Over the last year, Douglas Sonders has created some excellent behind the scenes videos showing off many of his photo shoots. In this video he takes us onto the tarmac at the Lemoore Naval Air Station in California where Douglas creates some excellent portraits. I wish there was a little more explanation of how he approached some of these images but fortunately there is some written material over on the Douglas Sonders Blog. My initial question is how in the world did he get clearance for this considering the US military is often pretty strict with photography.
A few weeks ago Lee and I went out to Las Vegas to club it up check out WPPI which is the largest wedding convention in the US. While out there we were able to meet quite a few of our readers, check out the new gear at the Photoflex booth, and play with a lot of new photo related toys. One of the photographers we met was Michael Corsentino who teamed up with Photoflex in this behind the scenes video on outdoor bridals. Michael is using the new Photoflex Triton Flash along with an octabank and a stripbox to create some studio style portraits outside.
The guys over a Lighten Up And Shoot have created a quick video that shows how they quickly created some very compelling images of a model with very little work. I think its very easy for us to over-think when we are on a shoot but sometimes the easiest answer is the best answer.
In 2011, Greenpeace – the world’s largest environmental campaigning organisation – celebrates its 40th anniversary. French photographer Pierre Gleizes has shot some of the organisation’s best known photographs over the three decades he has worked for Greenpeace. Some of these pictures have truly changed the way we look at our planet and the environment.
I just saw this video pop up on the front of Vimeo.com and I knew I would love it before I even saw it. Chris Gregory does a fantastic job of capturing the life of a Capitol Hill photographer. There is so much more too it than I ever really thought about. Make sure you head over to his website and check out his amazing portfolio.
In the video below Jay P. Morgan shows us the setup for his latest sports image. Using a special body harness, the goalie is able to move in a very realistic way without the potential for injury. As always, Jay does a fantastic job of also breaking down his lighting scheme.
What if you took a set of images that became so popular that they were used hundreds of times all around the world by hundreds of artists, businesses, websites, and publications? As photographers, it’s what we all dream about but what if you were never paid for your work? What if you weren’t even given credit? What if your images were being stolen for years and you never had any idea? If there was ever a video to share, this is it. This is Noam Galai’s story. (Full story)
As I’m sitting in the San Diego airport waiting to lose my entire day to layovers and time changes, I finally have some time to catch up on our email account. One video that was submitted to us multiple times was recently featured by our friends over at Strobist and showcases fashion photographer Martin Prihoda. Martin has relocated his business to India where he continues to produce clean and commercial style images for print. In this video he takes us BTS on his December cover for Cosmopolitan India and gives us a great explanation on how hard and soft light can be used as fill to control the transitions in your shadows.
This is such a crazy idea and as I was watching the video I kept thinking about ways why this wasn’t going to work. Well I was wrong. Scott Serfas had an incredible concept and he created an incredible image from it. More info and the final image can be seen here.
We’ve featured Aaron Nace before here on Fstoppers and again he delivers with a really creative composite photo. I’m not exactly sure what the theme is on this one but it’s definitely some sort of love story gone wrong. The final image is included at the end.
If you’ve ever attended a crazy big music or art festival then the thought has probably crossed your mind, “I should probably photograph these interesting characters while I’m here!” While attending the annual free expression festival Burning Man in Nevada, photographer Eric Schwabel decided to build a portable photo studio to capture dramatic portraits of everyone in attendance. His setup consisted of two strip boxes, two Profoto Pro-B2 power packs, and two Profoto Pro-7 heads. Everything was shot on a Mamiya 645 AFD with a DM28 digital back. I must say, I would be a little nervous bringing this sort of gear out to the dusty desert, but then I would have been the guy who missed out on creating such a cool project!
Fred Conrad is a photographer who has been working for the NY Times for over 34 years. Recently he attended the Westminister Kennel Club Dog Show and photographed every single breed of dog at the show. His setup was basically a white backdrop, a ring flash, and a photek softlighter. I’ve always thought dog shows like this are a bit insane (watch the mockumentary Best in Show for a good laugh), and Fred has captured not only interesting portraits of dogs but also some of the most wild haircuts I’ve ever seen of dogs. Check out Snoop Dogg the Bedlington Terrier and all the rest over at the interactive online gallery.
Michael Nichols is a photographer for National Geographic who was recently faced with the task of photographing a 300 foot Redwood in Northern California. In order to capture the tree in all of its glory, Michael had to use 3 Canon 1Ds Mark II cameras, several pocket wizards, a cinema dolly system, and dozens of bracketed photos all shot at f2.8. Each full image of the tree took over 1 hour to complete and in order to capture the perfect photograph of the tree Michael and his team photographed the redwood over 18 days. The video below shows a quick recap of the project and the second video in the full post explains in detail how he was able to overcome all the obstacles required in creating this 18 meter tall image.
These days, creating a portrait that grabs the average pedestrian’s attention isn’t an easy task. So what did local New York City comedian Colin Kane do to spice it up a little? He added a raging mob of crazy people behind him in this awesome portrait by photographer Monte Isom. It looks like Monte used a large 7′ Octabank to light the crowd and then a beauty dish with a little fill from a smaller softbox to give Colin a harsh key light look without losing the shadows. I love the overall idea and I’ve personally always wanted to work with a big group of people like in this video. If you are in NYC, check out Colin’s stand up act and definitely head over to Monte’s site to see some mind blowing advertising images as well as the largest group photo ever! Click the full post to see the high res final image.
One thing I love about having an Vimeo account is the great videos they recommend checking out. Back in Oct 2010, the first ever Vimeo Awards was held, and the winners for over 9 categories were announced. None of the winning videos are directly related to photography but the winning narrative Thrush by Gabriel Bisset-Smith was created entirely from still images. It’s pretty entertaining and it really opens the gates to what is possible now that we are all documenting our lives pretty much everyday. I have to believe that all of these shots were staged, and if so Gabriel did a great job capturing all these frames and making such a unique video.
