I started a new project recently creating portraits on 11x14 film. I have had an 11x14 back for my Deardorff for several years, but I have never shot much in that format. I decided to try a couple sheets in hopes of kick starting a new project.
I have been following Luke Schneider's work for quite some time and it just keeps getting better and better. He has a nack for fashion photography and it clearly shows. I decided to find out a bit about him and what his goals are for the future and current project. He is still in college so he has quite a bit of time ahead of him to achieve his goals. From the looks of it, he is well on his way there.
In this corporate headshot shoot by The Slanted Lens, Jay P Morgan plays around with a 10, 20 and 30 degree grid to show us how each one will give a drastically different look. Throughout the entire shoot he is constantly feathering the light. If you've ever shot on the streets of New York then you'll understand why he has to keep his set up very mobile.
When I watched this video this morning from London-based film production company Make Productions my mind was blown, my jaw dropped and I just kept thinking about all the detailed work that went into creating such an amazing parallax sequence - all of which was executed perfectly. Take 90-seconds today and be sure to check this out then read on below to find out more details about how it was created.
I'm a big fan of the mission and idea behind websites like Kickstarter. I appreciate creating a community of people from all over the world who help each other pursue their dreams. On Indieagogo, a site similar to Kickstarter, I came across this cool project on photographer, Fred Lyons.
If you suffer from self-diagnosed A.D.D like most creative professionals, then you need to tune into this free workshop with Jared Platt. From the moment you book the job to the final delivery of the images, Jared will show you efficient techniques that will help improve your workflow. This 3-day workshop starts tomorrow December 6th - December 8th at 9AM. As with all creativeLIVE workshops, the LIVE event is FREE.
Since it's launch in 1964 the Pirelli calendar is one of the most desired items of the new year. Each year a celebrated photographer is hired to shoot the world's most beautiful bodies stripped naked in some of the world's most gorgeous locations. This year famed photographer Steve McCurry earned the honor of the shoot, Rio the exotic location, but as Refinery29.com put it "the only kind of melons you can expect are the fruit ones." Read on to learn about their big change, see some of the images and watch a detailed behind the scenes video.
Air New Zealand has been known for their original, themed and very well made safety videos. Just recently they released their newest safety video featuring a plane full of Tolkien fans called, 'An Unexpected Briefing'. Air New Zealand partnered up with the people over at Weta Workshop to create the amusing safety briefing. The video made in anticipation of 'The Hobbit' features a few actors from the movie, real Tolkien fans, J.R.R. Tolkien's great-grandsons, actual working Air New Zealand employees and even has a cameo from the man, Peter Jackson, himself.
Earlier this year Stoli rolled out their most recent advertising campaign that revolved around three 'original' nights with their product. The first night, a lavish paint party (Dayglow anyone?). Second night, a club party in a power plant in West Berlin. The third, in an abandoned amusement park in East Berlin. They recently released three short, but interesting behind the scenes videos that accompany the commercials, showing how they set up the scenes and even showing a glimpse of the ARRI that they used to shoot with.
I teamed up with Luquire George Andrews, an ad agency in Charlotte, NC, to create four images for a corporate brochure for Lincoln Harris, a commercial real estate company with properties in 26 states. LGA wanted to feature b/w photographs of executives in Lincoln Harris' properties.
A couple of nights ago a close friend of mine, Jesse, gushed over Justin Bieber's new music video, 'Beauty and A Beat'. How it was entirely shot with the new Olympus TG-1 (a point-and-shoot camera) and how I should write a post about it for the site. So, taking his lead I went ahead and did some research on Justin's new music video.
Some of the most interesting and exciting video footage often comes out of car commercials. The current ad for Cadillac's new 2013 ATS features some pretty awesome footage of the luxury sports sedan speeding down the winding roads of Morocco's Atlas Mountain. This stretch of road overlooking the Dades Gorge is one of the most dangerous roads in the world. So when director Jeff Zwart decided to test the ATS's Brembo brakes and limited-slip differential, he not only put the drivers in danger but also put a ton of camera gear in harms way. Full behind the scenes video in the full post
Derrick Story of thedigitalstory.com has been a fan of the Olympus portable cameras for a few years now, and has really taken a liking to the Olympus OM-D E-M5 mirrorless camera. He recently traveled to Cologne, Germany armed with the micro four thirds compact camera, and his story proves that you can get a whole lot of bang for such a small package.
