Poolside shoot with Rachel

Had the chance to work with model Rachel Reilly from Model Mayhem this past weekend at a beachside estate in Kapalua.

When I met her in person that morning, the first thing that struck me was the color of her hair.  I really wanted to showcase that in some of the images that we shot.  The problem was that the weather was heavily overcast and drizzling that day. (Of course, the day AFTER we shot together, it was nice and sunny. Doh!)

The sun occasionally would peek out a bit, so I alternated between using a Silver California Sunbounce mini and a White Lightning 1600 with a softbox to add some directionality to the light.

Canon 5D 70-200mm L lens ISO 100 1/160@f8

This first image was just her sitting at the edge of the pool.  I thought the blue pool would contrast well with her hair, so I stood on a chair and aimed downward to get the water in the background.  Used the WL1600 w/ softbox camera left.

 

Canon 5D 70-200mm L lens ISO 100 1/200@f11

This was one of the few times that the sun peeked out for us.   Her hair looked amazing when the wind picked it up. Used the silver Sunbounce here for fill.  I shot from across the pool, as low as I could get.

Canon 5D 70-200mm L lens ISO 100 1/160@f11

Cropped this to a square format to hide the jacuzzi and some white pipes in the background.  It also helps to put more focus on the model.

Canon 5D 70-200mm L lens ISO 100 1/160@f11

The above image was with the WL1600 at full power with a 7″ reflector and a CTO gel to try to overpower the ambient sunlight.  Shooting from across the pool in the other direction, with her balancing of the far edge of the infinity pool. I tweaked the background in post a little to bump up the blue color of the sky.

Ninja Warrior on the beach

The female ninja or kunoichi concept is one that I’ve been trying to develop for a while.  Whenever I find a model that is interested in this, I break out the ninja suit and props and experiment. Recently, I had the chance to shoot this idea with model Rosanna Picardi, whom I worked with while she visited  Kauai late last year.

I had originally planned to photograph her on some lava rocks near a beach house restaurant.  Unfortunately, we were unable to get permission from the restaurant to do the shoot there as it was too close to their property. I guess a sword wielding ninja does kind of distract from the family atmosphere of a restaurant. 😉

We ended up shooting on the tiny crowded beach nearby.  The sun was going down quickly and we also had a swimsuit look that we needed to complete before our flight back that evening.

Ideally, this would have been shot with a greenscreen in a studio.  Since we had neither at the time, I had the model pose on a rock outcropping high enough that I could position myself slightly below her eye level. This put the clear sky behind her, (nature’s version of a chromakey background) which made it much easier to remove in post.  I couldn’t get the sky completely behind her as you can see, but I was able to get it behind her hair which is most important.  Hair is really difficult to mask out in Photoshop.

The other elements of the shot I had in mind I took while traveling in Japan this past December.  The roof she is standing on is from a temple that I found while walking through the back streets of Akihabara, the high tech electronics district in Tokyo.  Shot it with a Canon 40D.

Had to walk around the temple grounds a bit before I found the right section of roof that would work.

The mountain in the background is Mount Fuji, which I took from a moving bus while we were going to an onsen in Izu.  This was shot with a Canon Powershot G9.  I try to always keep a camera with me as I never know when I’ll come across something I can use for a background or element in Photoshop.

The moon and smoke elements are from stock images I already had on file.  To get the nighttime look, I used a Lightroom preset called PH Bedtime with some minor tweaks.

Studio shoot with Mandi and Kat

My second photoshoot this past Saturday was in studio with model Mandi Reanne and makeup artist Kahulani. We were assisted by fellow photographer Allan from Icandy Maui.

I had previously worked with Mandi on a waterfall shoot last year and it was great to have the chance to work with her again.

For this shoot we concentrated mainly on headshots with different makeup looks.
To make the setups go quickly, we had four lights setup in position, turning them off and on as we needed:

Main light -1 Alien Bees AB800 in a beauty dish mounted on a C-stand above and slightly right of center.

Rim lights – 2 AB800s in small strip softboxes behind the model at 45 degrees to either side

Background light – 1 AB800 with a background shovel reflector.

