Todays Shoot - Jane Doe

Still playing catch up - im about 10 shoots behind! workload has been INTENSE but ill do my best to keep up with em!

Todays shoot is with a good friend, and "ladies of metal" model - Jane Doe. I'm not sure if shes named after the converge record? *shrug*

Anyway - we had two days to shoot a slew of things, as shes from Texas and is very rarely in the area.

The first day we focused on in-studio goth/industrial and on location fine art.

We started off with the goth/industrial/fashion project - which is shot with 2 3x4 profoto softboxes on compact 300s - I used my 70-200 for the entirety of the in studio shots - I tend to use the 70-200 in studio and the 24-70 for all location stuff - then the 16-35 and fisheye for live concert stuff.

ANYWAY! - so i was shooting at ISO100 at a 160th F14 with the split lighting

I never shoot these ONLY straight on - ill go left and right to offset the shadow so its not always centered, because that would just be boring. Anyway - LOOK! PHOTOS!





















































































It was getting darker out - about 8pmish, but we decided to go outside anyway and work with what we had. I wanted to shoot in the same spot I had shot The Acacia Strain just a few days earlier. I used two umbrellas on dynalite uni400s - i just used them as split lighting - as it easily gives a solid halo of light for one person while giving an awesome natural vignette as well. Anyway - these were shot at ISO200 (light was fading) at F14 - at a 100th - the shots against the concrete wall were at an 80th - against the sky - a 125th - all shot with the 24-70



































































































































After that we rolled inside and did a quick set inside - same settings but i was at F16 as the lighting was a bit closer.


































We then rolled up to the studio for Corpse Paint! we started on white shooting with split lighting (two 3x4 softboxes pointed into each other) - seems once you have a standard set for this project - which i do - the settings are always the same - ISO100 - F16 - at a 160th - lights at 80% power. Its almost second nature once you know a set up like the back of your hand. and id say i know these set ups more than even the back of my hand haha.



















































After split I boomed a beauty dish up high pointed it straight down - and shot another one of those second nature sets where i know the settings will always be 50% power - F18-F22 (height dependent) at ISO100 at a 160th - when I shoot these sets I always place my softbox about 6-8 feet from the background so you get that midtone grey from a white paper background. and another thing to keep an eye on is where the models nose/face is pointed - if its up youll get full light - if its down - you wont even have a shot. right at you? then you get some shadowing, but it could work to complement the image - as it does often in this series




































































I wanted to shoot a bunch of location stuff but at this point we were SO tired we just hit the basement for a quick set with the boomed beauty dish - which in wider situations than the studio will give you a nice half-moon type circle of light which looks AWESOME in some situations. - these were shot at F22 at a 160th ISO100
























END DAY 1! - so for day two we planned out a big shoot but were all pretty shot. We did some pin up stuff then called it a day - as shes going to be back up here in about a month as my new roomate - yeay!

Anyhoo - the pin up stuff was shot with two 3x4 soft boxes and a 1x4 soft box main - for shots on the ground they were tilted down - These were all shot at F13 at a 160th at ISO100























































































I've said it before, and will say it again - when it comes to corpse paint photos - two giant inverted crosses in your arm pit as tattoos - are PERFECT! When she comes back - im sure we will be shooting an outdoor corpse paint set. Its quick a trek from Texas, I'm not sure if the winter will kill her...

Todays Shoot - Vampires Everywhere

So, if you havent noticed, i LOVE shooting bands that have any sort of buzz going on, wither it be a very positive buzz, or a very negative one... or BOTH!

Bands like Iwrestledabearonce who are either hated or loved by anyone who knows of them - who were in a situation where they were bashed or praised - ended up being one of my favorite bands to work with - and favorite bands to listen to.

As soon as I saw the equally polarized Vampires Everywhere were about to tour - I jumped at the chance to do a photo shoot with them. I love shooting image heavy bands - like black metal bands, slipknot, gwar, even 18visions and bleeding through were very image heavy at one point in their careers.

Anyway, So being that they have a very selective image, I knew how I wanted to shoot them.

