Dave Gruentzel Photography - I Take Your Photo » Blog

Nehring Wedding

Dave Gruentzel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:02:58 +0000

Being a photographer you always get asked to take someones wedding photos, that is the response you get when you hold a camera. Ever since I stared taking photos I had friends and random people I didn’t even know ask me that timeless question. So sometimes you have to give in and say yes :P

I’m glad I said yes to shooting this wedding for my old high school friends sister. Debra, the bride, was the most down to earth chilled relaxed person that day…minus a little wardrobe malfunction that required her to be sewn into her dress… Her sister Katie on the other hand was having a nervous breakdown before the wedding, you’d think she was the one getting married! Scott, the groom, along with his companion Buster was also calm and cool but you could see a little pre show jitters that he was hiding. The wedding took place at the brides parents beautiful house/farm secluded somewhere far away from any city. It’s was the perfect location for the perfect wedding.

April 29, 2010 Photo Walk

Dave Gruentzel — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:25:29 +0000

Went for a photo walk with Alvin Arzaga and John Schulze around the Milwaukee area. I’ve been doing a lot of exploring in the downtown area looking for new and cool location I could use for my next model shoot. And speaking of which, the weather is getting nicer so me and Alvin are starting up a little project. It’s called Photofide and it is dedicated to behind the scenes video for all things photography. What we plan on doing is detailed video of our shoots from scouting to post production of model photography. So plan on seeing a lot of beautiful woman with hardly anything on :) We’re also going to tag along with some local photographers from the southwest Wisconsin area and see how they work and whats going on in their heads.

Here is a little video that i did with photog Rob and Josh. It was Josh’s idea to take some photos at night of spinning steel wool that was on fire. It made for some very cool photos and called attention to the cops…

So I’d recommend going to www.photofide.com right now to check out some of my old videos and two new ones

Here are the photos from today’s walk, we went all over the place. Caught some wind surfers on this windy ass day.

Photo walk with Ashley

Dave Gruentzel — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:09:03 +0000

Had a fun little photo walk with Ashley in downtown Milwaukee. We walked from the downtown interchange on w St. Paul st. by the Amtrak station to 25th and Canal St. roughly. We went by this old abandoned building that wasn’t so abandoned. A homeless guy came out of it and just watched us. I said hi to him but he had no words, just a creepy cold stare as we walked away quickly…so besides almost being killed we found some old train cars that have been abandon for a while. And since the run in with the homeless guy earlier we were a bit skittish of another popping out while we were in the train car. But all in all it was fun and i found some cool locations for future shoots!

Some textures From the train cars.

Chelsea M – Jones’ Island

Dave Gruentzel — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:17:49 +0000

Well, I decided to take advantage of the first warm day this year in Wisconsin. It felt so good to wear a t-shirt, have the windows down in the car, and breath in the fresh spring air. But, being Wisconsin it snowed the next day. It’s like the only state where you can experience all four seasons in one week. My friend Chelsea, who is not a “model” but sure knows how to, wanted to shoot since i haven’t shot her in a while. So i figured the warm day would be the perfect day to shoot, seems obvious lol. For a location I wanted to shoot somewhere i haven’t really shot before. Those locations were Jones’ Island and Humboldt Park both in the Bay View area where she is from. Other people that came along where Chelsea’s friend Sara for moral support and a good laugh, photog Alvin who is always with me on shoots, and photog Patrick (aka Agent Smith).

Oh yeah, check your ISO before you shoot…

Photos from Jones’ Island:

Photos from Humboldt Park:

Kyla M – Winter Park

Dave Gruentzel — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:49:47 +0000

Short notice shoots are always fun! I wanted to shoot with photog Patrick for a while now and we both wanted to shoot in the snow and the only day we both could was the next day after we talked about it. So we scrambled to find a model that could come on such short notice and that model was the wonderful Kyla. Also Alvin was there like always, need an Asian to equal everything out lol. We decided to shoot at Washington Park in Milwaukee Wisconsin. It was a fun “hey lets shoot tomorrow and see what happens” kind of shoot lol. Afterward we went to an authentic mexican restaurant. Patrick is a cool down to earth dude who happens to take some amazing photos! I would highly suggest you to check out his work on his Flickr

Orsburn/Bergum Wedding

Dave Gruentzel — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:58:14 +0000

My friends parents where getting married and they suggested me to take the photos (I have a feeling this is going to happen a lot lol). They did not need anything special as it was an informal type wedding. I’ve never really shot a wedding so I agreed to gain some experience. And the cool thing was the wedding took place at Lambeau Field in Green Bay Wisconsin. Got to go out on the field and walk in the tunnel where the players come running out. The tunnel had a motion sensors so when we started to walk out you could hear the announcers and the crowd yell.