Reflector – silver California Sunbounce micro mini on small light stand in front.

Control of each light was with an Alien Bees LG4X Four-Channel Wired Remote Control.  This made it easier than running around to each light and adjusting the power on each one.

The big white panels in the photo above are styrofoam sheets from Home Depot joined together with gaffer’s tape to form V-panels.  Initially we set them up intending to bounce light into them, but we ended up mainly using them to help flag the rimlights from flaring into the camera.

The first setup used just the beauty dish light.  We turned off the other three lights and moved in a black curtain behind the model. We hung black duvetyne fabric from a C-stand and positioned it very close to Mandi, just out of the frame to help deepen the shadows.

Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

For the second setup, we turned on the two rimlights.  When we were testing, Allan came up with the idea to gel the lights.  We looked through our gels and found 2 Roscoe #15 Deep Straw gels.  Allan and I attached them to the strip softboxes and did some more tweaking of the lights.  To help intensify the effect, we took out the main baffle of each strip box and left just the inner baffle in place.

The lighting and gels worked really well with Kat’s makeup work for the second look.

 Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

Something I found out about my 5D when we were testing the lights – even though the 5D’s flash sync speed is rated at 1/200,  the actual sync speed limit is 1/160.

While shooting this second look, we accidentally stumbled upon another lighting setup when I adjusted the position of the main light. It unplugged itself when I moved it and on the next image, only the rear rimlights fired.  Because of Allan’s gels on the rimlights, the silhouette effect was pretty cool.

Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

We played around with this setup, doing both silhouettes and fully lit headshots until we got what we wanted.

For our last lighting setup, we removed the black curtain, turned on all 4 AB800s, took off the gels from the rimlights and replaced the baffles.

 Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

We put the black duvetyne next to her for slight shadow on her cheek and brought in the silver Sunbounce reflector in very low to soften the chin shadow.

We wrapped pretty late on this shoot, I think around 8 or 9 pm, but we got some great shots out of it.

Shooting with two models in Lahaina

My friend TJ contacted me to do a shoot on Maui with her and her friend Rosemarie the weekend after I arrived back from Japan. I was (still am) recovering from massive jetlag, but since TJ is one of my favorite models to work with, I agreed to do it.

They were staying at a beach house in Lahaina owned by Christian Riese Lassen, who was kind enough to give us permission to do the photo session there.  My jaw dropped when I got there Saturday morning, as it was one of those locations I’ve always wanted to see.  It was the kind of place you could spend days at and never run out of things to shoot.  There was even an infinity pool which has been one of the things I’ve always wanted to shoot, but had to pass on that due to time and equipment restraints (I also had a studio shoot booked that afternoon on the other side of the island).

 Canon 5D 85mm 1.8 1/30 @ f4

First setup was in the garden. We started at about 8am, so the sun was just coming in through the trees. I shot a few headshots with the 85mm lens, with TJ holding a silver California Sunbounce micro mini reflector in front of her for a little fill.

There was a big statue in the garden that TJ wanted to incorporate into a shot.  She changed outfits and we started shooting with the statue.  The natural light was pretty nice all around so we worked with just that for while – no flash, no reflector.

 

Canon 5D 70-200mm 2.8L 1/50 @ f4

Wanted to get a little bokeh off of the sunlight hitting the trees in the background so I used a 70-200mm lens mounted on a Really Right Stuff BH40 Ballhead and a Manfrotto 190CX tripod.  Think I was on Aperture Priority mode at the time.

Canon 5D 70-200mm 2.8L 1/80 @ f4

For Rosemarie, I changed up the lighting a little.  I setup a white shoot thru umbrella with a 580EX flash and a Radiopopper trigger to add a little light to the front.  I also added a second 580EX and Radiopopper trigger on the ground behind her to add a little rim light.

 Canon 5D 70-200mm 2.8L 1/80 @ f4

We then moved to a shaded spot near the front bamboo gate.  There was some light being reflected into the shadowed area from a large white truck parked nearby.  I setup the silver California Sunbounce micro mini reflector on a lightstand and positioned it next to the truck to boost the light going into the spot we were shooting in.

