Hello! My name is Rustin Michael Cerveny and I am the namesake of the Rustin Michael brand.
I am based out of Los Angeles and specialize in wedding photography. This blog gives you insight to my personal and professional life, and features images from my shoots, my travels, and my friends and family. If you see something you like please feel free to leave me a comment. Make sure you take a chance to visit my wedding portfolio website at www.rustinmichael.com, click on weddings.
Sorry I have been absent on here from much of May, I have been busy gearing up to shoot a feature film. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for some great posts!
Before I ever dabbled in still photography I was making short films with my parent’s video camera. I would get a bunch of my friends together and we would decide on a plot and characters and shoot a short film. I would then try to edit the film using 2 VCRs and even try adding sound effects. It was always fun, and not a bad way to spend a summer day while on vacation from school. As my friends and I got older we met less and less to shoot our fun short films but I still had that love for storytelling.
In high school I discovered still photography. I loved going into the darkroom and seeing the magic of one of my images appearing right in front of me. I still wanted to work in film/video but was having a blast taking stills. In 2008 Canon released the revolutionary 5D Mark II. I immediately placed my order. The 5D2 is my main body I used to photograph my clients, but it also can act as a video camera capturing film-like video in HD at 24fps. The Canon 5D2 was even used to shoot the entire season finale of House this year. Just think the camera I use to photograph my clients is being used to shoot one of the top rated shows on TV. The mediums have converged.
I am adding a new blog category “film,” which will cover my work on “American Marriage”, the new film “Absentia,” and any other new film projects. In a little more than 3 weeks we start shooting “Absentia” on my 5D2. You can see the teaser trailer below that we shot recently to help raise funding. Check out or Kickstarter page for more details about “Absentia” and some fun PSAs from the cast and crew. Little did I know at the start of 2010 I would have 2 listings for cinematographer on IMDB.
May 27, 2010 - 12:12 amAustin Curtis - right on brotha! do it! I've been getting into some film projects as well... how can we not though - I mean, it feels so right :)
As I promised last week here is a full post for the Hope in the City Fashion Shoot.
On Saturday March 13th I joined an incredible team of artists to shoot this year’s designers for Hope in the City. This year the outfits had to be made out of 85% paper. To accomplish that task the designers used LA Weekly newspapers. There were so many amazing people that made this shoot possible. First I need to thank my friends at Mosaic for providing us a place to shoot. Franson Hall up at the Pasadena campus provided a great location and plenty of space for us to set up a background.
Just like last year I was the photography coordinator for the Hope in the City shoot and show. I had a great team of photographers join me on the 13th, without them none of this would be possible. Make sure you check out their sites using the links below. Many of them were capturing some incredible natural light shots of the models while I was shooting others on the background.
The shot that we used for the cover of the magazine that was handed out at the show last night. Stay tuned for another post about the show including tear-sheets from the program. Stacey Meineke put together the most amazing program for the show last night.
One final shot. Jason Sorge shot by my side during the shoot backing me up and getting some amazing images himself. This was a shot I grabbed of him while we were setting up the lights. We used a total of 5 Alien Bee Lights for the shoot.
In just 2 more days I will be heading off to Las Vegas to attend the 30th annual WPPI convention. WPPI stands for Wedding and Portrait Photographers International. This will be my 4th year attending this awesome conference. Last year there were over 12,000 photographers in attendance from all parts of the globe. I look forward to this convention each year.
Each year WPPI has amazing speakers talking about the latest in the wedding and portrait photography industry. The also have a huge tradeshow each year offering the latest in albums, print mediums, gear, and new technologies. I always find I run out of time each year trying to see each vendor. Also each night there are a number of parties hosted buy speakers and/or vendors. There is so much to see, learn, and do, I am amazed if I get more than 4 hours of sleep each night.
Click here to find my rough schedule for next week while I am in Vegas at WPPI.
by RUSTIN MICHAEL
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