We here at Fstoppers are all about 'Behind The Scenes'. We are dedicated to finding the best behind the scenes content for your viewing pleasure. Most photographers usually have their videographer buddies film their shoots for videos, but Larry Perez and the people over at Kanga Marketing went a step further. They created two virtual tours of their shoot for the 2013 Pinch a Penny catalog.
Pirelli, known on this site mostly for their (NSFW) Calendar Photoshoots, also creates their TV spots with a high-level approach. Literally, this behind the scenes video shows the setup and production needed to capture skiers BASE jumping off of a huge cliff. How do Pirelli tires fit in? Check out the final cut of the completed video and you'll see how it all comes together. Spoiler Alert: They throw a car off of the cliff too!
A few months back Victoria's Secret accidentally released a dozen unretouched photos from a shoot with supermodel Doutzen Kroes. We shared those images in a post on Fstoppers and it caught the attention of many of you. The retouched versions of those same photos are now out. Let's compare the results!
As a retoucher, I'm always fascinated by the world of video and how retouching is done in beauty commercials. Foton Inc. released a video a few months ago showing how to make someone look younger with their “Age Reduction FX” technique. Now, here's another video showing how retouching in video is done in 4k format for a typical beauty video.
Here's an oldie, but definitely an interesting video. A few years ago when Jay Z released "Blueprint 3", I saw the cover art and immediately thought that it was done in photoshop. Why would they bother to do it as a physical effect? Boy was I wrong. The artist Dan Tobin Smith did the cover as a completely physical effect.
The past summer we were hired by the ad agency Tier 10 Marketing (same one as my Honda Accord campaign), under the creative direction of Scott Rodgers, to produce and film a new tv ad for Acura via the New York Acura Dealers Association. I've been an advertising photographer for years, but I co-founded a video production company, 8112 Studios, a few years back along with my friend Nicholas Cambata. We have been very busy with a variety of crazy challenging and fun projects this past year and this ad job was no exception.
In a world filled with portable speedlights and 3200 watt power packs, photographers might overlook another critical feature of their studio lights: flash duration. Basically flash duration is the time your strobe light contributes to the exposure of your photograph (flash actually can act as "constant light"). Earlier this year, we posted about Broncolor's flash duration compared to Profoto, but how does a much cheaper strobe like the Einstein compare? The results are pretty remarkable!
In a creative and fun spec commercial, Ross Ching uses a really cool Popsicle stick trick and creatively applies it to a fun story. As he describes, Popsicle sticks can fit together in a certain way so that when triggered, a chain reaction occurs down the line at 35 mph. To capture this process, he used the Phantom Miro shooting at 1000 fps.
To put a little twist on filming one of Nissan's most recent car commercials, the crew involved shot everything on a miniature scale by using a few different RC vehicles. Check out how the team tried to preserve some of the standard elements that you might see in a car commercial. The group gets quite creative in building customized camera mounts to keep the best angles.
Kevin Winzeler, a commercial photographer based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, had an amazing opportunity this summer to travel to New Zealand for one of his advertising shoots for Altra Footwear. He shot both in the studio for the initial product shots, but he also took the shoot outdoors in some amazing New Zealand locations for some actions images, as well.
A few weeks ago you may remember Ikea's attack on product photography. Today news has spread that the Saudi Arabia franchise has photoshopped all females out from catalogs distributed throughout the Islamic nation. Women aren't the only ones being censored, however, as even glasses of wine have been transformed into less offensive "festive cups". What does Ikea have to say about the post processing changes found in their catalogs?
Northern Virginia Magazine wanted a fun and different approach to an ad for their bargain locator website, Specialicious.com. Jonathan Thorpe, an amazing commercial photographer and a regular on our Fstoppers Facebook group, was assigned the task of shooting the project. The concept, a beauty queen who shopped on the website and is trying a paintball experience for the first time.