I learned you need to be on your toes to changing conditions and know your camera VERY well so you don’t think about changing the setting to get the shot. I would improve on my skills with the flash for fill and practice shooting fast and getting everything right like exposure, focus, color, and composition. I would also improve on taking my time when composing and getting groups of people not to blink when i take their photo. I’ve got a lot to learn if i still want to do weddings. But over all it was fun.

Constructive criticism welcome in the comments.

Will You Be My Valentines?

Dave Gruentzel — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:55:13 +0000

I am not a big fan of the whole “valentines” thing, mostly because I don’t have a girlfriend and no one to share my awesome love with…so with all my free lonely time i decided to make this little photo montage of myself for valentines this year. Hope you enjoy :)

Charlie Jane – Lost Footage

Dave Gruentzel — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:24:53 +0000

In January of 2010, Two photographers and one model disappeared in the woods somewhere in Wisconsin while doing a photoshoot. The photos and homemade video are the last time they were seen alive…

Photographer Kevin Kozicki found this really cool secret location somewhere in Wisconsin that has these old and decaying abandon motel rooms. Before he leaves for San Fransisco on February 1st he wanted to do a photoshoot there. The week prior to the shoot we went to the Milwaukee Model Mayhem Meet and Greet and met some awesome models that wanted to shoot with us. One of the models we met there was Charlie Jane (a.k.a. Flying Bunny).

The original day of the shoot, which was the day before, was all crappy and raining out. But luckily the day of the shoot the weather was semi-nice out considering the time of the year it was. Don’t get me wrong, it still was freaking cold out but it was at least tolerable for me, the model, not so much…but she was a trooper and toughed it out.

But this was by far the coolest and most creepy location i’ve shot at. I’m definitely coming back when the weather is nicer out!

The Bones that looked like they came from a human was a bit scary...

Ashley and Lisa – Studio

Dave Gruentzel — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 07:37:05 +0000

I want to thank Joshua London for letting us use his studio! It was nice to have a large warm indoor place with tall ceilings to shoot. The original model didn’t show up due to her schedule but luckily the exuberant Ashly was willing to model for us on short notice and she brought her lovely friend Lisa as well. Me, Alvin, and Josh all shot them…with our cameras. We really didn’t have any specific ideas we wanted for the shoot. We just wanted to have a fun casual time along with a few beers.

And since we had all this space at our disposal I tried a new lighting technique that I never done before which was to have a really white/blown out background. Speedlights are not the greatest to use for that purpose, but you got to use what you got (need more Alien Bee’s!). The Main light was a B800 with large softbox above the models and SB600′s with silver umbrellas facing the background.

It was a great shoot, it’s aways fun with them!!!

Ashley

Lisa

Setup Shot

Lisa and Ashley

Underwater Photoshoot at UWM

Dave Gruentzel — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:18:09 +0000

My photographer buddy Alvin is from the Philippines so he’s half merman and loves the water. So him living in the wonderful wisconsin he doesn’t have the warm weather and clear water like he is used to.

Now he has me convinced to help do some underwater fashion photography even though i’m not the most talented swimmer. By that i mean i can’t swim, just sink to the bottom gracefully. Also being in Wisconsin it’s very hard to find an indoor pool to let us do what we want to do for cheaply. But for this shoot we were able to shoot in the UWM pool for a few hours.

The gear we used was Alvins E-1 with the Ikelite #6851 housing and some UW strobes. They crappy thing was the playback was not working on the camera for some weird reason so we really couldn’t check the photo to see if we got the right exposure. For what we had we did a decent job but there is still always room for improvement. Practice makes perfect.

View more of my underwater photos on my flickr
View Alvin’s underwater photos on his flickr

The models were Brittney Dactylic and Allison Shelby, both were great underwater.