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).

Saturday we had a photoshoot with Sara Mearns of the New York City Ballet Company. We had to set up on location(Koger Center) in a back room at the arena where the show was taking place. She was between rehearsal and her performance so our time was limited. Knowing we would need to work quickly, I printed rough background samples of the concept for the shoot so she would have an idea of what we were trying to ultimately achieve visually. Sara was amazingly elegant and the shoot was a breeze. Thanks to everyone involved, Mark(cold beer), Jenny(hair), and Lauren(make-up)!

The background images were captured back in October while I was in New York for the PhotoPlus Expo. I guess this is a good example of why it’s good to take your camera and do some exploring if you have the time when you travel. That particular day I took a taxi across the bridge to Brooklyn, ate a pizza, and walked the bridge back into the city. A rainstorm was moving in but before it started pouring I was able to grab some dramatic shots while crossing the bridge.

Check below for a picture of the set-up, untouched images, and more results.

Sometimes it can fun just to throw a photoshoot together for no other reason than just to do it. Last Thursday that’s exactly what we did. I wanted to put together a dramatic, hollywood style, movie poster image. Below I’ve attached the raw image from the shoot as well as a lighting diagram for the studio portion. The backdrop was taken at night with a long exposure on a downtown city street.

For the lighting I used a beauty dish up close above the model at a slight angle for the dramatic light and shadow on his face. A large octa was used camera left to create a slight fill and give some shadow detail where the gun is being held(exposure control in camera raw also helped with this). To the right of the model I used a strip box for a rimming effect and a gridded strobe was used to the left to give a little pop to his hair and left side face line. The rest was combining the images and using some photoshop magic to create the dramatic effect I was wanting. To adjust the color I actually used the newly released Nik Silver Effex Pro 2(I’ve only had a little time to check it out but it looks to be a really cool update from the original!).

I hope the result reminds you of something you might see at your local theater!