Commercial Photography

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.

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.

Check out this amazing photoshoot by Dina Goldstein she titled "In The Dollhouse." Dina spared no expense as her team built set after set to complete this real-life Barbie and Ken series. Just like the last Barbie series we posted, this one is also a little twisted. Apparently you can't go wrong with Barbie series because these images have already gone viral around the web.

Just when I thought I had seen it all I was sent this incredible video by one of our readers. The Marmalade, a special effects studio in Germany, has created an incredible high speed robot used to film precise moments during ultra high frame rate takes. The results look so perfect that I thought I was watching CGI at first. Even if you aren't into robots you will want to watch this video for the most stunning macro videography I've ever seen.

Besides getting a great glimpse into the filming of a well put together sunscreen commercial, Gary Lankford offers some great perspective on the usefulness of DSLR's as opposed to using some of the bigger and more expensive rigs that might be out there. The versatility of having several cameras and being able to take them anywhere can outweigh some of the higher quality option cameras.  Check out the final commercial below.

In what may well be the most outrageous photo shoot that I have ever seen, Olaf Hauschulz was presented with what must be an incredibly rare opportunity to shoot a Lamborghini Gallardo for Lamborghini Magazine. The setting? High in the snow-covered mountain ranges of Romania, with the car drifting around corners, inches from guardrails

Ryan Mcmanus from Brothers Films and Stefan Weiss from Weisscam teamed up for an ingenious and complex shoot showing off the new BMW S1000 RR. What impressed me about this shoot was not only the incorporation of 1000 fps with a three dimensional element, but also the creativity in setting up the rig to film. I cant imagine the amount of work that had to go into post production for something like this. This is a great example of thorough planning and great execution.

If you work out of a studio, you know how annoying paper seamless backdrops can be...they always wrinkle and warp. We recently changed over to the Savage Vinyl backdrops and they seem to last a lot longer. The guys over at OKstrobist have an even cheaper alternative for those looking for a DIY approach and it's pretty clever. Even though this can still cost as much as $170, you aren't stuck

If you surf the web as much as me you've probably seen either the still image or the commercial for Canada's Paralympics. I waited to do a post on this because I was hoping a behind the scenes video would come out and lucky of us, one did. Check out the BTSV here and then view the full post to see the finished video and still image.

Every now and then a unique way of filming the same old car commercial catches my eye. Event Projection uses projection mapping to advertise the S-Max put out by Ford. Although the filming involves a little more than the average studio equipment, the crew is able to incorporate some great action shots without leaving their studio. Check out their behind the scenes above plus the final commercial below.

Photographing birds out in the wild seems pretty tough. Oregon photographer Jon Myers wanted to make the challenge even tougher by bringing the birds into his studio. Using large softboxes to create a space for the birds to fly, Jon was able to photograph eagles, ospreys, and hawks perfectly while in flight. The shots are spectacular, and if you click the full post you can see them shot against grey as well.

Jeremy Cowart is a photographer after my own heart. He started out in one of my favorite cities Nashville, TN, befriend a bunch of rockstars, shot their album covers, moved into celebrity portraiture, and continues to give back with projects like Help Portrait. Our good friend Pye Jirsa with SLR Lounge recently sat down with the nomadic photographer and picked his brain a little about creativity, post production, a new LifeFinder Tour, and a new iPhone App. If you get worn out listening

Fashion photographer Melissa Rodwell has become a good friend of ours over the years. The New York based photographer lives and breathes fashion photography, and as you can see with her images it really shows. The self proclaimed "photographer who does not own a digital camera" teamed up with Kurv magazine to produce some very exotic fashion images. As with most fashion images, the retouching is pretty important with interesting

Today, Bon Appetit featured a very comprehensive blog post from food photographer William Hereford. Rather than just talking about just a particular technique or style, Hereford also writes to the burgeoning food photographer/enthusiast and tries to answer the question: What is the camera you should go with if you want to get into commercial food photography? The answer may surprise you.

A user on the popular social website Reddit was the first to bring our attention to this enormous Photoshop fail. A recent Target advertisement left one of the models sporting a little something extra. You won't believe your eyes when you see this, nor will you believe that somehow, nobody caught the mistake.

Casey Neistat is a great film maker that you may remember for his Peanut Butter Lid Lens Hack. Recently he was hired by Nike to create something interesting for their Nike + Fuel Band. The story goes that instead of making a traditional commercial, Casey took Nike's budget and traveled around the world until it was all spent. He filmed his 10 day escapade and produced the following video.

Our good friend Blair Bunting is at it again. This time Blair was hired to shoot the ad campaign for The Discovery Channels hit show River Monsters. The concept was relatively simple; to have the show’s host Jeremy Wade wrestling a giant fish in the shallow waters near South Beach, Florida. To do this Blair's team used a fake fish that was then replaced in post. To freeze the water with a quick flash duration  and stay portable Blair used the new Photoflex Tritons.

Most of you know Mark Wallace as the face behind Adorama TV. He's a very accomplished photographer based out of Phoenix, Arizona and we recently were able to share some drinks with him when we filmed Blair Bunting's Aventador video. Mark gave us a little glimpse about his 2012 Workshop Tour and now the details are finally able to be revealed. If you are a fan of Mark, which we hope you are, click the full post to hear about his new 7 city tour!

We get asked to show our lighting for our Fstoppers Original interviews all the time but it seems like we always forget to shoot our lighting schemes. StillMotion just released a killer video that shows how they light interviews with key, fill, hair, and background lights.

The Canon 5D MkIII and the Nikon D800 are two of the hottest cameras on the market right now. In this video commercial photographer Nathan Elson joins up with The Camera Store's Chris Niccolls to see how these two cameras stack up in the image quality department. Enjoy!

Photographer Dave Hamilton takes us behind the scenes on his latest shoot with hockey legend, Trevor Linden. This video is very informative and well produced - including a lighting diagram for each of the different setups. Aiming to get that perfect cover shot for Vancouver View Magazine's April 2012 issue, Dave was able to get some nice shots using his Canon 5D Mark II.

You may remember Canon's promo video for the 5d Mark III that I posted a couple of weeks ago, which showcased the, ehem, interesting sport of Radball. Love it or hate it, I think we can at least agree that it was pretty entertaining. Canon recently released a companion to the promo video which goes behind the scenes into the filming of the piece.

The Photoshop team rolled out a video which showcases some of the direction which Adobe intends to go in the future. It was shot and then edited entirely in a future version of Photoshop. Though the video itself is pretty standard, it's a glimpse of what's to come. Do you believe that Adobe should keep video editing separate from Photoshop? We want to hear your thoughts. 

Good friend of Fstoppers and Commercial Photographer, Monte Isom, takes us behind the scenes on his latest shoot with world class boxer, Sergio Martinez. Click through to the video to check out his lighting placement and setups. Enjoy!

Commercial photographer Dean Bradshaw provides us with a unique perspective of his recent photo shoot for "Startrac". The shoot involved a handful of athletes being shot while mock competing in their individual sports. The athletes were shot in a controlled environment and then composited into different backgrounds in post.

In this behind the scenes video, Jay P Morgan shows us how he combined natural light and strobes to get that perfect shot while on location. First, he starts by determining where the sun is going to set on the horizon by using the very handy iPhone app, Sunseeker. For this project, he was shooting stills as well as video, which can get a bit tricky.