physically and mentally.

i've attended many of his classes and let me tell you, it's not easy...but it's definitely a great way to relieve a bit of stress.

contact andrew if you are interested in learning more about trying boxing out for fitness or for competition.  

de jesus. punching out.