Here’s a behind the scenes look at a beauty editorial I produced for Zooey Magazine with my good friend and makeup artist Sharon Tabb.

Often times fashion shoots will take on a life of its own, evolving from the original idea into something completely unexpected. In this RECAP of a fashion editorial I did for Bello Magazine, I talk about just that.

As with most editorial jobs that come across my table, the initial concept comes from the magazine’s art director. Sometimes they have a very specific art direction while other times they may just have a very general idea of what they want to do. For this particular shoot, Jamie Breuer wanted to use a typical Hollywood neighborhood as the setting for a spring fashion editorial. He also had a good idea of the clothing he was going to pull for the shoot, so it made it easy to pre-visualize how the shots would look. We then finished organizing the shoot by booking the model, hair, and makeup.

In the days leading into the shoot, I thought about lighting design, keeping in mind we would be shooting mostly outdoors for a spring story. There were a couple of shots we wanted to do indoors which presented the challenge of having those shots fit in with the others. I decided to make use of the sunlight as much as possible and use an Alien Bee for fill. We were aiming to do 8-12 looks that day in several different locations within the neighborhood so I wanted to be as mobile as possible. This is another shoot where I thought it best to shoot to the card rather than tether in an effort to keep the crew small and the equipment minimal.

I wanted to experiment a bit with the lighting, so I brought my gels with me. I thought it might be a good idea to inject some color into the shots using light. For some shots it worked, while others not so much. All in all the gelled shots weren’t too much of a departure from the other shots in the story, so it didn’t cause an issue for the art direction. I found myself taking more risks creatively with this shoot more than usual. I’m not really sure why, but it just felt right at the time. I played with some cross star filters and stacking ND’s and shooting through natural gobos. We were moving at a pretty good pace so I wasn’t too worried about running behind on time.

After the shoot once I was able to sit down and review the shots, I wasn’t really stoked on how everything turned out. There were some shots I was definitely excited about, but overall as a story, it didn’t really feel like it meshed well together. I went through the selects with Jamie and even after we narrowed everything down to the final 8 or so and I did the initial retouch on them, I was still on the fence about these images. That was until Jamie emailed me with a brilliant mockup of what would turn out to save this story for me. He thought about doing mirror images for all the shots in the story, which I absolutely loved. I had never thought about doing something graphical in that way, though I have seen other images like that. After playing around with it myself, I went back and forth with Jamie until we arrived at the final images you see here. I loved that he came up with that concept in post and that I was able to take it further by cutting and joining different parts of the image and really play with symmetry in an otherwise asymmetrical image.

That’s what I love most about shooting fashion – it’s such a collaborative effort by everyone involved and what you end up with almost always surpasses your initial preconceived idea.

Many thanks to Dondee Quincena for his assistance on this shoot.

Early this year I was assigned by Newport Beach Magazine to photograph an editorial feature on Elizabeth An, owner of AnQi Gourmet Bistro and Noodle Bar in South Coast Plaza. I was to take an environmental portrait of her as well as some interior shots of the restaurant. The purpose of this RECAP is to walk you through the process I go through when dealing with a fairly simple editorial assignment.

The first thing I do is some research on the subject, in this case, Elizabeth An. By doing a simple Google search, I can get some background information about her and the restaurant; most likely I will find some previous press photos as well as existing interior photographs of the venue. I was able to find a few articles about her which gives me insight to help me best capture who she is as a person. I was also able to find some press photos of her to give me an idea of how to best light and photograph her. The same process applies to capturing the ambience of AnQi. Luckily, the restaurant is local to me, so I am also able to drop by and get an actual visual of the place before the day of the shoot so I can ascertain my equipment needs.

During my initial conversation with the magazine’s art director, I am able to figure out what our call time is at the venue as well as how much time I have with the subject; two very important pieces of information that will further dictate how I approach this shoot. This is very different from doing fashion editorials in the studio because you won’t have all day to set things up in a controlled environment and you don’t have the luxury of time. I also try to get a shot list from the magazine to give me an idea of what shots need to be accomplished in the timeframe I am given. I always try to give the magazine more options than they ask for, so this means doing a couple of extra shots.

Once I felt I had all the information I needed, I began to plan for the shoot. This entails booking assistants and figuring out what gear to bring on location. I try to shoot tethered as much as possible, but because we would be shooting while the restaurant was in business and we had to shoot different locations within the venue in a short amount of time, I decided it would be best to shoot to the card. This would give us the smallest footprint possible and allow us to remain mobile without the need to set up a digital workstation every 5-10 minutes. I never want to be in a situation where we become an intrusion to someone else’s space. My goal is to be in and out of there and have them feel as if nothing ever happened. Quick and painless is a good way of putting it. The restaurant itself is quite large in terms of space. This is something I definitely wanted to capture for the viewer. It turns out that Elizabeth is very much into fashion and they actually have a permanent runway in the restaurant because they do fashion shows every Friday. The decor is quite warm, and while the venue is large, I also wanted to depict a very warm and inviting ambience. These notions would help me plan out my choice of lighting and camera equipment.

