It's Toy Time!

Once again, Crazy Colored Glasses is listing the Top 10 toys of the year. So he came up with 12 or so for me to shoot. (Last year there were 20.)

For details, check here: Crazy Colored Glasses

Playing with Light

I was thinking about watching that episode of Chuck I had on DVR when I realized that I should probably continue to get my money's worth out of the rentals. I had wanted to see what the difference was between the reflectors and the diffusers included with the umbrellas, but decided instead to use my softbox and ring light. Why catalog lighting I don't own? The white board (and positioning of the slippers) is my catalog for future reference...

Lighting

I tend to light everything high and directly in front. But on this day, I quickly learned to shoot with back light. It made things completely different from any shoot I've done before.

The sunlight in the picture on the left is was started all the back lighting. Then I wanted to exaggerate what was happening in the doorway. Then I needed to recreate that in the laundry room (before we got kicked out). I don't think I'll ever go back...

More Abstract

I saw an ad on craigslist for a web designer/photographer. Trying to swap web designing for group shots didn't prove to work out previously, so this time I offered to photograph what they needed in exchange for what I needed. Not until the morning before the shoot did the idea really strike me for how to anchor the shoot. I wanted something more emotive than what I had, but "anxiety" and "happy" were just too vague. I wanted something specific. I decided to pull the more interesting announcements from my Facebook account. The picture above is "[Name] cannot wake up. :("

This is a picture LV, my lovely assistant, took of me taking a picture of "[Name] wants to bury her head in the sand and not wake up until 2009." LV's not into the absurd, so it really wasn't his cup of tea. I am his cup of tea, though, so he bared down, made nice with all the pigeons on the roof, and was a great assistant.

This wasn't really part of the series. More just to make use of the sunset and a group shot.

New Pictures

I thought I had two shoots today, but it turns I was just way too excited about being double-booked. My second shoot is next Tuesday.

LV says it's too soon to give up on trying to be a photographer, so I've been going crazy trying to book more shoots. With today's shoot, there were no stylists. That makes booking the shoot so much less stressful. Less stress means feeling less like giving up. Which is good.

Sweet

I've nearly paid for the macro lens with all the work I've spent illustrating for these pet food labels. LV comped up cans with the final versions of every design, and then I shot them for the presentation. (A good time to have that macro lens on hand...) LV took this picture of me (under the umbrella) struggling to figure out how to light shiny cans. I'd like to think it didn't take me *that* long to pull out an old milk jug and turn it into a reflective tent. Not quite the pretty blown out white backgrounds I had with my models.

Fixed Position

I basically had the chance to hone my blown-out white background skills immediately. The beauty was only with two models, but we stuck with the happy bright white background to make it more commercial.

Blow Out

This is the lovely clean white background I was able to produce with two lights on the back blocked by foam core. (The model specifically requested this look for the re-shoot of her January session.) Next time I'll have to be better about keeping the model in a fixed position; it's a lot harder to tell on the preview when her light wasn't exposing her properly.

With the laptop still being fussy about its connection to the camera (I specifically bought Aperture so I could shoot tethered...), we had plenty of time to talk about the Secret and how it's worked for her.

Happy 100

Luckily my hundredth post has pictures... LV is finally creating a portfolio site for himself, and I today I helped by shooting some of his work for the site.

Lots of prop-styling tabletop fun.

Lots of trying to make it look like everything just fell on the table that way.

And then I got to take some pictures of my favorite subject.

Male Model

I looked around for a new modeling agency that had men who were looking to test. Lucky for me, it only took one phone call. Unlucky for me, my guy had a short amount of time to shoot. I think we squeezed in everything we needed and got what we wanted. A little too much in too little time, but, well, that's why it's a test.

Testing 1 2 3... Testing

I agreed to shoot a wedding. I didn't think preparing to shoot one would be so intensive, but I spent lots of time looking at wedding photography sites and deciding just what to rent. (The sites didn't help me decide what to rent. It was just an on-going battle in my head while I looked at too many wedding pictures.) I ended up renting the following: a car, a Canon 40D, an extra battery for said 40D, a fast telephoto lens, a portable light kit, two strobe heads, two umbrellas. I think that was everything. I decided not to get a laptop, not to clean my camera again, not to get insurance (though, I still need to do that)... There were two ways to approach the wedding. After I ordered my rentals, I wasn't sure I had gone the right route--the more portrait-oriented route.

The couple didn't want the new trend of photojournalism. They didn't fancy themselves the center of new reality show. They wanted group photos. Lots of them. Okay... Good thing I did that stint at Tavern on the Green and rented lights. Posed shots should be better for my portfolio than documentary photos (even if they would wreak havoc on my budget and make travel impossible).

Friday I picked up the rental equipment. Testing the lights didn't concern me as much as getting to know my back-up camera (the 40D). And being sure the camera and telephoto lens had been smart choices for low-light settings. The two pictures above and the one to the left were shot at a high ISO using what little daylight was left and the TV. (There's a High School Musical chair under all those clothes.)

