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Last month I had the pleasure of working with Ryan Heward on expanding his portfolio. We shot for two days, in the heat, and created a lot of killer shots. These are a few of my favorites from the session.
Watch for Ryan’s work in the future. We wish him luck in his career!
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UPDATE: Congratulations to Ryan who just got signed with FORD/Robert Black Agency!
It took two different printers and many headaches, but the new promo cards to start off my 2010 promotional campaign have finally arrived. For this set of promo cards, I decided to keep the design simple and clean to reflect the branding in place on my website. I also chose to go with only two photos to keep their size large and to reflect the direction I’m taking my work over the next year. Now just to finish up the mailing list for 2010 and lick a bunch of envelopes!
Aspiring Arizona model Alex Lasheen contacted me with an interest to update his portfolio with some lifestyle/commercial fashion type photography. After some hair and makeup, we met up just outside the entrance to Lake Pleasant. My favorite photos from our session were near the end when we wandered out into the marina area of the lake. The photo above is one of my favorites from this portion of our shoot.
This past year has seen a lot of location work and it was long over due for my good friend and makeup artist Lorri Mitchell and I to meet up and create something in studio. For this session we decided to go with a handfull of clean, simplistic beauty concepts and had the pleasure of working with Britnee Johnson from S.I.M. Agency. We started out with a list of conceptual ideas. Each concept based on a single element, from which we built the entire look of the the image.
As is in usual fashion when I get to shoot with Lorri, we rocked it out and had a blast! Watch for more beauty inspired concept sessions over the next couple winter months as we hide out in the studio from our chilling 50 degree Arizona winters!
This past month my good friend Aaron Matthew and I have started working on updating his portfolio. For this session I was going for a classy suit look, but with a bit of an edge. We went with a single outfit and changed it up with a variety of lighting techniques.
The initial concept was to shoot inside an elevator, so we took a trip to downtown Phoenix. After finding our elevator, we quickly learned it wanted to have nothing to do with us propping it open. Instead we timed this whole setup in the amount of time it would stay open from pressing the button. This was the only setup that used additional lighting. I attached a bare speedlight to the staircase behind the camera with a justin clamp to bring some hard light into this shaded area.
For the rest of our setups I worked with natural light, ranging from setups in the shade, sun flares and shadows cast by nearby objects. My new EF 50mm f/1.4 I purchased has been working amazing for shooting into the sun to get flares. It’ll allow me to virtually shoot straight into the sun.
After what was to be our last setup, we busted out a few crazier concepts on the way back to the car. The shoot is never over until the memory card gets plugged into my MacBook.
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of working with Laura, a model from SIM Agency. Our shoot ended up being a bit of a road trip and the first stop was to meet up with Lorri Mitchell for some stellar makeup. Once the makeup was complete, we took a brief pitstop for some caffeine and headed up north in search of some tall grass for our shoot. What we found was visually what I had in mind, but it came with the added bonus of being sharp, scratchy and laced with thorns. Good times! Even so, we got the look I was going for.
To get more information on the lighting setup used in this shoot, check out my previous post Balancing Flash with Afternoon Sunlight.
I had the opportunity to meet up with Madeline a few weeks ago and spend the afternoon shooting with her. I’ve wanted to do another shoot in downtown Phoenix for a while, but hadn’t had the opportunity to now, so we jumped on it. We had a style we were going for, but no specifics planned, we just let it organically unfold as it wanted to. We headed downtown, walked around a bit, got kicked out of this beautiful space between some buildings, then happened across this location. This location had great shade, good architectural lines and a bright wall behind me to bounce light back onto Madeline. This setup ended up being my favorite, these are a couple of the resulting shots.
I recently had the pleasure of shooting with Foot Klan again. Always a good time. This shoot was setup by my good friend Matthew Dutile. Hip hop dancing, photography, good friends and a sunset. That’s an invite you can’t pass up.
As the dancers started to roll in, we setup for some individual portraits rooftop and in the stairwell. For my portraits in the stairwell, I wanted something a bit urban and gritty. I setup in one of the areas that had strong natural back lighting and threw in a small strobe right up against the wall opposite of the sun.
As the sun started to set we headed back topside out to the middle of the parking ramp and let the dancers take over. We set them up with some dramatic back lighting and they put on a great show. I had the opportunity to practice with Foot Klan for a few months a couple of years ago, it was a lot of fun, but needless to say, I’ll leave the dancing to them and stay behind the camera.
Last night kicked off the runway shows at Phoenix Fashion Week for 2009. Most notably was the FASHIONABLY Pink – Celebrity Fashion Show Benefiting Susan G. Komen for the Cure Phoenix. If you’re attending Fashion Week, I’ll be at the Get Discovered happy hour tonight and hanging out at the show sans-camera, being social. It’s what I do! See you there.
This past week I had the pleasure of shooting with Aaron Matthew, a Phoenix-area model and friend of mine. I have wanted to try shooting a style that is a little different than my usual work. For this shoot I wanted to work with the natural light and shoot into the sun.
A couple hours before sunset, I met up with Aaron to pick out some outfits. Once we decided on the wardrobe for the shoot, we headed off to a dusty field in Tempe. One of the qualities I really liked about the location is you cannot tell we’re surrounded by the city. The field also offered a golden color that complimented the light of the setting sun.
Using the sun as a light source behind the model isn’t something new to me, though I usually offset it with a powerful strobe in front of the model… or at minimum a reflector. I intended to use a reflector this time around too, but the wind had other plans. The reflector was quickly abandoned when it was turned into a gigantic sail that tried to blow me across the desert.
Getting the sun aligned where I wanted it wasn’t as difficult as I expected, it was focusing on Aaron that proved to be a challenge. With the sun shining straight into the lens, quite often the camera couldn’t lock focus on it’s own. Temporarily blocking out the sun solved that issue and I was able to get the shots I was looking for. I like this style a lot and plan to work with it more in the future.
