The QSA Club put on a masquerade dance last Saturday evening in Bellingham. It was one of the first dances I've been to where almost everyone actually danced, and they danced the whole 4 hours! Some came totally decked out some pretty amazing costumes, some in whatever they were comfortable in. Regardless the attire, their was a very positive energy in the air and everyone had a great time.
It's so important going into a project to bring some sort of a vision along for the ride. You just don't show up to a location for a gig, drop your gear bags, look around with your hands on your hips, deeply inhale, and then with a sigh-like exhale go "ok, so how we gonna get this baby done?" Don't get me wrong, in some cases that is literally the situation you are thrown in, but in all instances when you are lucky enough to get that planning/conceptualization time... USE IT! That's why I thought I'd write up a little post about "the vision" that goes into projects, where the concepts start, how I work on key visuals, etc. The following are some sketches from the concept phase that we drew up prior to the shoot day side by side with shots from the video we just finished last week. Yes, you will always get something a little off from your sketches, whether that be restrictions of your location, time, access, etc., but some of the sketches below show how the main idea is retained from the concept and carried through to the final product. This first guy is a perfect example of that. We originally had a cat sitting on the bed to give it a more "homey" feel. But... you can always count on the most predictable animal to act like a D-bag when you really need them to pull through for ya. Our ridiculously lazy cat model, who on any other day wouldn't move if you stepped on him, decided to emulate a curious cat on a crack high, not sitting for more than half a second. Oh well. For the rest of it, it worked out pretty much to plan.
The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), yes, it's a mouthful... put on a video contest focusing on hand hygiene. They teamed up with 3M and created three video categories broken down by specific content matter and time, all dealing with different manners of hand cleaning. Voting starts Jan 25th, and the three finalist will be posted on AORN's site for deciding the winner. The winner takes home $5000 for their hospital's education department. I'm obviously pulling for Tacoma General. Here is the video we put together for the 1-minute, hand washing category. There were specific information and visuals that needed to be integrated in the video, but for that most part, we had a lot of flexibility, and we really differentiated ourselves from the pack by telling a story with video instead of adding another tally to the countless instructional videos out there. Let us know what you think! Public voting will decide the winner out of the 3 finalists next week. I'll post again with a link to the contest voting so that you all can vote once it's available.
Started working with a new client the other week, Tiare Floral Design. A floral designer local here to Tacoma. Doesn't sound too exciting, eh? Yeah, well he's not exactly the kinda guy who is taking calls at flowers-r-us. When you think of a floral arrangement I can guarantee you it's not anything close to what Tomasi, the designer, is creating. I've had the pleasure of seeing his work in person, and it's not something you'll find the Safeway florist slapping together. Tomasi approached me and said he really liked my work, I said the same, and we were booking shoots that day. I'd never shot flowers specifically, but after seeing Tom's work, I was very excited to take a shot at it. We talked about present and future projects. The most interesting aspect of our future work coming down the road for me is the mixture of portraiture and the floral design. So there will be many posts coming at you in the months to come with many variations besides just flowers on a pedestal.
I had some roses in the house for a couple weeks, they aged very well, and... like many things they inspired a photoshoot. They kept their form, yet darken in color and gained a nice texture. I shot a couple with a butterfly beauty light configuration, but my main focus was a darker, more mysterious shot. Setting up two lights with 10 and 20 degree grid spots, I lit only key parts of the composition, giving it a nice look. I love having deep, dark shadows in my photos, and these have lots of that indeed. For me, the most interesting photos are always the ones where there is a part of the photo in darkness, just something about it.
I'm trying to make an effort to write more posts about some of my equipment, 'cause I know that other photographers out there in the market for new stuff would like to hear feedback about this stuff from real people they know, and not some crummy product review on adorama.com. I'm also going to try and make a spot on the site that details the current equipment I use in the field. Before I go off about how much I like this piece of glass... it's important to note that for all of you photographers in the beginning or even middle stages of your learning don't get too consumed with buying super expensive gear and thinking it'll make your photos magically turn to gold. A sharp lens and a poorly executed photo composition is still a poor photo, no matter how heavy and expensive your setup may be. Invest in some knowledge and gain solid skills in the field before you blow your savings on equipment that won't help your game too drastically in the beginning. I've taken many awesome photos in my years, and some of my top favorites of all time were taken with a $900 body/lens Canon Rebel setup.
My little helpers, Coal and Tobi, are the rascals pictured above. Lisa bought these ridiculous outfits for the cats which made for some good photo ops. I don't know what is funnier, the way they look in them, or the reaction they have, trying to squirm out of them the instant they find themselves looking like Rudolph. Coal really cracks me up, he truly looks like the Grinch here, always has that contemplative look like he's stormin' up something evil in his noggin'.
