It has been faaaar too long since my last update! I have been photographing like crazy for the past year, but I also picked up being a youth pastor and have gone back to school for my Masters Degree, leaving me not as much time to keep this blog updated!
Anyway, I wanted to show you all what I've been working on over these past few months...MY NEW OFFICIAL WEBSITE! You can get there by going to BrandonBathauerPhotography.com
Please feel free to visit and dig into the hundreds of photographs I have up, ranging from photojournalism to portraits to gallery to weddings! I did my best to present a general collection of what I've done, and I'll be regularly adding in new photos to the lineup, so keep checking it out!
It has been forever since my last post, and I'm realizing I should explain why! See, over the past few months I have been constructing my website. It has taken quite awhile (feels like FOREVER) as I've been trying to figure out the best way to create a website that will showcase all of my different forms of photography (weddings, portraits, photojournalism, location work, and my travel/gallery art photography). By the new year, this site will be up and running!
Until then, I've been hoping to keep this blog more as a portfolio of my work than an "up-to-date" showcase of my recent jobs. As soon as my website is up, I'll be posting on here on a regular basis (as much as I can keep up with!) my most recent work.
In case anyone is interested (just so you don't think I am lazy, haha), my most recent work, as of the last 2 months has consisted of:
-Photographing for Habitat 4 Humanity in the San Gabriel region. -Continuing my location photography for the film and television industry all around Los Angeles -Engagements and Portraits for a few great people (you'll see the photos floating around facebook) -A couple weddings -Photojournalism work for a nationwide Christian organization
It has all been crazy fun! Ok, I am going to get back to work on the website and I'll keep you all updated!
I hope everyone's Christmas and New Year's were off the chain! Mine was incredibly packed, but definitely excellent. It has been a loooong while since my last post, and a lot has occurred since then, so with no further ado, let's jump right in!
My plan for this post is to cover very briefly what I've been up to the past couple months. No, I have not been on photography hiatus; quite the contrary! I've actually been busier than ever and my shutter finger is buffer than ever before. It has been a set of months defined by variation, new toys, and new experiences behind the camera. I'll get into all of that shortly, but for a quick explanation, I'll be showing just a small snippet (awesome word!) of 7 different shoots or jobs I've done over the past little bit. There will be more to come, so depending on the responses through comments, e-mails, or facebook messages, we'll see which shoots I'll do a full post on!
Ok, so to get this show started, I've got a few photos from a wedding I helped shoot quite a few months ago. It was a super rad wedding in a full-blown, Western-themed plot of land. Jen and Nate were totally stunned by each other and I was stoked to be part of this incredible day. I could post a thousand photos from this wedding, but I'll stick with three.
*(note: to enlarge pictures, just click on them. To size them once clicked on, hold down ctrl button and press + or -)*
-Sweet, right!? That "saloon" behind her was incredible inside. This is right before they brought in the horses for a chance in front of the camera...no, I'm serious. :) -
-Totally diggin' the red and black.- And now, for something completely different.
As most of you know, I work as the staff photographer for an incredible LA-based company
called Skyline Locations. Basically, I photograph high-end locations in Downtown Los Angeles for use in the Film and Television industry. I've been blessed to have this job and work with these awesome people for about the last 2 years. I typically do one to two shoots per week, depending on the week. It is excellent practice and a great way for me to hone my non-people/artistic/detail/composition skills. Steady jobs and photography rarely go together, which is one of the many reasons this job is so excellent...I get to increasingly hone a skill week in and week out, plus, I get to stand on the roofs of skyscrapers and stuff on a regular basis! Haha. It's a good life!
*Photo by Bethany Van Hofwegen*
Anyway, I recently photographed the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It was one of my more exciting days in that I was surrounded by people taking pictures of the same, gorgeous building I was...the only difference is that I was getting paid to do it! Talk about doing what you enjoy! I remember years before taking photos of these buildings with the same passion as I do now, even though this is my job. Here are a few from that shoot and a couple others:
I hope you enjoyed just a very, very little taste of my location work. There's A LOT more where that came from! Check out the Skyline site for more of my work (SkylineLocations.com).
Now, I mentioned new toys in the first paragraph. As much as I enjoyed my old equipment, I needed something just a bit more professional. I could tell that I was reaching the capacity of the camera and lenses I was working with, so I decided to upgrade. And guys, I upgraded! Haha. In November, I purchased my new primary tool, a Canon 5D Mark II. This camera is incredible. It is a full-frame, 21 megapixel camera that takes pictures crisper that anything I could have imagined. I got a couple lenses also (24-70 2.8 'L' and 70-200 IS 2.8 'L', for you lens aficionados out there). I mention all this because, within one week of getting this camera, I had what was probably my most busy week of photography ever.