What does it take to turn a blue BMW M5 into a bullet? A little of this, and a little of that, but mostly it takes a team of talented individuals with a dream and the know-how. With a limitless imagination, impeccable understanding of light and meticulous attention to detail, photographer/director Marek Glaser and Big Block digital productions took the imaginary and made it reality.
If you've ever had to photograph a large group of people, you probably understand how difficult it can be to capture every single person looking great. Imagine if that group photo was made up of 12 of the worlds richest Billionaires! That's what photographer Michael Prince did when he had to photograph the cover of Forbes Magazine during the 400 Summit on Philanthropy back in June.
Giuliano Bekor is an amazing commercial and advertising photographer based out of Los Angeles. Recently he traveled down to Australia to produce a short editorial film for the clothing company Merchant 1948. The concept involves a set of short films based around the idea of models finding a ton of cash and avoiding the police by flying away in vintage airplanes. As ridiculous as that sounds, Giuliano's execution makes for a really entertaining editorial spread.
Each week creativeLIVE has unbelievable live content that you can stream for free. Starting today through Sept 15th, creativeLIVE will host one of Fstoppers' most featured photographers Matthew Jordan Smith. Matthew is an acclaimed fashion photographer, and he has brought along America's Next Top Model winner Yoanna House to talk about everything that goes on in the fashion industry. For more information about this week's entire event, read the full post.
As videographers, photographers, and creatives alike, one of our goals with imagery or video is to capture an audience and move people in one way or another. We all work in different areas of the industry but we all share a common bond. This Thai Insurance commercial, Silence of Love, is quite possibly the most emotional and powerful one we've seen. We warn you before watching, it's quite a tear jerker! Although, it's definitely a must watch. The audio in this rendition is from another theme all together.
For the yet unreleased October 'survival' issue of Backpacker magazine, adventure photographer, Bud Force, decided instead of having a model dangling perilously off of a cliff that he would do a creative composite. He shot the background at 'El Capitan' peak in Guadalupe Moutains National Park and the subject at Mineral Wells State Park.
Earlier today news broke out about Nokia and their Lumia 920 simulation video not being exactly forthright. The video before the shameful reveal had no indication that it wasn't filmed with the actual product that it was marketing. When reddit.com users got their hands on the video they quickly noticed that the reflection in the video is not of a person filming with a mobile phone on a bicycle, but of a man in a van with what looks to be at least a DSLR sized camera with what seems to be some type of Gyro-stabilization system.
Last year we posted a behind the scenes video of the 2011 Barbie fashion shoot and it was a massive hit. This year Mattel has once again teamed up with designer Robert Best and photographer/videographer Paul Jordan to create another amazing collection. The attention to detail in the clothing, set design, and lighting is staggering. Check out the full post for the images.
It's all about light painting today. German collective group, Lichtfaktor took what we normally see in photographic form and made a dreamlike video animation for the brand dENiZEN™. Taking only five nights to film, this crew spent many hours planning and rehearsing the story line and, incredibly, no post production was needed once they were done filming.
Director and designer Karmin Zariffa was hired by SpaFax and AirCanada to turn out their promo videos in celebration of AirCanada's 75th anniversary. The spots showcase air hostess uniforms and airplanes used over the years. Karmin used a lot of in camera effects and object building to pull these off and we are thankful to be able to see how he and his team did. Enjoy this BTSV. You can see the final videos in the full post.
Follow The Mill Visual Effects Studio, a leading CGI and special effects global company as they walk you through the Norfolk Southern campaign, "City of Possibilites'. Computer generated imagery has always astounded me in how much processing it takes to get the final result. The great folks at the Mill explain how they the start by conceptualizing each character then moving on to shooting the live action scenes, and then finally blending the final animations into the scenes flawlessly.
Anyone who works commercially knows how important it is to adapt the product you deliver to your clients needs; this is especially true when dealing cross culturally. Voodoo Partners in Germany does an excellent job of this as they take us behind the scenes in one of their recent Jewelry commercials to be aired in Qatar.