Making sure I'd be able to hold the camera steady was a whole 'nother story. I tried shooting tiny objects across the room in almost complete darkness. At this point, I was still exhausted from carrying the rentals home on the subway. (Imagine a box as wide as a doorway, as high as your knee, as heavy as a small child. Now put two more bags on top of that and one on your back.) I couldn't begin to imagine how tired I was going to be at the reception when I would really need to be holding the camera steady in the dark.

Now sure that the pictures would have motion blur but would also be large, relatively noise-free, and properly exposed, I decided to test out the lights. Above is what happened when I turned on the lights and used my point-and-shoot's flash. Yeah. The point-and-shoot tripped the strobe lights.

[insert moment to ponder repercussions]

This was my biggest regret in going down the rental path that I did. I knew before I picked them up that point-and-shoots would trip the lights (I'd seen it happen at other shoots) and I should have just taken my own light kit instead (it's from long before the time of wireless technology).

[insert moment of self-loathing for bad decision]

It seems that it would make sense to ask the rental house how to turn off the radio signal, but things that make sense rarely work out when I ask sales people for help. So, I didn't ask. Also, as soon as he had my signature, the guy vanished. Most likely, he would have opened the gigantic case, looked at the tiny-but-incredibly-heavy pack, and said, "Turn the radio receiver off." I did. The point-and-shoot kept on tripping the lights. Go wireless technology!

My little Elph didn't trip the lights here because I turned the flash off. This would be a more effective demonstration of the difference if I hadn't taken a picture of my big camera. But, it does remind me that I tried plugging my 1Ds into the kit and turning the radio dial to "off." The strobes were still slaves to the point-and-shoot.

Satisfied that I had at least put the "no one else is allowed to shoot when the Photographer is shooting" clause in my contract, I didn't have time to be angry at the rentals making me look retarded rather than slick. It was time to go test out the car.

I met LV at the Atlantic-Pacific station, and we went to go find the Zip lot together. I didn't have my cell phone with me, so I couldn't report immediately that the car smelled like smoke and was dirty. I had to do that from a pay phone later.

After a day of carrying my heavy rentals, finding out my low-light images wouldn't be the sharpest, getting lost with a copilot in the car, learning the point-and-shoots would kill my portable kit's batteries and possibly ruin the posed shots, I pulled the blankets over my head and prayed someone would call off the wedding.

Attempt at Fashion

So, this model from Colorado, one of the many many models on Model Mayhem who was coming to New York for a winter recess, wanted me to shoot with her between Jan 5 and Jan 9. I set aside the 7th, she said great, let's shoot my friend, too, and then I never heard from her again.

After telling wardrobe, hair and makeup that the shoot was off, I decided I would use myself for a shoot. It was embarrassingly lame. But here is the last frame--me, defeated on the floor. (Ten-second timer.) I should have paid attention to where I set those lights. It's the closest I've had to a blown out white background.

Early Morning Shoot

A Model Mayhem model and I arranged to shoot fashion at sunrise because that seemed like a convenient and interesting time. Unfortunately, we picked a record-setting cold morning. There was going to be no outdoor shoot. The sunrise was beautiful, but it wasn't happening. We shot indoors. And only after the space heater blew the fuse my lights were on.

Less than a week later, the low was 60 degrees.

Studio Lights

Toward the end of Scrappy's birthday party, we popped up the seamless white and studio lights to make room for expanding my portrait portfolio. This is a rather unsuccessful attempt at desaturating and stylizing the picture. But it was one of the five frames I got with the Philly Phanatic, so that's a plus...

Beauty Shoot

This time the beauty shoot was done with a real model, a real make up artist, and a diffuser instead of a silver umbrella. It's hard to say if the make up or the diffuser made more of a difference in the skin texture.

Toy Shoot

This is one of LV's Top Ten toys of 2007. As with all projects, I was happy to shoot them all at once (it's my first black background) but then never delivered the CD. Not that Crazy Colored Glasses has been itching to post its official Top Ten list. Several more action figures have been added to the list since the shoot, so it's hard to say what exactly will make the cut.

Porous

Just in case I ever forget how uneven and hairy the surface of my face really is, or for that day down the road when I yearn for less wrinkly skin, I used myself for a beauty test shoot today.

Models in My Backyard (cont.)

I had the rental lights from Thursday to Monday, so it seemed like a waste not to stick Scrappy out in the cold for a shoot. It only took a few frames to break through the forced smile and get to something real.

She really wanted to do a Halloween fashion show. I needed some seamless white practice. This was one that showed the dress best, which I needed as examples for a potential client. There were better portraits in the bunch.

Models in My Backyard

Today I shot Tristan, a Model Mayhem-er, in my backyard. The shoot was originally supposed to be at Coney Island with a wardrobe stylist. But she had a paying gig, so she wasn't able to come play. And then I thought Tristan was going to cancel because of the weather. But after a day in the cold shooting models in ridiculous get-ups, I wasn't about to be deterred from using my rental equipment. So, I told Tristan we'd start in the backyard and that's where we stayed for the whole shoot.