Canon 5D 70-200mm 2.8L 1/60 @ f5.6

We then moved to the infinity pool.  I originally wanted to try getting low enough to make the pool seem to extend into the ocean, but because of the terrain, the only way I would have been able to do that would have been to partially submerge the camera and lens, and I didn’t have a waterproof housing with me.

So I decided to shoot it a different way – by trying to overpower the sun. I setup a WL1600 in a large softbox to camera right and the silver sunbounce reflector on the left.  I had TJ spray herself with olive oil cooking spray to give her skin a nice sheen.

Canon 5D 70-200mm 2.8L 1/200 @ f16

After we did a few shots here, I walked around the pool to see what else I could shoot without getting into the water.  On the far side of the pool, I found I could shoot at the very edge where the water flowed over.  I positioned Rosemarie on the other side of the pool, using natural light and the silver micro mini Sunbounce to add a little fill light.  The sunlight hitting her hair and rimlighting her was a happy accident.

Canon 1DmkII  70-200mm 2.8L 1/250 @ f8

At this point I had switched to the 1DmkII as it had a slightly tighter crop factor which was useful since I was shooting across the length of the pool. (Plus my 5d batteries were starting to die on me as well).

One of the last shots we did was both TJ and Rosemarie together. 

Canon 5D 70-200mm 2.8L 1/250 @ f8

This was a really fun shoot and was over far too quickly.  I would be curious to see how a night shoot at this location would work, maybe with the pool lit up with different colored lights.

Shaking things up in Shibuya

The second photoshoot I had in Japan this month was an outdoor shoot with model Noriko Komiya, whom I met through Model Mayhem.

For this shoot we started by meeting at 8:30 am at the Hachiko exit of Shibuya station, which is normally a very crowded area.  Since most of the stores did not open until 10 am, we were able to get a lot done without having to worry about too many people around. As it was though, we did end up drawing a lot of attention. 😉

Noriko was escorted by her boyfriend Nestor, who was a huge help to us on the shoot.  He’s originally from Oahu, and now works as a bodyguard in Japan.  He helped us with everything – holding lights, coming up with ideas for poses, crowd control, gun props and weapons training – this guy did it all.  I wish every model had an escort like Nestor. 🙂  We were also assisted by Noriko’s friend Eriko, an up and coming model that I hope to work with in the near future.

For our first idea, I wanted to do a fashion in the city shot, inspired by an image I saw on Noriko’s list of ideas she was interested in.

Around this time of year in Japan, the sun doesn’t get very high in the sky, and when I scouted the location before I met up with the crew, I noticed the sun was hitting the buildings, but not the street where we would be shooting.  This was a bit of a challenge, so I decided to shoot from a low angle to minimize the amount of road in the shot.  For lighting I setup an SB 26 with a Pocket Wizard in a white shoot thru umbrella on a lightstand.  I had Nestor hold this and also another SB26 to double up the light.

Getting the shot required repeatedly standing on the corner waiting for the crossing light to change, running out into the middle of the street, firing off a few shots while dodging the people in the crosswalk, then getting back to the corner before we got run over.  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

The next setup was a headshot, and I got the idea when Noriko put on her coat and hood.  Since I already had the umbrella lighting setup from the first shot, I positioned Noriko as close to the umbrella as I could and had Nestor hold a silver California Sunbounce micro mini under the umbrella.  Because she was now very close to the light source, I was able to easily overpower the sun and turn the background almost completely black.  In essence, we did a studio headshot in the middle of a busy streetcorner.

Our next setup was next to a green train car that had been converted to a museum. Noriko changed outfits and we setup the umbrella next to the front of the train car.  I added another SB26 on a lightstand with a 3/4 CTO gel to act as a backlight. I had Eriko hold another SB 26 firing into the umbrella to increase the main light. (One of these days I really need to find a dual hotshoe adapter for my lightstand)

Noriko got into position and I had Nestor use the Sunbounce panel as a fan to add motion to Noriko’s hair and shirt.  The crowd around us started getting bigger so it took us a while to get this shot.

