Todays Shoot - Ryn (NSFW)

Todays shoot is Ryn who, dabbles in modeling, but is namely a photographer.

Winter kills me, especially December and January when there are barely any shows, so i tend to load up with model shoots all in studio - sooo expect to see a bunch of it.

SO! being that it was one of her first times in front of the camera, and shes never shot with me, I figured we would break in a few sets with a more lingerie type feel.

I shot these with 2 3x4 profoto softboxes as split lighting, and placed the model about a half of a foot behind them so there would be slightly harsher shadows.

I shot this with the Canon 1ds Mark 2 with the 70-200 which seems to be the best in studio lens for me - i like being telephoto with zoom so i can crop in super tight or back up and still get a full body shot with out getting off the paper and getting environment in it - these are F16 at a 125th ISO 100



















































Next it was time for corpse paint! - I wanted these to be very very slightly brighter for the first set, so i brought the lights in about 3 inches each, and angled them slightly toward the model, but kept the same settings - generally with corpse paint you lose a stop exposing for the paint, but i just left it the same and the exposures are pretty much identical with the prior set save for slightly more highlights in this one.


































For the last set of corpse paint shots I boomed my mid size dish, but this time didnt raise it up as high as it could go, as i often do. I raised it about 3/4ths of what i could do - i knew her super blonde hair would just reflect light, so I wanted to bank on that and really get it to glow.

I positioned her around the rim of the dish so no harsh shadows would fall on her face - and posed her accordingly. For these i jumped up to F20 - check it





















































































It was awesome getting to have a photographer be a model for a photographer, hopefully we will be working together again in the near future.

Todays Shoot - Diamond

Todays shoot was for my good friend Sam, who you may recognize from Trapped Under Ice.

He has another band, with Brendan (also from trapped under ice), David Wood from terror/down to nothing, and Justin...who... i dont know if hes in another band or not.

Anyway, so Sam hit me up and asked me to do some shots for them as they didnt have anything pro to work with, so after their load in at the waterfront we ran over to my studio and did a super quick 10 minute shoot.

Being that this band is more pop punk than hardcore I wanted to give them a brighter, lighter feel than I would give a band like trapped under ice or terror.

I used a beauty dish main boomed about 1.5 feet above them, pointed directly at them - with two parabolic bare rims behind them, pointed around shoulder area - but speficially not crossing light streams (cmon, you watched ghostbusters right?).

I shot these at F16 at a 125th ISO100 - using the 70-200 which is honestly the best lens for shooting in studio on a paper background cause you can still zoom in and out, while not going too wide to include anything off-paper. So we did a few serious shots, and a few fun shots, and ran right back to the show for them to play!

































































It was great getting to work with these dudes in a different way, in a different band. and although you may not have heard of them yet... you will!

Todays Shoot - Rob Schneider

As soon as I found out Rob Schneider was coming to town, I instantly looked for an outlet so I would have a reason to do a shoot with him. (sometimes in photography, in this business, you need to create your own jobs, make your own moves to attain shoots and goals you want) I found the outlets! locked down the photo shoot!

luckily this was just 5 minutes away from my studio - so I went in around 5pm. We were going to do the shoot at 6, but he decided he wanted to do the shoot between his 8pm and 10pm show.

SO! - I popped the 70-200 IS 2.8 on the 40D for the live shots - and shot the first five minutes or so of his live set, which was searing with terrible red-lighting - but not too strong that it would ruin the images.

Luckily I saved my batch settings from the last show (Gabriel Iglesias) that I had shot there - and its ALWAYS the same lighting. So post was super easy - i just applied the same batch to all the live shots and TADA! they were skin tone and white balanced perfectly for usage. - check it! - ill even put in a before and after.
















































So after his live set - I was escorted into his backstage room which had extremely low ceilings and very limited area. Before shooting, he wanted to see some of my work. I had my iPad with me, which is my portfolio - He took a look while I set up my gear. He went on to be really impressed with my work, and with some of the people I've worked with (though, he is probably in the top 20 most well known I've worked with) but very very kind and loaded with complements about my work.

Anyway. We got started on the couch I figured id have him lounge out, I wanted to get some shots that are more condusive to him being more laid back before going all out and getting some fun shots. I started with a boomed dish - i used my smaller dish (the one i got before the iwabo tour) - but still it was extremely difficult due to the very low ceilings - so i set the light down to 1/4th (i usually set it to 1/2) as the light was going to be closer. I was shooting with the Canon 1DS Mark 2 - the 24-70 2.8 L - and at F14 ISO100 - at a 160th.












For the second shot, I had him stand on the couch, which, the ceilings were so low, he would have bashed his head on the light - so i moved it camera right and angled the dish toward him. Because the light was much closer, I jumped the Fstop to F18


















After moving away from the couch our options were fairly limited - there was a very small hallway connecting the small dressing room with the stage doors, and just across from them were doors with white curtains on them that led to where a tour bus would park. So I set up a boomed dish camera right. I started with it pointing down toward him but after a few shots i gave it more of an angle toward his face to give more more full light. I shot these at F20 because the light was SO close to his face due to the extremely low overhead. - We did a few poses and then I called it a shoot - because I knew he only had a small amount of time between then and when he went back on stage.








































































Alas, change of plans! - I showed him the in camera shots and he was so impressed he insisted we shoot more! - which is AWESOME! because I could shoot him for another hour and get awesome stuff. Dude rules and TOTALLY hams it up for the camera.

So we found a little electric panel room - which is usually something id use for a metal band, but he was the one who chose it, then we decided to go with more of a flat light so i unboomed the dish and just had it straight up shooting through the doorway over my back/head - as there was no room to light it in the small utility room. We finished with that set at F14








































































Afterward, he took a look at the images, and made sure I emailed them to him as he wanted to use some of the shots for his next tour and possibly some other things as well.

