The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

All they wanted was a simple group photo. Desiree, a good friend and stylist extraordinaire, sent me a message on Facebook asking if I would take a shot of the folks that work at her place of business, Steven Cole Salon (an upscale salon in Seattle’s hip Greenwood neighborhood). This was April of 2009. I immediately responded saying I’d love to do the shoot, but things were slow to take off. Several months passed and I discovered the likes of David Hobby (the Strobist), Zack Arias and I even met Chase Jarvis. The influence of these photographers lead me to radically change my approach to lighting and portrait photography. By the time we scheduled a shoot for Steven Cole Salon in September of 2009, I was fully immersed in off camera flash, watt seconds and soft boxes. The simple group photo was now going to be the culmination of hours of blog reading—it was, in no short order, going to be an Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000 Production.
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Seattle based designer and entrepreneur Stephanie de Villa contacted me earlier this year about doing some photography for her baby onesie line, baby deVILLE. After talking about some creative ideas and quickly Googling “onesie,” I put the full resources of Explosion 5000 Photo, LLC into the project. Earlier this month Stephanie launched the baby deVILLE website, featuring photography by yours truly.
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My good friend and frequent creative co-conspirator, Jill Marasigan, recently launched a design and event planning business, P31 Collaborative. Jill asked me to photograph some of the interior spaces that feature her handy work with the intent to use the final images as part of her professional portfolio. So far the collection includes a house in Queen Anne and a loft in South Lake Union.
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My Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor D 18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6G DX ED IF VR lens is fucked. About two months ago I was camping in Ozette, WA with Sharat, Caitlin and Emily. We climbed up on a rock that dropped off a good 160 feet into the ocean. To take a few pictures of Caitlin and Sharat sitting on the edge of the rock, I decided to use my 35mm f/1.8 lens and hastily put the 18-200 in my bag. Forgetting that I placed it in an unzipped pocket, I unknowingly knocked it out of the bag when I changed my camera battery. After taking a few more shots, one of the annoying little kids up on the rock asked, “Hey camera guy! Hey camera guy! how many lenses do you have?”

“I have two. The one on my camera and one in my bag.”

“No you don’t. You only have one. The other one rolled off the edge.”

“My other lens what?!”
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