The smoke was added in post, because we were shooting this in full view of the nearest koban (police office) and didn’t want to alarm them by starting a fire ;-).  (We were already pushing it with the use of gun props).

We then switched locations to Shinjuku, where we ended up shooting in front of the Governer’s building.

I changed the umbrella out for the Lastolite Ezybox hotshoe. We then had Noriko climb up to the ledge (which was very brave of her – behind this wall is a drop of several stories) and started doing our “Dark Angel” series of images.

I added a 1/4 CTO gel to the main light to warm it up a little and kind of give the impression of sunset, since the sun was behind the buildings and not hitting our location at all.  Eriko held up the other SB 26 with a 3/4 CTO gel behind Noriko to give us some separation.

This last one I wanted to experiment with changing a daylight scene to night, so I adjusted the white balance to tungsten in Lightroom and added a few things to complete the scene.

This was a very fun shoot and I made some new friends in the process.  A great way to end the year.

Studio shoot in Tokyo

Currently going over the results of two photoshoots I had scheduled in Japan this month.  The first one was in a studio with actress/model Maya Murofushi.

Sweet Studio is located in Edogawabashi, a few stops on the Yurakucho line from Ikebukuro.  It’s a pretty nice small studio to work out of, with a variety of looks.  The walls were all white, however, and posed a bit of a challenge lighting-wise.

One of the walls had a partial brick texture on it, which I wanted to enhance by positioning flashes to fire along the wall.  I added a blue gel to 2 SB26 flashes and arranged them so that the light would scatter along the wall.  I did a couple of tests, but found I wasn’t getting the coverage I wanted.  So I moved them out away from the wall and aimed them more directly to the wall.

The main light was an SB 26 with a white shoot thru umbrella and a 1/4 CTO gel. I also added another SB26 with a 1/4 CTO gel behind the models to create a separation light.

Because the studio was very small, I could not setup the model’s position far enough from the wall to prevent the main light from contaminating the background.  So I ended up having to lower the background brightness in post.

Did some shots without the gels as well. The lighting for this was an SB26 with a Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe Softbox to camera right.

The studio had some basic lighting equipment included with the rental, so we utilized it for our final setups since we were running short on time.

This is with a hotlight in a 6 or 7 foot giant Rifa Softbox to camera left.  I had JAB use a California Sunbounce Micro Mini as a fan to add some motion to Maya’s hair.

Kauai photoshoot with Rosanna

Did a shoot this weekend with model Rosanna Picardi, who contacted me through Model Mayhem.
Rosanna is an amazing model to work with. Very energetic, extremely professional, and jaw-droppingly beautiful in person.

I had originally planned to work with Rosanna on Maui the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but due to complications with flight arrangements, we were not able to get her over to Maui for a full day of shooting. Since she had a shoot planned on Saturday with photographer Chaz from After6Media, we all agreed it would be better to arrange a joint shoot on Kauai instead.

Because I had to fly over to Kauai to do this shoot, I was limited in the amount of gear I could bring. For lighting, I mainly relied on my California Sunbounce reflectors and some small strobes.

Canon 1d mkII 28-70mm L lens ISO 100 f20 @ 1/5 sec.

We first went to Kipu Falls. The water was pretty rough, and the original set of rocks I wanted to have her pose on proved to be too difficult to reach (I know because I got completely soaked trying to cross the stream to get to it). So we settled for some rocks that were closer to the side.
To get the above shot I mounted my camera on a tripod, added a neutral density filter to cut down the light, and used a silver California Sunbounce Pro reflector to light her. Played around with different slow shutter speeds to blur the water.

Canon 1d mkII 70-200mm L lens ISO 100 f11 @ 1/6 sec

Since it was not possible to get Rosanna directly under the falls, we had her pose at the edge of the top of the falls, to try to get as much of it in the background as possible. Rosanna is a really brave model because right behind where she sat was the sheer drop of the waterfall.