All in all its always incredible to get the opportunity to work with something a bit outside of my realm, such as a celebrity or actor or... both, while still being someone who's work I thoroughly enjoy. Bottom line, his movies are awesome, and hes seriously one of the nicest people I've worked with. The images look awesome in print in both the newspaper and magazine that printed them, and hopefully we will get the opportunity to work together again.

One thing to remember - sometimes you need to create your own opportunities to get the shoots you want. I wouldnt have done this shoot if I didn't take it upon myself to contact a few outlets I work with (one I hadnt worked with before) in order to contact the PR agent to lock down the shoot. SO! my advice, if you have the contacts, and the ability, shoot anything you want, anyway you can.

Todays Shoot - Christine/Farewell to Freeway

SO! I wanted to wait for the CD to come out before posting this - aaand it came out today - so... here ya go.

I was hit up by the awesome DoubleJ over at Victory Records, we have worked together a bunch previously, first with A Day to Remember (for those who have heart cd cover/booklet/layout etc.), then again with some promo shoots, then another layout/cd cover for Emmure (felony) - this time around it was a quick fix for Farewell to Freeway.

The shoot was already done but apparently wasn't up to par or did not fit the vision right, something like that.

The idea was a drugged out, mess, of a girl basically looking like a mess in different creepy dark locations, dark imagery... which is sort of my forte so this would be perfect. The title is "filthy habits"... got it!

I already had someone in mind to model for this, so I hit her up, and literally about 12 hours after getting the first word on this job, I was shooting it, in my basement!

My basement is creeeepy, all concrete, no strong colors, so I figured it would be perfect for this!




































I brought a mattress downstairs because I figured some of her in bed looking a mess was a must, I shot her against a washer all curled up. I wanted to have her make up somewhat runny, so I had her mess it up, mess up her hair and look as cracked out as possible.

I shot all of this as FLAT LIT as possible!! I knew that 2xJ was going to do some awesome editing to the final images and make them look epic - so I wanted to make everything very flat, no harsh shadows on the models face or where the concentration should be.

Half way through shooting I decided to dump the shots on the comp and send a few over to see if its what he wanted... thumbs up! a little more direction in terms of what he liked and didnt like, which rules, instant feedback and i can get more of the shots that were needed for the layout.

we went back to shooting

Now the trick to shooting layout is VARIATION! - you want to change details almost constantly - so the poses are constantly changing - the hair is changing - the bed sheets are there one shot - bare bed the next - etc.

I shot all of these with a single small beauty dish and the 24-70 lens - I was constantly changing the lighting and poses between every few shoots, so I cant really list it all, but basically look where the lighting is and you should be able to figure out where its pointing.

I was at F16 the entire time at a 125th ISO100




























































After finishing up in the basement we went up to my bathroom and shot another set of her looking into the mirror, reflection shots can be great if youre really going for the theme of someone looking at their life, and where it went wrong. those shots are all 2.8 at iso640 as the light wasnt super strong
























The last shot we did that day was in the bathtub - and what a trooper! it wasnt exactly super warm but she made do - and these are my favorite shots of the series - she looks sooooo creepy in them - i boomed a dish very carefully above the tub to get this look, and it just worked perfectly. This is at F14 as my bathroom is all white and just reflects about one extra stop of light because of how close the lighting is to the model in these shots.
















































Day 2 we shot for about 15 minutes in an ally for a few final shots. - it was dusk so we shot at 2.8 at iso 800-1000 as the sun faded
























welp here is the final cover - from original - to edit - to cover. TADAA









































The editing on these images is SO awesome, it adds so much to the atmosphere of it.

Working with DoubleJ and Victory is ALWAYS awesome, hes beyond awesome, and Victory is actually an amazing label to do work with. Cant wait til next time!

Get the CD to peep the final images!

Todays Shoot - Suicidal Tendencies

Every now and again I get the opportunity to work with a legendary band, and by legendary, I mean bands who have had influence over an entire generation of people, as Suicidal has had with thrash metal. I mean, who doesnt know "all i wanted was a pepsi" one of the most famous lines in thrash metal ever.

SO! Suicidal was on their first east coast tour in... i dont even know how long. So as soon as I saw that they were coming, I found a magazine that wanted photos and set up the photoshoot, which, when it was set up, was a "maybe" due to the fact that one of the members had a very ill family member, who passed on the night before our shoot, which made me think it may not happen.

So I showed up, and when I arrived it was still up in the air but it ended up working out to be a quick 5 minute shoot

Mostly they were looking to get solo shots of Mike Muir, as two of the dudes are just hired on for the tour, but I got group shots as well.

We did two sets, with dying batteries (I didnt charge them the night before due to assuming the shoot wasnt going to happen, big mistake!)

The first set was on a couch, that youve seen probably 40 times before because its the main palladium dressing room - I boomed a dish above them and used one bare pointed directly at me behind them for some separation.

These are shot at F18 ISO100 at a 160th with the 24-70 lens and the mark 2 1ds body

















After those shots I moved the couch out of the way and had them stand in front of it for some group shots, I left the lighting the same aside from turning the bare blub toward the ground to get more leading lines toward the camera - shot at the same settings - i didnt really have time in a 5 minutes til stage type shoot to really mix it up, but hopefully we will get to shoot again


































It was awesome getting to work with such a legendary band, and very lucky as they canceled the rest of the dates on this tour a day or two after the shoot due to the death in the family. When I started shooting live I only had one set of batteries, and they were half charged at best - so I only got about 15 solid shots of the band when I could have had 50 - just a reminder to everyone, ALWAYS BE OVER PREPARED! - I wasnt and I lost out on some solid shots because of it.