Have you ever been walking through the mall or flipping through a magazine and found yourself breaking down the lighting of all the advertising images you see (or at least trying to)? I seem to be doing that all the time, sometimes without even realizing that I am doing it. Well one photog's images in particular always leave me guessing.
Is it just me or are the Olympians this year extra revealing? Each year ESPN releases a Body Issue which features men and women Olympians fully nude but this year other publications are also jumping on board with extra sexy Olympic imagery. For every image you have seen there are dozens of other photoshoots that also took place. In this video we go behind the scenes on a handful of these lesser known shoots featuring female athletes.
If you watch TV shows through any medium, there's a decent chance you've seen Geico's new Money Motorcycle Man. DCP Productions was kind enough to give a little behind the scenes on how they utilized 3D capture technology to video the money man and give him an HDR look. While the HDR effect has been explored extensively in the arena of stills, using it in video with 3D technology is quite innovative.
Music and visual components have always been used together as a form of art, most famously in the music video. As technology expands so does the way we use it for expression. The people over at Frucor (V Energy Drinks) recently challenged Joel Little, lead singer of Goodnight Nurse, to create a single track that could be played (mixed) live using only a body's movements in this unique musical and visual journey of a marketing campaign.
I'm all about getting the shot that you need in camera as much as possible. If you can achieve an effect in front of your camera and spend less time in Photoshop then the more the better. Sasha Leahovcenco recently shot an ad for Vater Percussion with Mike Johnston. In this behind the scenes video he explains everything that he uses to create the shots, even explaining why he decided to go natural lighting on the main ad shot itself.
Robert Gallagher knows his way around commercial photography. On this assignment, he puts Matt Kemp, a baseball player for the Dodgers, in front of the camera to shoot the cover of Forbes Magazine. As can be seen in the video, the studio set up includes 4 different lights. With a few assistants, Robert also manages to snag a one-light shot in the tunnel heading out to the field.
As I continue my articles on interior, architectural, and real estate photography, I thought it would be interesting to see different approaches to shooting these types of subjects. So, for this month's article, I've invited a number of professional interior, architectural, and real estate photographers to share their images and techniques with everyone who reads Fstoppers.
Follow Pantene Hair as they film Natalie Coughlin, eleven time Olympic medalist for USA Swimming (3 Gold, 4 Silver, and 4 Bronze) in their latest ad campaign featuring Olympic athletes for their Daily Moisture Renewal product line. Shot in two days in December of 2011 in Northern California and released in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics they use some impressive rigs and blue screens in this shoot.
We've featured architectural photographer Mike Butler before, when he shot the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami, FL. This time, Mike heads to Bogota, Colombia, to shoot the Virgilio Barco Library using a slew of hot lights and assistants. If you've ever wondered why it takes 8 hours to create a single architectural image, this BTS will show you exactly why.
I've always been fascinated by technical photographs showing every single part of complex machines. And shockingly enough, most of those images are created with a lot less Photoshop than one would imagine. "Explode" photographer Adam Voorhees shows us a quick timelapse of his latest Kawasaki Moto photograph shot for ESPN. Click the full post to view the final image.
Pepsi Australia recently teamed up with Kelly Racing to produce the Pepsi Max super car. Photographer Chris Benny was hired to shoot the new car and lucky for us, he filmed a quick BTSV of the production. As with many shoots, the weather became a problem but Chris had a backup plan. With a little post work Chris made the outside shots pop and then moved the car inside to finish the shoot.
Product photography can be one of the most difficult facets of photography. Everyone expects organic objects (like a human) to have imperfections but clients want their products to look flawless in the finished image. Your choice of lens, angle, lighting, color, composition, and retouching must all work together or your shot won't hold up. In the past photographers would have to assist for years to learn the tricks of the trade but today, you can learn them for free from your laptop.
Alex Koloskov has had a few of his behind the scenes videos featured here on fstoppers. In this charismatic behind the scenes video, Alex takes the photography assignment of shooting some liqueur bottles in an attractive way and walks us through his set up. His in depth explanation of the lighting and staging process gives you a great understanding of how he got his final "sexy" shot.
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