Friday: Engagement Session/ Saturday: Wedding/ Tuesday&Thursday: Skyline Shoot/ Saturday: Concert/ Sunday: A Musical.
Craziness!
I wont show all of the photos taken that week, not even all of the shoots, but we'll catch the highlights.
FRIDAY:
Amber and Aaron are about the most fashionable a couple can be. They are both super rad people and I was stoked to get the chance to do some engagement photos for them. It always is so fun and easy taking pictures of such a photogenic, good-looking couple...every photo seems to turn out excellently! It was a good experience to do a magazine fashion-type engagement session, it gave me a bit more control than I'm usually used to for this type of shoot, but Aaron and Amber were so laid back and had so many great ideas, it made for an excellent day. We did three different "vibes" (as I like to call them): The first being a vintage-y, bright colored vibe; the second being a hippie-ish/elf in Rivendell type of feel; and the third was a request from Amber to get inspired by the vibe from Vanity Fair's Twilight movie shoot. I didn't see the movie, but I think the shoot got pretty darn close to the feel! Here they are:
SATURDAY:
Saturday I took photos for this very sweet concert called "True Religion" that was held in Claremont. It raised money to build an orphanage in Kenya, and I was so excited to be able to volunteer my time to support such an incredible cause. There are few things better than using the gifts you've been given and thoroughly enjoy using, to help others who thoroughly need it (see my Belize post!). If anyone needs a photographer for a good cause, there is a large chance I'll make a serious discount or even volunteer for free to help the cause, just keep that in mind! There was some excellent music and excellent company, here are a few captures from that night:
-And one of my favorites from the night:- SATURDAY (Previous):
If you guys look back one post, you'll see some engagement shots of an excellent couple named Andrea and Blake. All of the chemistry shown between these two in the engagement session just exploded at the wedding! It was an impactful wedding with some great moments, here are just a few!
*Look at that chemistry...and absolutely candid!*
-Blake closed out the party with some good ole' Rock N' Roll. He shredded!- And for a final little bit, I went recently on a trip to the East Coast: Boston, New York, a stop in Baltimore, and Washington DC. There will for sure be a post on this trip coming up (once I get the photos all edited!), but for now, I figured I'd just touch on a few things.
We set up a stop in Baltimore so I could do a shoot of Rebecca, an incredibly sweet french horn player at Peabody Conservatory. Baltimore was gorgeous, and my favorite part was shooting in this ginormous library that the Beauty and the Beast library was actually inspired by. It was incredible to have free access to a room of such magnitude. Anyway, here are a few of Rebecca!
Awesome library, eh? Now, this post is already quite long, so I'm going to just whet your appetite for my East Coast photos with 1 photo from each location. Here we go:
WASHINGTON DC:
*US Capitol at night. Notice the Halo. Ironic?*
NEW YORK:
*Carving in front of famed Chrysler Building*
BOSTON:
*Taken from the North Bridge in Concord where the "Shot Heard 'Round The World" was fired*
I hope you all enjoyed this little snapshot into my life over the past couple months, and I hope you enjoyed the variation as much as I did! Like I said, I will be happy to post more of any of these shoots, just send me lots of facebook messages or e-mails or comments to let me know which one(s) I should get on next! Thanks again for viewing my work, your support means a lot!
Hey guys and gals, First of all, I want to start by thanking everyone who has so loyally been checking out my blog over the past few months. I'm always excited to put up a new post and get all the feedback from you guys, whether it is an e-mail, a facebook message, a call, or a comment on this blog. Thanks again, it definitely means a lot!
Now, as I said in the last post (Alaska!), I've been working like crazy this past month with portrait sessions to balance out all of the landscape work I've been doing this summer! The many different forms of photography intrigue me each in their own way, and portraits have been no different. So, I've decided to take a sampling of the three sessions I've done this past month and jam them all into this one post.
Each shoot is different, and you will (hopefully) see that through the way these photographs turned out. You'll see two individual portrait sessions and one set of an engagement session. I find that with the individual session, my goal is to find out who the subject is, and then work to get that genuine personality to shine through. I've gotten quite used to talking with the viewfinder over my eye ready to snap as soon as the subject responds to whatever it is I am saying or doing. Engagement photos are almost opposite. My goal here is to set myself as an observer, keeping my trigger finger ready to catch the natural chemistry that comes from the couple enjoying their day. Well, we'll get to that soon.
