Last month I finished up the photography and retouching on an ad campaign in conjunction with Intermark Group out of Birmingham, AL. The creatives, Jason Corbin and Noah Williams, had created a fun concept around a new mascot for the university bookstore. The ads are for what is called “Book Rush” so what could be more fun than students chasing the mascot in three differing scenarios. We needed a “Spring-ish” backdrop and since the mascot’s construction wouldn’t be ready until late October, we all traveled to the campus in September to scout and photograph the locations. Out of five or six the client selected the three and we went to town drawing out the scenarios for each.

Leap of Faith:

With roughed out concepts, we hit the studio on campus in mid-November where we proceeded to photograph the students. When photographing and building composite imagery, the students(models) really had to engage their imaginations in order to pull off what we needed in camera. With not much else to go on but instruction from Jason, Noah, and myself they actually did a fantastic job! As the day progressed I was able to show the later groups some samples of our work on the computer screens to help demonstrate what we were after but they really didn’t need it – except to maybe reassure them we weren’t completely crazy!

After a full day shooting, and another day of travel, I was set to begin the task of assembling the images. We ended up have a very tight deadline so sorting, selecting, and rough assembly were all completed in a matter of days. Another couple of days were needed for the final touches and changes that had to be made due to the thirty plus layouts that were needed for the full campaign. Check below for an animation of one of the images coming together – it’s probably 16+ hours of work condensed into a few seconds!

Composite Animation(may take a second or two to load):

Creating composites for this campaign proved to have several advantages. First, we were able to work around the mascot’s construction and still produce imagery in December that will have a “Spring” look and feel. Second, we avoided any weather issues and other problems that occur shooting on “location”. Finally, we were really able to stretch the creative end of the concepts with students flying in the air, jumping off platforms, and repelling off buildings!

That’s a Wrap!

Just a few months back I was approached to write an article for “Light It” magazine which is only available on the iPad. If you do have an iPad I highly recommend the magazine as it is packed full with information on lighting and gear.

My article “Visualizing Lighting for a Composite Image” break down my process for three different composite styles. I hope you all enjoy it and if you’ve got any additional questions or comments feel free to use my comment section as a Q & A. I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have!

They definitely don’t make them any braver than Jordan! He basically arrived straight from the hospital to the photo shoot and performed like a real pro. Take a moment and read his interview – you’ll be glad you did.

And check out Jordan’s website HERE.

Here’s another outtake from the shoot:

Looking for portable power? Grab one of these!

I’ve just had a few days with one and I have to say I’m very excited with the prospect of leaving the heavy generator behind on my next location shoot. As well as the Buff White Lightning’s and Einstein units I’ve been using it with Profoto Compact’s and it has performed just fine. For an in depth review of the mini visit Rob Galbraith’s site. This thing is so compact and light I can think of many other uses outside the world of photography where it will be great!

UPDATE:

Here is the mini in action on location. I have it powering a Profoto Compact 300 here. To be safe I also brought along my usual Honda gas generator and used it to power the 600 I also used. The Vagabond worked like a champ and really put me more at ease for the next location shoot.

The nice folks over at Trustus Theater contacted me about creating an image to commemorate the final season for Kay and Jim Thigpen who started the theater back in 1985. I thought it would be fun to make the theme more of a celebration than something visual depicting an ending. We also decided to loosely style the wardrobe from the 1920′s(since this is a theater!). In addition, with Kay holding the velvet rope, I think the image can be interpreted as a beginning to something as well as an ending.

A few details: the theater entrance was shot on location as well as one of the lighted corner signs that was moved over the doorway in post. Jim, Kay, and Chad were then photographed in studio as well as the other props used to fill out the scene. Below you can click on the animated GIF to see some of the layers involved in creating the image.

Here are a few fun out-takes from a couple recent portrait shoots:

Click to view animation below – it may take a few seconds to load depending on your connection

No lights, no backdrop, no problem! All we needed were some white t’s, dirt, mustard, ketchup, ice cream, wine, digital ink, tripod, and camera(on self-timer!).

During a week spent in San Francisco with the other photographer’s on my rep, Lenlee’s roster, it was decided we would conduct an impromptu photoshoot. Since a couple of us missed the first meeting of the week at Clorox we decided to direct the shoot with them in mind. Wendi(second “o”) came up with the concept and we hit Union Square downtown with our props.

The retouch was a little tricky when it came down to adding the letters. To have them look realistic they needed to retain the shape and wrinkles of the shirt below. Solving the problem came down to setting the letters in the “soft light” mode and duplicating them three times to build up enough density while retaining shirt texture underneath. The problem was in this mode they defaulted to a bright blue color that had to be countered by a b&w adjustment layer masked over the letters. This, however, desaturated the colors of the spills that were then painted back with yet another layer mask. Good time to have a trusty tablet at hand! The final touch was transforming the image over another image of a billboard photographed in the square.

All in all, it was a lot of fun to collaborate with some talented photographers and shoot the image – the drinks after weren’t all that bad either!

Since my main website is completely built with Flash I’ve been out of luck with iOS running on mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. This week I created a new mobile platform with iFolios to address this issue. It’s pretty simple but I believe it gets the job done and so far I would recommend it to anyone looking for a solution to a similar problem.

Here’s another composite build I thought might be fun to post on the blog. What we wanted to achieve with the image concept was a contrast of a cold, gloomy, wet, city environment and a warm, inviting looking outdoor scene. The model was to be wrapped in the warmness from the background to mark the change from Winter to Spring.

Just a few notes: The city was constructed of several downtown building images photographed in downtown Charlotte. The street was also photographed in the same area. In order to achieve a “wet” look I had to first flip the completed skyline and reflect it from the street. To sell the “wetness” the reflection layer was run through a couple PS filters to roughen it up. Since I was working in 16 bit that layer had to be opened in another document and switched to 8 bit in order to access the necessary filters. I then dragged it back into the original file. Finally, having the predetermined backdrop, the model was photographed in studio with lighting to match her surroundings.

Click the animate gif file below to see the image come together(note: due to its size it may take a few minutes to load).