Nick

Shot Nick today. Not only a great down to earth friend, but a great looking model who is really willing to work and very result oriented.

This was the forst time I shot anything on plain air and boy does it feel good to return "home"!!

no more restricted studios, no mind bending backwards about "what else can we create here near a white wall?" I love shooting outside and all that hard earned cash that went into battery powered systems are paying off (and paying for themselves) with great results that are pleasing to work with and provide seamless workflow. Viva my Rangers! can't say enough how good these things are. There's only one downside - I don't have more of them. And that RX Speed is heavy.

By the way there's a new kid in town

http://www.hensel.eu/PORTY/22-en-55--.html?PHPSESSID=cfe18bf099f8d095d0a3679458219971

but 4 grand for a light????????? Hensel - ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKIN MIND?

oh well...

anyway, so we went out to Kenneth Hahn Park , close to our house and shot a simple "cowboy" jeans ad style like stuff, just to get back into the routine of shooting in the wind and chilly weather (yes, California can be cold, usually because people under estimate the temperature outside and wear t-shirts all the time)

We had a Deep octa with the front removed for harder shadows, to make Nick even edgier and tougher than he already is :)) Orange sunset gave some beautiful color, and yes, it was enhanced just a tad.

The rim was held up at 9 ft by my wonderful wife. Just a wide angle reflected to separate Nick from the BG. i like the results.

The BW image went some processing, that is similar to Dave Hills technique, yet a lot more subdued. It's just so overdone that I had to too give it a try :) There's really nothing tough about this as long as the light is right. Photoshop and high pass filters can only take you so far...

I used NIK suite to process these images. Here's some samples from the shoot.

stupid LA models...

Let me rave firstm since this is my blog and I could give a shit about what people think

So you know what... this is to you all LA models. you know who you are and you suck. You suck for not responding to TFP calls, you, bail, you are not serious, you skin is not clear. oooof... I can't believe how hard it is to get a model for a stupid little project. You either want money (never, unless you are well known), and none of you can shoot implied nudity... repressed sexuality of this country... Once on shoot - you can't model. I have to work VERY hard to get anything out of you...

no acting skills, no imagination AND you want to get paid for that? hell no!

ok I'm done - just had to get ot off my chest.

How I take Critique

I take it really well, preferably with Diet Coke. I don't care of you don't like something, and write that the photo is crap. All you have to do is to prove that you can do better. If you are attempting to critique someone in a technical and constructive way - be a goddamn photographer, and have some good work for me to look at. If you shoot Little League Baseball, any kind of sports, snapshots of your toddler - you are forever banned from critiquing my pics. :)

My Demons

Had this shoot a month and a half ago anf just now found some time to process a pic or two. Some personal work. very very simple setup but some outstanding models made this idea happen :)

Bending the Light

I've been hanging out with some high end photogs lately. Yaya lucky me! :)

check this guy out - amazing creativity and technique. http://rashap.livejournal.com/

he insipred me to do some light bending aka shooting through glass (or in this case through my glasses).

I think the shoot was a success, considering an unexperienced model, who def. added some complications to the whole process.

I resorted to using my newly beloved 100mm macro lens so because of it's close focusing distance. The 85mm L is just not cutting it in this department. Though I used both lenses and I don't quite remember which one i used in these. Look at the EXIF if you are so interested :)

We used a bunch of class remains from one of my old lamps, brought to the studio from my apartment, that hopefully will be going through some major renovation.

two light setup (deep octa and my lovely Quadra with a Hensel 500Ws Monolight equipped with a red gel. Easy setup. Incredibly hard to execute concept (at least I know how it's done now)

Some mafia noir

Yarik, a long ime friend wanted some mafia noir pics. He came by the studio in his pimpin coat and was ready to get some results.

We used for light to achive this dramatic light. One bare reflector was placed directly begind him to create that outline that separates him from the dark BG. I also found out that it is important to create more space for th emodel to move. We shot at a 2000sq feet set and placed the lights almost in the corners. We flagged the lights to avoid the flare and that created some ample room for our model to walk around and act tough :)

Friends

some of my friends. These are all taken at different times under different conditions.