I've been working over the past few weeks getting the workshop curriculums squared away. The advanced workshop, among the set of workshops, will teach you lighting techniques like the one used to create the picture above. Upon completion the "workshops" page will almost be it's own...
A behind the scenes look at the making of the Smokin' Hot Espresso 2010 calendar. Enjoy, and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.
The calendar is here! Got a copy yesterday, looks great. Calendar launch party is tomorrow evening below are the details. Come meet all of the baristas and myself. Location: Jimmy T's - Kent, WA Time - 8pm - til close We will be showing a behind the scenes...
We finished the Smokin' Hot Espresso calendar project yesterday with a bang. Came up with this concept after seeing similar ideas. I decided to used 6 girls in undies playing video games. Does it get any better, guys? Didn't think so...
It was a long, cold, yet very productive weekend for the Smokin' Hot Espresso calendar shoot. Got three more months out of the way, with only two more to go. This project is going about as smoothly as could be expected, mostly due to Josh...
A wireless flash trigger system, ya gotta have it. A must have with on-location lighting photography, but I'd argue almost a must have in the studio as well. No one needs to be tripping over those old dinosaur sync cables now-a-days. Of course we all want them, it's just a matter of if you can pony up the dough for a couple. Pocket Wizards, if you know anything about flash photography and the technologies used to talk to your lights, I'm sure you've heard that name. It's the Cadillac of wireless flash, an industry standard in pro photo, and they are not cheap. They fire from a 1000 feet away (don't ask me when you'd ever need such range), you can fine tune them using your computer for super specific needs, and they can carry your camera's flash settings wirelessly to hot shoe flash units from across the room. There are a ton of photog geeks out there writing post after post about these little gadgets, not to mention the manufacturer's site where you can read up on the fine details, so I'm just gotta give you the easy-peasy, simple, practical use for these things, while trying to leave out as much geek speak as I can.
Got an email from Helen McGovern, executive director of the EFN, checking my availability for their "Abundance" fundraiser. She had attended the Tacoma Community House fundraising event I worked a few weeks back, also saw the pictures I captured there, and asked if I could do the same for her organization. But of course! ;) That was a busy Saturday. I was (and still am) in the middle of shooting the Smokin' Hot Espresso calendar. That day I had two months scheduled to shoot, and I threw this event right on top of that. Piece of cake, right? Maybe if I wasn't still in the middle of a horse pasture wrapping my last calendar shoot for the day, an hour out of town, and needing to be present and clicking at the fundraiser 30 minutes from then! Let's just say I had a "vision problem" and I couldn't quite accurately make out the speed limit signs on the way back into town. Made the event just as things started to ramp up. phew!
Discovered this butterfly roaming the house Halloween night. Instead of squishing it (I was tempted) I decided to throw a couple lights up and photograph it. As it fluttered about, I lit it from the front with a bare bulb, along with a light (gelled blue) hitting the back wall. Shot of couple of these and then turned off the front light and just shot some silhouettes created by the blue light bouncing back.
So I couldn't resist, I just had to share the above picture with you all. Meet Tobi and Coal, the furry brothers that continually keep me entertained at home. The night we forced them to wear these ridiculous hats just happened to be a tad...
Yes, that's right, June in October. At least when you have an entire calendar year to shoot in three weeks and you are in the end of October, you don't have much of a choice. Large, challenging, and fun hurdles are riddled throughout this project,...
I've been working with the people from Smokin' Hot Espresso, a bikini barista business, for a little over a week now. They have hired me to shoot a calendar for the 2010 calendar year. We have roughly two weeks to fit all the shoots in and design the calendar. It'll be an interesting time as we try to get this all accomplished in such a short window of time, especially taking in consideration a lot of the shoots will have to be worked around the weather.
We already have three shoots (months) out of the way, as we are pushing to get all the outdoor shoots completed first, cause as we all know, the weather will just be getting worse and worse. Be sure to keep checking back for more posts about the shoots, the pictures, and the hurdles we had to overcome throughout the shoot. A behind the scenes video is also in the making and will be available for viewing on the site as well.
So, what do you do when you aren't liking your shot? You change your angle, lighting, exposure, or... you can jump in the pool. When planning this shoot, I had thought that I'd might need to get in the water, but for concern of dipping my camera in the water, and/or loosing my footing while working and my camera going under with me, I didn't want to risk it. That and once I was in the water I would have to stay there and finish out the shoot so that I wouldn't be trailing water all over the place and most likely all over my equipment. So I didn't have any intention of getting wet, didn't bring a suit, towel, or a change of clothes. Hey... I wasn't getting in... right?