I used a 5D MarkII to shoot the assignment. Because it was to be an environmental portrait of Elizabeth, I had to use a lens that would keep her prominent in the frame while allowing some background to show through. I chose to use a 50mm 1.2 to photograph her in the main dining area. I opened up quite a bit to give focus to her while still being able to showcase her beautiful restaurant. Since I was doing interior shots of the restaurant for the article, it wasn’t of great importance that I get so much in focus for the portrait. I used an Alien Bee fitted with a large sized softbox to light Elizabeth, which as I’ve mentioned many times before I don’t really like to use for lighting people. There are always exceptions! I believe you should use whatever is best suited for the project, which in this case was a softbox for a couple of reasons. It is easily collapsible, easy to carry and it provides a soft and directional light that would match the existing lighting of the restaurant. This is very important when it comes to lighting decisions and design because you want the look of the photograph to be as natural as possible. You want to make your subject stand out but at the same time belong in their environment. Capturing interiors also means you will be dealing with a mixed lighting scenario, and you have to decide whether to correct it or work with it. In this case, I wanted a very warm and inviting mood, so it was okay to color balance for the strobe and let the ambient lighting go warm. Before I actually started shooting Elizabeth I took a moment to talk to her about some of the things I’ve read about her life, particularly about the time she spent in the Philippines, which is where my family is originally from. This helped me to establish a rapport with her quickly and gave her a sense of familiarity which resulted in her being much more relaxed in front of the camera. It can be very disconcerting for people to be plopped in front of a camera and for you to start banging away at the shutter button. Shooting people is a very personal thing, and you should always take the time to make your subject more comfortable.

For the interior shots of the restaurant I chose to utilize the existing lighting and mounted the camera on a tripod so I could drag the shutter and let everything bleed in nicely. I shot mostly with a 50mm 1.2 and brought out a fisheye for a couple of shots as options to give to the magazine. I wasn’t really sure they would go for a fisheye look, but lo and behold, they ended up running one of those shots. You just never know what they will like in the end and I’m glad I took that risk. All the shots were completed in under an hour including setup and breakdown.

Many thanks to Dondee Quincena for his help on this shoot.

I was invited by Sekonic to write an article for their Five Photography Tips section of their blog. I decided to do it on studio lighting. In the article I talk about studio safety, keeping it simple, and the importance of using a light meter. Check out the entire article HERE.

An investment is only wasted if you don’t use it. With that said, I am assuming you are referring to a 50″ x 50″ softbox? That is a pretty big light, which is a nice thing to use if you want to replicate window light. Your approach to photography and lighting is very much a personal thing, so there never is a right or wrong answer. Like I said, the only wasted investment is the one you don’t use. Personally, I don’t like to use softboxes to light people, except if they are to be used as hair lights and rim lights. I prefer to use beauty dishes and silver umbrellas and other open light sources for people because the quality of light tends to be more crisp. Again, that is my approach to lighting and is by no way the only way or the right way to light necessarily.

I definitely try to use some sort of camera support when shooting beauty especially when using the 180mm macro which is a pretty hefty lens. We have a Cambo studio stand at the studio which is really meant for medium and large format rigs but I do love using it. I also have a Bogen tripod that I use when on location.

I used a Speedotron 22″Beauty Dish and a C-stand.

I don’t think anything in photography is ever inexpensive. There’s a running joke that you have to be rich before you can become a photographer. Anyway, if you are mechanically inclined, you can take an existing theatrical spotlight, gut it out and convert it to a strobe. I have seen it done with an Alien Bee and an Elinchrom moonlight. It won’t perform the exact same as a factory built unit, but it will get you close. You have to understand that the flash tube has to sit upright in the housing in order to properly interact with the focusing lenses. By simply installing a flash head to the rear of the housing, you are not completely taking advantage of the way the lenses are built. 

The large black and white panels are called flats, or V-flats. They are basically just 4′x8′ sheets of foam core which you can get from art supply stores, theatrical supply outlets and some professional photography stores. You can also find them online if you google foam core. Flags are usually in reference to smaller panels up to 4′x4′ floppies and usually mount to grip heads.

We discussed how we would accomplish this over phone calls and emails. Rather than just try to make Jade look like the actresses, we thought it would be better to actually try and recreate scenes from their most memorable roles. After some research, we chose to recreate Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, and Liza Minelli in Cabaret. This was an added challenge for me, because I would have to try to duplicate the lighting scenarios from those scenes, and I was looking forward to it.

Jamie Breuer and Sienree Du came on board to help us with this fun project. Jamie pulled some vintage wardrobe pieces and Sienree created the hair looks for the shoot, right down to the Cleopatra braids and even cut a wig with a Mickey Mouse bang for the Liza makeover.

To match the lighting, I used a few different light sources including an old Mole Richardson 2K fresnel spot. I used an adaptor to fit my old Mamiya m645 onto my Canon body to give the images a slightly different feel. I honestly did not do very much in post production because I wanted to stay true to the editorial being a makeup transformation, rather than using photoshop to do any type of facial reconstruction. Therefore the images you see here of Jade have only been cleaned up of small blemishes and color corrected. Mathias and Sienree get 100% credit for Jade’s transformations.

I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this great project. It really pushed my creativity and resourcefulness and it was amazing to see the skillful work of Mathias and Sienree and how hair and makeup can be so transformative. Many thanks to Dondee Quincena and Wayne Hayes for their help on this shoot. Here are a few behind the scenes snaps of the shoot, and I will be doing a BTS video of the shoot very soon!

UPDATE
I wrote a blog post on PREP TO POST on how I lit this editorial complete with lighting diagrams. Be sure to check that out!