It was a warm day with very few clouds in the sky, so they werent really too apt to shooting outdoors, which was the majority of what I wanted to do... I wont post the exact thing that was said to me but suffice to say the words "we are vampires" was in the sentence... which is cool, I totally understand, and was on the same page as them, and promised the images would portray that look. After showing them some of my images on the ol IPad - they were convinced - and outside we went!

We started against the concrete wall in the parking lot across from the palladium. I used one beauty dish - boomed up super high and pointed almost straight down but at a slight angle toward them - and powered that up to 70% - which is rare - i almost NEVER shoot at anywhere above 50%, but i really wanted to make it selective lighting. I shot all of the shots with the Canon Mark2 1ds and the 24-70 2.8L lens. The shots are at F20 - as there were 6 of them I wanted complete front to back sharp focus for this set. shot at ISO100 at a 160th

NOTE: these shots are NOT heavily edited - this is what you can get - outdoors - in broad daylight - against a concrete wall - if you know how to control lighting!





















































For the next set I wanted to get the sky in the shot - which was VERY blue and bright - so to counter that i turned my light up to 80% so i could really make them brighter than the daylight hitting them - again this is just a single beauty dish.































































Next I decided to do something less dark and more - LOST BOYS style - cali vampires - warmer - more natural. - I shot these at 2.8 to really bring out the vocalist Michael - which oddly enough is the name of the main character of Lost Boys! and he was wearing a lost boys shirt! - works out right?! YES!
























For the last shot I wanted to give them a real - motley crue, rockstar type of look. I used triangular lighting - so two rims up above - and i used a 3x4 soft box main for this one, trying to give them softer lighting, softer shadows and highlights, etc. - this was shot at F14 at a 10th





























So all in all these dudes were excellent people to work with, super nice, and absolutely went above and beyond in taking a leap of faith in going outside to do a shoot. These are some of my favorite shots ive produced this year thus far.

Needless to say - love them - hate them - doesnt matter - they are going to be massive - twilightcore exists! and they are IT!

I really hope I get to work with these dudes again in the future, and to them, a long and amazing career!

PROTECT YOUR NECKS!

Todays Shoot - Hanna Beth

Hanna Beth has been a friend for YEARS, and shes such an excellent person, so any chance I get to work with her, I jump at the opportunity.

She was on Warped Tour again this year, so I figured we could do some shots, and if anything, again, I would try to get her in the warped spread and get her some press

The sky was just about to open up and pour, so I figured I would stick with the darker stormy photos, but half way through got something much more natural and bright.

I started with a boomed beauty dish at half power (uni400 - dynalite) - and got the really dark creepy shots - I shot these at F20-22 at ISO100 at a 160th - I used two positions - one where the dish was front lighting - kinda going for a spot lit type of look, then I pointed it down for more directional lighting


























































After shooting those I decided to do some natural light shots, which, due to the overcast sky, looked incredible, and really brought out all of Hanna Beths features. These were at 2.8 for selective focus.


























































It was excellent getting to work with her again, I really really gotta get her out to the studio sometime for a real ALL OUT shoot one day soon! and yes, her image will also be in the warped tour spread next month :)

Todays Shoot - Jac Vanek

So over the past few years, I had been in touch with Jac about photo-stuff, booking a shoot, etc. But it never actually came to fruition due to us never being in the same spot at the same time.

Well, finally, I caught up with her at the CT warped tour and booked a shoot for Mass, figured we would get some shoots and I would submit her for the spread I was doing on warped tour.

I was having ALOT of issues with my lights that day, they were just trying to fight me, so out of about 100 images id say a solid 30 had misfired flashes and issues and went straight to the DELETED button. but! we got some excellent images despite those annoying issues.

The first set of shots is with two bare bulb uni400s (dynalite) and a dynalite uni400 with a beauty dish as a main. I shot this at ISO100 at a 160th F18. I really wanted her hair to pop against the background and really capture the storm brewing behind her - mission accomplished.














































The second set of shots I was shooting natural light at F 2.8 to get a really solid depth of field, as I did with every shoot for this spread














































It was AWESOME getting to finally work with Jac, and YES! her images will be in the spread! so yeayy! success!!! I am sure we will be working together again, and we mayyyy just have a little something we are working on together in the immediate future... SHH... youll read about it soon!