Starting out, we've got Katherine, an absolute genius and rad person all at the same time! She is, literally, a piano prodigy, getting a full-ride into college at age 14! Check out her website at www.katpiano.com (you may recognize the photographer!), and listen to some of the pieces, I recommend the Liszt, you'll be floored! Anyway, I got the chance to photograph her and capture her intensity and humorous lightheartedness. We were mostly in Azusa area, taking the piano photos at Azusa Pacific University. It was sweet to get a full concert hall to myself for a shoot!
(Note: To view the pictures larger, click on them, hold CTRL, and scroll your mouse or press + or - )
*I was so stoked when I saw that the red felt in the piano matched the red she was wearing...yeah, I totally planned that...*
I know it was a portrait session, but I couldn't let an image like this go unsnapped:
Katherine's boyfriend is actually a piano tuner (perfect couple, yeah, I think so) and was able to remove the keyboard part from the grand piano. After some very scary maneuvering, this image popped into my mind. I think it makes for quite an intriguing image that I bet you've never seen before. :)
To change it up a bit, we'll jump to the engagement session I did for Andrea and Blake, an awesome couple stoked to start their lives together. I immediately knew that I was going to enjoy working with these two (I'm booked also for their wedding in November!) when I heard that Blake was an artist and enjoyed playing banjo, and when Andrea expressed excitement about photography that is genuine, mostly unposed in its nature, and definitely not manufactured at its core. I was sold! We concluded on two locations, both very important to the life of this couple: Disneyland and the Wayfarers Chapel. I knew both would present their beauties and their challenges, so I geared up and we made it happen.
What I so enjoyed about this session was that I did not feel like I had to make the couple seem like they were into each other. They just did their thing and I simply threw on my telephoto lens and captured the real and genuine chemistry that came from these two. Why take engagement pictures but to capture the character of the couple and show what they are really like in this exciting time of life?
See what I'm saying about chemistry!? Anyway, enough hype, here they are:
...yes, I was definitely in a spinning teacup across the way. No challenge=No fun. :)
Get it? Fireworks!
I though the tilted angle was a little too extreme for this next one while shooting, but i think it ended up reflecting the chaotic/cartoonish feeling perfectly. Oh yeah, that, and Andrea's face!
We then took a drive to a beautiful chapel on the cliffs above the ocean in Rancho Palos Verdes to finish off the session. Check it out!:
Let me know if you agree with me that this last one looks like a cologne or perfume ad.
Thanks Andrea and Blake, you guys are awesome and I'm stoked about November!
The last shoot I did was for Bethany, an amazing, laid back girl with a golden voice. Bethany is the type of girl that is absolutely gorgeous, but it seems like she doesn't quite realize it! Definitely a refreshing subject to work with. She is an amazing jazz singer with a voice that will melt you: check her out at www.myspace.com/bethanyvanhofwegen. We spent some time around the Claremont Colleges, and I took on the challenge to capture her in her genuine, natural beauty, again, something that couldn't be captured if it was manufactured. You'll see what I mean:
Nothing like dead leaves to accentuate a shallow depth of field!
I see a little bit of evidence of natural model here. Maybe another perfume ad? Actually feels more like a jean ad now that I look at it.
Last photo, Bethany had brought along a red dress partially because of a possible jazz gig that night that didn't end up happening. The light was fading, but the street lights gave just enough light to snap off this last one of the day:
So, there they are! I hope you enjoyed viewing these and I very much appreciate any thoughts you may have about them! If there are any questions for booking/pricing/my calendar, along with any other questions, throw me an e-mail at BrandonBPhotography@gmail.com and I'll get you any info you need.
Thanks again for viewing and have an excellent week! -Brandon Bathauer
My name is Brandon Bathauer, and I am a photographer.
Art drives me and gives me the ability to be different. When I saw my first roll of developed film, I knew I found my art niche.
I am currently the staff photographer for an LA-based production/location company that works in Hollywood’s television, commercial, and movie industries. Besides this, I’ve worked with everything from newspaper photojournalism to photo galleries to weddings to overseas missions/service coverage in the middle of the jungle. Although my work is done in the professional realm, I still feel like I’m practicing a hobby… just being a little kid at playtime with his new toy.
As for a little bit about me: I recently graduated with a BA in History and Theology; I thoroughly enjoy surfing and anything about the beach; I live in Upland, about 45 minutes east of Los Angeles; I play drums, harmonica, and guitar (in that order); and I really enjoy travel, I’ve traveled to every continent except Aust, Africa, and Antarctica (hopefully just Antarctica soon!).
Comment what you think, feedback means a lot! E-mail me at brandonbphotography@gmail.com
Hey Everyone!