Because the sun kept going behind the clouds, we switched to using a silver California Sunbounce Micro Mini reflector and bounced an SB26 at full power into it. Chaz held the reflector/flash combo to camera left, just inches away from the edge of the cliff. Dangerous as heck, but hey, it made a great shot. 😉

Canon 1d mkII 70-200mm L lens ISO 400 f5.6 @ 1/50 sec

After the waterfall, we went looking for some parks and botanical gardens. We passed by one area and noticed some old train cars. It turned out this place had an actual working railroad – the Kauai Plantation Railway. The staff there was very friendly and gave us permission to do a few shots there. This headshot was done using just natural light and nothing else. There was a white rain gutter in the background that I darkened in Photoshop to lessen the distraction in the image.

Canon 1d mkII 70-200mm L lens ISO 400 f5.6 @ 1/1600 sec

For this shot on the tracks, I walked around until I found a section of track that kind of S-curved. This was from a lesson I learned from photographer Rolando Gomez. I could have just shot her on a straight portion of the train track, but by working in this section, the curve of the tracks creates an interesting line that leads the eye to the model. To help blur the background, I zoomed out to 200mm and setup my camera far away from the model’s position. Lighting was a silver California Sunbounce Mini held just out of frame to camera right.

Canon 1d mkII 24-70mm L lens ISO 100 f8 @ 1/250 sec

Later in the afternoon we found this small stretch of beach near a restaurant. Since time was limited (Chaz and I had to get back to the airport to make our return flights), we settled for this spot to do some sunset shots. Rosanna wanted to do some Bond Girl type shots, so we used a couple of Tomb Raider airsoft pistols as props. Being very pressed for time, lighting was done on camera with a Gary Fong Lightsphere diffuser aimed directly at the model.

I ended up boarding the plane that night covered in mud, sand and salt water (but with some great images). 🙂

More from Saturday’s photoshoot

Finally cleared up my video editing backlog and had more time to work on images from this past Saturday’s photoshoot with wolfpup.

I put this image in my previous post, but wanted to play around a bit with the cropping in Lightroom. I kinda like this angle, as it fills the frame more with the model and gives it a little more drama. The only thing is that it cuts off more of the rock formation to the right. Haven’t decided which one to use yet. Any suggestions?

Because I didn’t have my Vagabond battery pack available, I wasn’t able to use my studio strobes to overpower the sun like I had originally intended. I experimented in this shot using 2 SB26s on 1/2 power each. One is connected to a hotshoe adapter on the lightstand. The second one is ball-bungied right below it.

For this shot, I only had about 15 minutes to setup the set. This was a spur of the moment idea to try to recreate a bedroom set in the middle of a studio.

I covered a table with a white satin sheet and had the model climb onto that. I setup a c-stand next to the table and hung a couple of white drapes from the c-stand. Finally, in the background I put up a couple of folding wooden doors to simulate a closet.

For lighting I used an AB800 in a large softbox just out of the frame to camera right. I setup another AB800 barebulb behind the drapes – this was to simulate the sun coming in through the window.

After I took a test shot, I noticed the background was too dark, so I added another AB800 with a small softbox behind her. This lit up the background and also gave her an edge light.

I shot with a 70-200mm lens at about 135mm, wide open at f2.8. This blurs the background and helps hide the makeshift setup.

Sunset Photoshoot with Makenzie

Did a sunset shoot with Makenzie from Model Mayhem this weekend at Kapalua Bay. Ran into a few snags with lighting, but we got some great results and an awesome sunset.

With a background in hip-hop/jazz dancing, Makenzie is a great model to work with. She also has these amazing green eyes so I wanted to start out with some headshots to capture that. We had her leaning in the shadow of a tree and positioned an SB26 flash to camera right. I zoomed the lens out to 200mm to blur as much of the background as I could.

Canon 1D MkII with 70-200mm L Lens 1/250 @ f5.6

We then moved to a hill overlooking the beach. Makenzie’s mom held a Silver California Sunbounce Mini just out of camera right to bounce some fill light in. Shot it from a low angle to try to get below Makenzie’s eye level and hide the snorkelers behind her. I cropped it to a 16×9 format to try to make her legs look longer and to hide the restaurant across the bay.

