Lighting Diagram #2
This was shot was done a year ago in a studio in downtown la. I was there shooting album artwork of Alexia from Eyes Set to Kills solo project, but was sharing the day with a film crew shooting her music video. Since we had the down time and the studio space, I was pre-lighting some different sets in the studio and happened upon this set. It was a 10x40 foot room completely covered in metallic wall paper. The cool thing about some of these large film studios is, these sets were made with the intention of being filmed, so a lot of the composition and feel of the image is already there.
Like a majority of my work, this image was lit real simply. Two Profoto lights. One being used as the Key Light (Main Light) with an octabank softbox. The second light was bare bulb at the back of the room on a stand. The complex parts come in the refining and quality of light. Aka just play with it, find what fits the feel of the image. How far to move the subject away from the light, what angle and direction the light is falling on the subject, are how the look is achieved.
The post work done on this image is simply a an image I shot of a flock of birds at a train station in Florence masked over the original with an overlay filter. I then deleted the parts of the bird image off of Gregs face to create the effect that the birds were flying behind him. I did some quick sharpening, color, and contrast and there you have it.
EQUIPMENT USED….
Canon 5d mark 2
Canon 70-200mm L f/4
Two Profoto acute heads with a 1200 watt pack
westcost octabank softbox
Below is a lighting diagram and the two original images used to make the final.
Lighting Diagram #1
I get a lot of questions regarding lighting. So starting now I’m going to go post 1 image with lighting diagram a week. :)
The image below was shot with a Mamiya 645 with a Leaf Aptus 75 digital back. 50mm lens. Two Profoto strobes and two softboxes.
This lighting set up is actually shockingly simple, as is 90% of the lighting I do. The key to it is quality of light (soft, hard, etc.) and understanding how your to find the sweet spots in your light modifiers.
With this shot you need to allow enough light to bleed over onto the backwall to give it that vignette effect you see. Both lights are at the exact same power (as low as power setting as possible).
Hope this helps :)
Italy 2010
I recently got back into la from Italy. I spent just shy of 2 weeks traveling throughout the country with close friend Andy Frasco. Needless to say it was it was a trip that I will always remember. Aside from the incredible food, architecture, and history, the thing that stuck out to me was the amazing amount of layers everywhere you looked. Every inch of that country is layered in hundreds of years of paint, colors, culture, what have you. Here are just a few of the thousands of photos that I took throughout the trip. These photos were taken in Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, Pisa, Siena, and a few small towns that I have no luck remembering their names.
Italy::part one
I’m currently in Italy with my buddy andy (andyfrasco.com). We’ve been traveling off and on together since we were 16. Anyways, over beers one night a month back we decided a trip to Italy was in order. So here we are, finishing day two of a 12 day trip.
Quick little recap of the past couple days.
->We left LA wed night headed for Zurich, Switzerland. -> from Zurich we took a quick flight to Rome. ->checked into hotel an started exploring. ->we ate some fantastic food drank some great wine then started our search for a bar to cap the night off ->came across a bar that was filled with 40 students from Denmark that were on the last day of a tour of italy. We all started drinking together and as 2am rolled around I found myself on stage with Andy dancing to I’m a barbie girl. (I blame that on the wine) ->the next morning was pretty brutal to say the least. We forced ourselves out of bed and met up with our new friends to say our goodbyes ->after the goodbyes we headed out to walk the city an take some photos. ->after seeing some of the sites we hopped on a train to Florence and here we sit.
Italy so far….. Great food, great wine, nice people, and the most visually layered and interesting place I’ve been.
Food Cover….
Not sure how it happened, but the past several months I’ve been thrown into shooting food photography. Portraits of people have always been my thing and I think always will be. However, trying something new never hurts right? Here is a cover I shot for the November issue of Pasadena Magazine.
2010 editorials
I think being a photographer is one of the most misunderstood professions. When I tell people what I do for a living and what type of photography I specialize in, a majority assume that it’s like Americas Next top Model, where the photographer is sitting on a beach in fiji with models sipping wine on a day to day basis. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Being a photographer means meetings, phone calls, emails, last min cancellations, long hours, 7 days a week, uncertainty, and no job security. After all that, if you are lucky and good enough, you get the job and get to take some pictures a couple hours a day. You definitely have to LOVE what you do.
With that being said, last night I was going through and shooting some of my published work from 2010 and I realized…..I’m pretty damn lucky. I get to take photos for a living. Not a lot of people can say that. Everyday is a new client, with a new project, new concept, new challenge. Like I said, I feel lucky.
Anyways, enough rambling. Here is some of my work this year thats been published. This is a collection of editorials and ads from Outburn Magazine, Alternative Press, Pasadena Magazine, Revolver, and ShutUP Magazine.
couple photos from a shoot last week with singer Stacey Levine
Two recent editorials I shot for Pasadena Magazine. Sorry for the low quality scans.
This a is a quick slideshow video of over 250 raw unedited images from a shoot with artist Carlos Ulloa. It was every image taken in the 30 min. shoot last week.
Slideshow/bio/video of my recent work.
