Posts Tagged ‘lighting’

Stop Motion, Stop

Stop Motion, Stop

I've been itching to try some stop motion lately and luckily found a project that seemed suited to the technique. Here is a TVC I created for a women's health fair event (sidenote: TVC is industry-speak for "television commercial"). The challenge was to visually show a connection between "health, fitness, and fashion." Shooting stop motion allowed for some creative transitions that helped tie the three themes together. Notice there are no cuts in this spot. And now some technical details. We shot this on a blue paper backdrop. It was lit with a couple of kino four-banks from the front. I went with hot lights instead of strobes to eliminate any potential ...

April 20th, 2010 | Comment | Trackback | Tags: , , , , ,

High-Output Beauty Dish

High-Output Beauty Dish

Here are a few MadMen inspired shots of my friend Jim. Though I'd never seen Jim smoke a cigar before, this is how I always picture him in my head - a bit of daring, with a dash of dashing. Jim has a long resume that is full of acronyms like CEO and MBA. I don't know what any of those mean but I do know that Jim is a nice guy and a good friend. Lyn and I set up a little photoshoot last week to test out the newly arrived backdrop (ordered it here: neutral gray), and the new high-output beauty dish. The lighting setup for these shots was pretty simple: beauty dish ...

February 9th, 2010 | 2 Comments | Trackback | Tags: , ,

On-axis Fill

On-axis Fill

Had a little free time last week so I pulled together an impromptu shoot with some friends. This was an experiment to test out some lighting setups with on-axis fill. On-axis light is light that is on the same axis as your camera lens; e.g. your on-camera flash. This kind of light illuminates everything very evenly, creating a flat, and generally unflattering image. It's akin to xeroxing your subject. The idea here is to create shadow and depth with some off-axis lighting and then let the on-axis ring flash (AB800R) act as a fill and lift those shadows out of the dark. Daniel (pictured) mapped out the the setups on his nifty Strobox ...

January 11th, 2010 | 4 Comments | Trackback | Tags: ,

Fashionistas

Fashionistas

My wife is slowly teaching me what it means to be well dressed. Thus far I've learned: shoes and belt color should match, and denim does not go with MORE denim. During this little impromptu photo session with Lyn (wife) and Kallie (friend), I also learned that with you can never have too many layers. This is true in Photoshop, too. I'm all about the layers. I usually make a new layer for every step in the edit. Healing brush, dodge and burn, sharpening, curves - each major step lives on its own layer. And I always keep the original layer in the stack, too. That way I can go back if ...

January 4th, 2010 | 3 Comments | Trackback | Tags: , ,

Twiggy?

Twiggy?

Lyn got her makeup done did by the lovely Michelle. Going for the Twiggy look here. I’d say it’s pretty close. This was shot with a small camera flash modified with a shoot through umbrella. The umbrella is choked up a bit to create a harder light and thus harder shadows. It’s really amazing how versitle one flash can be. ...

March 4th, 2009 | Comment | Trackback | Tags: ,