Canon 1D MkII with 70-200mm L Lens 1/250 @ f5.6

Next we went out onto the rocks near the water. At first I attempted something similar to my previous shoot with bodyfitt, using a slow shutter speed under natural light to blur the incoming waves, but it wasn’t working too well. (Can’t wait to get my carbon fiber tripod which will make it much easier to lug to location). So I went in another direction and setup the beauty dish with a CTO gel and the camera set to tungsten white balance to get this shot.

Canon 1D MkII with 28-70mm L Lens 1/250 @ f11

We moved to another section of the rocks and positioned her up high. I tried to get my lightstand into a position close to me, but the terrain made it difficult. I used an AB800 bare bulb to try to lighten the shadows .

Canon 1D MkII with 28-70mm L Lens 1/250 @ f8

Around the beginning of sunset, we headed down to the beach. By some stroke of luck, the beach was nearly deserted.

I setup a large softbox on my AB800 with a 1/4 CTO gel inside. I’ve always wanted to try this in the past, but usually run into problems with the wind so I had been sticking with the beauty dish for beach shoots. It was really calm today, so I was able to get the softbox up with no problem.

Unfortunately the battery pack for the strobe stopped working after a few shots. But I did manage to get a few good shots with it before it went out completely. It’s a shame because I really liked the look we were getting with the softbox. This was one of my favorites:

Canon 1D MkII with 70-200mm L Lens 1/250 @ f8

With the sun setting quickly, I got out my 580EX and a Gary Fong lightsphere. [Thank you Chaz for reminding me to bring that ;-)]. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get this shot:

Canon 1D MkII with 24-70mm L Lens 1/250 @ f2.8

Sometimes when the conditions are right, you get really cool colors in the sky if you wait around a bit after sunset. We lucked out that night and got an awesome firestorm in the background.
At this point it was so dark that I literally couldn’t see her face. I had to rely only on the focusing aid from the 580EX to get the shot. The camera and flash setting were all manual, with the flash on 1/2 or full power by this time, using the Lightsphere with the white dome aimed directly at her.

Canon 1D MkII with 24-70mm L Lens 1/30 @ f4

Even with the few minor equipment mishaps we had, we got some pretty good shots out of this one. Now I just need to get all that sand out of my gear…

Sometimes it takes a while

I shot this image a few years ago but wasn’t able to finish it ’til today.

Originally we shot this against a greenscreen using an ABR800 Ringlight. I also used 2 SB-26 flashes with CTO gels behind the model to help her blend into the fire that I was planning to add later in post.

Joanne was the model, with makeup done by Jessica Waite and hair done by Karli Benedict. My friend Jennifer was our assistant – she stood in for the skeleton and held his sword.

There were two things that made it take this long for me to finish the image: the greenscreen and the skeleton.

First, getting a good matte from the greenscreen turned out to be harder than I had planned. The greenscreen wasn’t evenly lit ( I didn’t have enough lights and it was also one of my first attempts at greenscreen work). Thanks to my friend Chaz at After6Media, I found out about a Photoshop plugin called Primatte, which is really effective at cutting out subjects shot against a greenscreen. It helped that the way Karli styled Joanne’s hair made it so there were no tiny stray hairs to mess around with. Using the Primatte plugin, it took about 3-4 mouse clicks to get the matte about 90% of the way I wanted it.

Second problem was finding the right adversary for our ninja. Since our assistant wasn’t willing to be hacked to pieces by our ninja, I thought about adding a samurai warrior in post to battle her. Unfortunately, samurai battle gear is a little hard to come by on Maui.

Went through different ideas – ninjas, zombies, nothing was sparking a good idea. I added the fire and background screen and left it at that for a while.

What got be back into working on this image was a tutorial from Videocopilot.net – a website dedicated to showing how to make all sorts of crazy cool effects in Adobe After Effects. One of the tutorials was how to disintegrate a person, like the effect seen in the movie “Blade”.

I went thru the tutorial and happened to be watching CSI at the same time. That’s when I got the idea for the skeleton – sort of a homage to the old stop motion Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies.

I used a CG skeleton, added the disintegration effect from After Effects, and the result can be seen above.