Taylor's Twilight

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to work with Taylor for the first time. Based on the success of that first shooting, I wanted to come up with some other photo ideas that would showcase Taylor's look and talents. Taylor has very fair skin. So this started the gears turning. I remembered an interview with one of the actresses from the upcoming Twilight: Eclipse movie, where she remarked that because she was so fair skinned, she didn't need powder to lighten her skin for the role. That planted the idea for a "Taylor as a vampire" shoot. I also figured that as a teenager, Taylor would be psyched about doing a shoot with a Twilight theme.

If you're a reader of David Hobby's Strobist blog, the lighting for the Twilight posters (originally shot by Joey Lawrence) has been discussed before and even imitated. So there was plenty of reference material available online. I've also played around with changing the eye color to get either the red or yellow eyes the Twilight vampires have.

There were a couple of other objectives that I had for this second shoot. One was to play around with the lighting more, in order to get a dramatic effect. The other was to spend more time playing around in Photoshop Elements for more than the simple retouching I usually do. Besides the editing involved in "turning" Taylor, I also wasn't to experiment with a chromakey (also known as greenscreen) backdrop so that I could easily change the background.

Here's one of the first images from that session. I heavily retouched her skin, darkened the lips, and made the eyes red. I then cut her out from the chromakey background. I created a new background by taking a shot of bare tree limbs, darkening it, and tinting it red. I like how the resulting image has a strong red theme to it.

More to follow in a future post...

Taylor

It's the Monday after the "Snowmageddon" storm. Pittsburgh is still under a state of emergency, we're digging out from 18-plus inches of snow, it isn't melting because the temperature is less than 25 degrees, and there is another 4 to 8 inches predicted through Wednesday. So, what do you do? Hunker down with your favorite photo editing software? Try to make some headway on your business todo list? Start reading the copy of Facebook for Dummies you previously checked out from the library? All good things to do when you're snowed in, to be sure. But if you're slightly crazy (as I can be sometimes, ask my wife), you contact a model and set up an outdoor shooting in the snow.

I met Taylor through One Model Place (also known as OMP). I knew she lived my neighborhood (same zip code), and we had talked about getting together for a photo session at some point. I originally contacted her on Friday about a shooting, knowing that the "Snowmageddon" storm was bearing down on us and figuring we would be unable to drive anywhere after the storm. Since she lived nearby, I figured we could walk to a shooting location. Everything came together on Monday: School was canceled, and the sun was out. One email and a phone call later, we were scheduled to get together at 3 pm (the warmest part of the day). It turns out she's literally 2 blocks away from me, which made getting together a simple matter.

Taylor was great to work with. She has a teenager's willingness to try just about anything, and nothing seemed to faze her (like snow falling on her from the tree branches). We had a blast and got some great photos in a little over an hour. Taylor's just starting out, and I'm looking forward to helping her make more additions to her portfolio in the future.

Field Trip!

One of the advantages to being self-employed is that I get to be more involved in my boys' activities, particularly anything that is going on during the daytime. Case in point: Yesterday #2 Son's class had a field trip down to Conservation Consultants Inc. (CCI) on Pittsburgh's South Side. CCI is a company that consults with small business and homeowners to make their buildings more eco-friendly. They do educational programs for schools, to teach kids all the ways you can improve a building. The photo shows their rooftop garden, made of of trays of desert plants. The garden provides insulation by eliminating the amount of dark rooftop that absorbs heat in the summer. Because the trays hold the rainwater, the garden also minimizes contaminated water runoff from the roof.

For the field trip they needed some parents to go along as chaperones. Since I didn't have anything else scheduled for the day of the field trip, I volunteered to go along. Of course I took a camera and flash along to take some photos. I figured the school could always use some for their website. Granted I wasn't getting paid for it, but I viewed it as an opportunity to do some free marketing as well as hone my camera skills. But all of that was secondary to the smile on my son's face when I first walked into his classroom...

Carlow School Basketball

This past Saturday was my first time working for a new client, Carlow School's basketball program. There were six teams to photograph (three boys and three girls), and they wanted team team photos, individual photos, and game photos. They had contacted me because some of the kids had also been in the Dynamo soccer league that I began photographing last year. The parents really liked the idea of being able to do all their ordering online through ExposureManager after the photos had been taken.

The gym was a small older one that reminded me of something out of Hoosiers (that's a compliment, by the way). One of the things that is interesting about this gym is that the balcony where the spectators sit is right up against the court. So if you are at the railing, when the action comes near you, you are literally right on top of it. This gives some really unique angles for some of the game photos. Unfortunately it also meant that I spent a lot of time going up and down steps, which I felt in my legs the next day.

For the indoor individual photos of the players, I used my SB800 (with a diffuser) on my Stroboframe bracket, and the SB600 on a stand to the left and behind the player. The SB600 was set 2 stops lower than the SB800.

Carlow basketball is the first sports shooting this year. I'm anticipating doing a lot of youth sports in 2010. It seems the online ordering approach appeals to local parents who are tired of the usual approach of order envelopes.

Another Office Assistant...

This is another one of my office assistants, Jumper. He's asleep on my laptop keyboard waiting for his morning caffeine fix... Good help is hard to find!

Jumper is your typical senior staffer. He's been around for a while, and he isn't afraid to flaunt his status. Like many senior people, it takes him a while to get started in the morning. More often than not, you can find him in the break room having a snack, or schmoozing the CFO (my wife), or looking out the window daydreaming. But you also find him chasing after the new hire, to keep him in line. Jumper is also responsible for corporate security, and is constantly on the lookout for birds, squirrels, and other potential intruders.

"Picture the New Year" Portrait Promotion

For the month of January, I'm offering a new promotion for my family portraits. The sitting fee for the portraits has been reduced from $70 to $50. In addition, all customers receive a coupon for $50 off of their order if they order at least $100 worth of photos. Which means that the the sitting will effectively cost nothing!

Sittings are usually done at the client's house, and typically take an hour. Multiple poses, multiple groupings, and multiple clothing changes are all recommended. My portrait portfolio can be found here.

The Office Assistants...

One of the advantages of working in a home office is that I have four office assistants of the four-legged feline variety. They are wonderful for keeping me on schedule (Especially when it is feeding time). They also love to keep things organized by pushing papers off the table onto the floor. They are trying to learn how to use the computer (although their emails and IMs still need some work). They even tell me when it is time to take a break, usually by curling up on my laptop's keyboard. Unfortunately we still have a problem with office politics (particularly fighting over who gets which workspace) and more often than not, we usually find them sleeping on the job.

Unfortunately they aren't always the best models. Even though they are always primping themselves and demanding attention, they're really poor at taking direction. Getting them to hold a pose for any length of time is difficult, and they refuse to work with others. It is also impossible to keep their attention, especially when they hear the refrigerator door open.

Pictured above is Chagall, the newest member of our staff. Like most new-hires, he is enthusiastic and energetic. He can be somewhat loud and demanding at times. I think he is angling for a job as my personal assistant, because he seemes to follow me everywhere.

Technical Details: I had to work quickly because you can never tell when a cat is going to get up and leave. I used my 35-70 f2.8 lens, set manually to f3.5. Lighting is from my SB800 set to TTL, with the head turned 180 degrees (in other words, backwards) and tilted up at 45 degrees to bounce off the wall (3 or 4 feet behind me) and ceiling.