Friendly Faces
It has been a long time since I have blogged and my Year End Statistics are lame. I used to blog every day, time to get back on the horse! 🙂  2013 was a Roller Coaster of a year for me due to rapidly changing circumstances – perhaps I will discuss at some later time, but not today. Day One 2014 is one for reflection and watching Hockey!
I would simply like to post some pictures of all the wonderful people whom I have met and gotten to know as friends. (Hopefully I don’t miss anyone, and if so please chastise me with a comment or two).  They are, for the most part,  Artists with their own special talents, troubles, turmoil, but as I have noticed, always positive, smiling and happy (at least when I am Photographing them). So I will write a brief note for each…no particular order, I am not that organized! 🙂
This is Crystal Montes – she is a trooper, runs through mud, climbs anything and likes to make goofy faces!
Dani Kovache introduced me to many wonderful people this year, set up a bunch of fun projects – thanks D
Chary from Temptress Fashion – Thanks Temptress for inviting me to all the special events – always fun
Felina Vie – first real photo shoot with her – it got a bit nuts with the Voodoo Theme 😉 Thanks May for the Makeup work and Daniela too!
Carmel – always willing to try new things, and is an exceptional Burlesque Artist
Lady Borgia – A Temptress Fashion Model, Burlesque Artist and just good people
Eva Mae – a True Southern Belle
Erica Joleen – mysterious creature “Nevermore” 🙂
Veronica from Ramona – her first time doing pin-up, how exciting!
Melanie Monsters – Gave up a lucrative career as a Shrink, Classical Pianist, plays in a Ska Band, Pinup Model…its all about the Music for her *meow meow* 😉
Caitanya Cook – yes she can hot wire a car!
Remele Sparks and Josie Bunny – creatives that will set you back on your heals 🙂 …with 150 lbs of Organic Carrots as props and hours of body painting preparation!
Catherine Madinger – always scheming about new Projects and a fine Lady from Riverside
Dean LeCrone – Chauffer, Creator of Doc Smith Comics and one tough fella – he was so hot in this  outfit with temperatures in the high 90s that there were pools of sweat on the ground!
Chewie – RIP my Friend 🙂
Simone Strauss – meticulous self preparation for any project
Gia LaDolce – wowza, a Spanish Doll from SoCal, and her Mom is awesome!
Kitty Von Rose – always smiling and happy
Sandy Summers never needs direction unless you ask her to use a prop that does not make any sense, like a huge spanner to fix a car
Jean – mysterious and strange animal 🙂
Carrol Morrow – legs! Also really fun!
Megan Martine – Model and Ex US Marine …Semper Fi!
And me, Erik Kerstenbeck, Owner of Kerstenbeck Photographic Art from Ramona California, which is close to San Diego. I am an Army of One. I don’t have a Production Crew, Marketing Manager, Sales Team, Social Media Machine and yet I seem to get along just fine. Always learning from peers and like-minded people.
Remarkable things have happened in 2013 and I feel like I am on the cusp of something really special (More details later, don’t want to jinx it)
Thanks so much for the kind visit to my Blog and wish all a healthly, prosperous and Stellar 2014…Erik 🙂
Rome….buildings and their beauty
Ever wonder..why we don’t build them like we used to? Such beauty in the architecture from long ago….
Follow The Light
This was shot inside St. John’s Cathedral in NYC. There are no rstrictions on Tripods here, other than to respect the Patrons who are praying. What is interesting about this shot is the camera White Balance (pls email us if you would like a short description on this White Balance thing). I had set it for Incandescent for the lights above the pews, and the result for the natural sunlight from the Rosarie is blue. This is a three shot High Dynamic Range (HDR) image.
The building as it appears today conforms primarily to a second design campaign from the prolific Gothic Revival architect Ralph Adams Cram of the Boston firm Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson. Without slavishly copying any one historical model, and without compromising its authentic stone-on-stone construction by using modern steel girders, Saint John the Divine is a refined exercise in the 13th century High Gothic style of northern France. The Cathedral is almost exactly two football fields in length (601 feet or 186 meters) and the nave ceiling reaches 124 feet (37.7 meters) high. It is the longest Gothic nave in the world, at 230 feet. Seven chapels radiating from the ambulatory behind the choir are each in a distinctive nationalistic style, some of them borrowing from outside the gothic vocabulary. Known as the “Chapels of the Tongues” (Ansgar, Boniface, Columba, Savior, Martin, Ambrose and James), their designs are meant to represent each of the seven most prominent ethnic groups to first immigrate to New York City upon the opening of Ellis Island in 1892 (the same year the Cathedral began construction).
Waiting For You
This shot is a tribute to all the Millitary couples who wait for their significant others to come home…often one can see Navy ships disappear over the horizon here…and then later reappear…emotions run deep both times! Taken from Coronado looking NNW
San Diego harbor holds one of the largest naval fleets in the world. This has become the largest concentration of Naval facilities in the world due to US base reductions and retrenchment of the Russian naval base in Vladivostok. Two of the U.S. Navy’s Nimitz class Supercarriers, five amphibious assault ships, several Los Angeles class “fast attack” submarines, the Hospital Ship USNS Mercy , carrier and submarine tenders, destroyers, cruisers, frigates, and many smaller ships are home-ported here.
Be Safe
Kerstenbeck Photographic Art 