This past week was my birthday, so my best friend decided to throw a party for me!

He’s not he biggest party animal though

This shoot was a lot of fun to concept up.  Originally I was going to be included in the shot along with Kosmo, some balloons, and some Miley Cyrus decorations.  After having some difficulties obtaining all the props (except for Kosmo), I decided to simplify things a bit.

Luckily Kosmo is a good sport during shoots; he basically just laid there the whole time.  And if you look closely at the cupcake, you can see that the candle is nearly all the way burnt out.  The only difficulties that he gave me were that he would flinch when I would toss the confetti.

Lighting Info:

This setup was quite similar what I use in Lynn’s Watch Lola Grow project.
A B800 in a PLM to illuminate the background at about 2 stops over the main.
A B400 in a strip box (orientated horizontally) as my main light.
A B800 placed far camera left and pointed a few feet in front of Kosmo to illuminate the confetti.  The light was placed so far away to provide consistent exposure across the frame (that whole inverse square law thingie).

This week’s photo was actually taken on Easter Sunday (yeah, I’m running several weeks behind on this blog).

This week was been filled with a lot of rain; and this time of year when we get a lot of rain, we also get a lot of baby turtles migrating through the neighborhood between the fields and the lakes. That also means that we usually find them squished on the road during our walks with the dogs.
Today when Lynn went to the grocery, she noticed a bunch of them in the roads, so she called me and asked me to rescue them all and take them down to one of the lakes. After I finished collecting them all, I noticed that I had 14, which happened to be the week that I needed to shoot today. At that point, I just knew that I had to shoot these little guys.

Lighting Info:

A B800 shooting in to a PLM52 with white diffusion, boomed over some white tileboard about 3-4' off the ground. Camera was on a tripod with the arm extended out and placed directly beneath the B800.

Later in the day, we rescued 8 more little baby turtles for a total of 22 that day!  More photos of these little guys can be seen on Easter Turtle Rescue set on Flickr.

This week I worked with Cord – a model who contacted me through Model Mayhem – to add some shots to his portfolio.

Cord is the first model that I’ve shot with from that site, so I was a bit nervous at first.  I was nervous about being fully prepared, and being able to deliver quality images that he was likely anticipating based on the images I have shown in my profile.
We had decided to meet in a park that I had never been to before, and once I got there, it didn’t help to calm my nervous energy.  The park wasn’t what I had in mind and I was really struggling to find an area with a decent background to shoot at.
Luckily I found some very large concrete wells in the back part of the park that provided a simple background to work with.  In addition to not being very busy and distracting, they provided an excellent grungy and textured look that complimented a few of the items in his wardrobe really well.

Lighting Info

The lighting on this shot was from a single Alien Bee B800 from high camera right with a grid on it to tightly contain the light to only his face.  The hard light from a gridded light source was perfect in this situation.  It created a raw / edgy feel which matched perfectly with this shirt, pose, and the background.  A gridded light source is also pretty unforgiving with its placement.  Upon further inspection, it appears that it might have been a bit low and pointed more at his neck.
I shot at my maximum sync speed of 1/250th to underexpose the ambient light as much as possible.  This also helps to create that darker look and feel to the image.

Final Thoughts

Working with Cord was a lot of fun.  He was really easy going with an energetic and enthusiastic personality.  He was truly there to create great images, instead of just showing up to have some photographer take some photos of him.  He would regularly make suggestions for the shoot, which was wonderful because it helped to take some of the pressure off of me, and it was just nice to be able to share ideas.

Overall I’m very happy with how this photo turned out, as well as the other photos from the shoot.  Here’s a link to all the photos from my shoot with Cord.

Once again, I decided to give your eyes a rest from being forced to look at my mug, and stepped out from in front of the lens this week. Instead, you get the pleasure of viewing Lynn :)

I recently joined a website that helps connect models with photographers and other visual artists (stylists, makeup artists, etc.).  Since joining this site, I’ve had several models contact me to shoot them.  A couple of shoots are going to be done in downtown Louisville, so I decided to do some location scouting and have Lynn help me by being my model for the day.

I spotted this location a few weeks ago during one of my weekend long runs.  It’s located in a semi industrial area with lots of brick and metal structures.  As you can imagine, this building and door really stood out.

Lighting Info

For this shot, I used an Alien Bee B800 in a medium octabox from high and camera right.  Seriously, it’s an octabox; just check out the reflection in her sunglasses .  The light is not too far out of frame.  I wanted the light to be close and directed at her head, so that it would fall off below her torso and keep the focus on her face (lighter areas draw attention).

Later I had decided to add a small flash coming from camera left to help separate her dark shirt from the door.

As you can see, this really really made her stand out from the door.  Ultimately I didn’t choose this image because I favored the pose, motion in her hair, and the partially covered door knob of the other image.

Final Thoughts

Now that it’s getting warmer outside, I want to get out more and start working with other people.  Working on location provided a few challenges, but a lot of creative opportunities.  It also allowed us to meet the resident of this building, and his friend, which ran into again later during our scouting session.

This week was a lot of fun for me.  I’ve been tossing around the idea or working around a monthly theme to help develop a concept each week.  I've also started paying more attention to movie posters and other movie artwork as inspiration, so I decided this week that I was going to mimic something from a movie. Since my neighbor is regularly telling me that I have a resemblance to Edward Norton, I found it fitting to start with one of his characters.

Interesting factoid: Norton’s character doesn’t have a name; he’s just credited as The Narrator.

I ordered a replica piece of Fight Club soap from Sin City Soaps on ebay for a great price and was shipped quickly.  Next up was getting the right shirt and tie.  A quick stop at Dillards took care of that.

Lighting Info

B800 in a stripbox on camera right about head height pointed downward slightly.  The goal was to get a somewhat even lighting across myself without drawing too much attention to any one area.  The focus was clearly meant to be on the soap.
A B400 with a 20° grid on camera left pointed directly at the soap and only a few inches away, so the power of the light would fall off sharply before hitting my face or chest. It didn't fall off as sharply as I would have liked, but it worked out well enough.
The camera was set around 1/200th for shutter speed to kill as much ambient as possible.

Final Thoughts

It was so much fun to be able to plan this shot days in advance.  It was also a great relief to not go in to the weekend without a concept and have to cram for an idea.

What do you do to come up with concepts for shoots?  Have you ever recreated a shot from a movie or TV character?  Tell us all about it in the comments section below.