maginei inter|act blog

Here are a couple of images from a recent constructed reality portrait session with my model Marcia. The other lady joined us during the session and provided a beautiful contrast and dynamic tension to the series. I’m grateful for these wonderful opportunities that appear magically as I photograph – the vision in my head is so often improved upon by the chance and circumstance of life, and it’s important during sessions to be open to these golden opportunities!

Cruising in Santa Cruz

Maricia with Flowers

Looking back at my various band photographs, you may notice many are at the same location, a local venue called Don Quixote’s. It’s not the greatest lighting, it’s not the greatest stage, but I just love this place and their support of live music, and it’s always a pleasure to go photograph there. This weekend, I had the pleasure of photographing Hovering Breadcat and Forrest Day there. Here are a few of my favorite images; you can check out the full set at: http://maginei.com/photos/20110812/

Chris Zanardi

Derek Bodkin

I always pause after the end of the school semester to recoup and regenerate, and this summer I’ve been busy road-tripping with hubby and dog in our RV, mostly sans camera. While I certainly feel recharged and ready to go, I’ve also got some great memories to inspire me.

So this month, no photos

This series of women was created for my final class assignment of exploring the works of a photographer and working within their style as a form of homage and learning – for my series, I chose Richard Avedon, who has been a great influence on my personal portrait style.

I chose women in particular to extend the exploration that I began last semester with my series Women in Red. And with this, school’s out for the summer!

In this executive portrait of Symantec’s Anil Chakravarthy, Senior VP of Storage and Availability Management Group, I used a vivid group painting as a background. In addition to providing an interesting visual, it also showcased the company’s new logo. The photo was created for CIO Digest magazine.

I had the fortune to photograph Intel’s George Thangadurai, General Manager of PC Client Services Division, this past week for CIO Digest magazine.

Despite photographing right around 7 a.m. in the extremely crisp early morning air, Mr. Thangadurai was a most gracious subject. I loved the architecture of the Intel headquarters and wanted to infuse the executive portrait with a sense of Intel’s history; there are recollections of co-founder Robert Noyce throughout the building, including the building being named after Noyce, an Intel museum on-site, and a poster of Noyce in the lobby.

Intel's George Thangadurai, General Manager of PC Client Services Division, photographed by Kimberley Bermender, maginei

The weather finally turned beautiful, and I took the opportunity to photograph Niall Wall, General Manager of Symantec’s SwapDrive business, outdoors on their lovely campus.

While the art director for the CIO Digest magazine likes to stay away from greenery in their executive portraits, the lines of the buildings create some great visual patterns which I wanted to highlight, in addition to that great natural ambient light.

Niall Wall, Symantec

Sometimes background can be a real challenge, especially when you’re photographing multiple sessions in the same location. In this session with Sanjay Saraf and Lenny Alugas (VPs, Symantec’s eBusiness Services Group), it was the opposite problem where this building was going to be closed shortly, and I discovered all kinds of great locations. It was tough to choose the final image, but the art director went with this shot in the lobby, showcasing the great rounded lines of the building.

Another highlight of this session was the two delightful gentlemen – they were great fun to work with, humored my fanciful direction (including a Blues-brother-esque pose) and we came out with some great results in the end.

Here’s a shot from a very challenging session. There was a glass wall about 3 feet behind me, with the appliance on the bottom of the rack. Photography is all about being creative with the sources available, and this was a perfect example. I was contorted like a pretzel around the lights to get the lighting and angle that I wanted. More yoga needed!

Appliance

It’s always with mixed emotions that I wrap up a project. Usually tired of the idea after mulling on it day in and day out for weeks/months on end, I’m somewhat relieved to focus on another idea. Then, there’s so much of myself that goes into these efforts that it’s hard to think of leaving it behind and moving on. And there are always the images that I didn’t create, the concepts that didn’t get flushed out. The last of the ‘women and red series is done and it is time to move on. Here is the final, and my favorite, image from the series.

Red Woman Dejected