I came upon this fantastic website, FStoppers.com, which features Behind the Scenes videos from photographers and videographers. It was created by Patrick Hall and Lee Morris, and it seems like such a great resource for professionals and amateurs alike. I love the fact that this online community is built upon sharing knowledge and experience and is bringing a sense of community amongst creatives.
I wrote Lee and offered my existing BTS videos to post on their site. He politely turned them down, citing they were not informational enough. He then suggested I enter a contest they were holding. I thought, what a great way to give back to the industry that has given so much to my life and have a chance to win a camera that would help me continue to keep producing videos like this. Doing my Prep To Post Workshops has enabled me to reach out to photographers, but FStoppers would allow me to reach out worldwide. I had already planned on producing content like this, but Lee pretty much kick started it for me.
FStoppers.com is free to join, and again, it is a great resource to learn from other photographers around the world. If you would like to vote for my entry, you must first be a registered member.
Last weekend I traveled to Virginia to teach my Prep To Post Beauty Photography workshop at Studio 400. This was my second time doing the workshop at my good friend Luis Aragon’s studio, but this trip just felt different. Naturally many things had changed in the course of two years - this time would be the first time Jade and I really traveled together, the actual workshop had evolved with better content, we now had great sponsors contributing to it - lots of things had changed. I kept thinking about this in my head as Luis drove us around for the four days we were in Virginia trying to pinpoint why the trip felt, well, just better.
Then it hit me. I felt more like a tourist this time around. The last time I was in Virginia, we stayed in a hotel adjacent to the studio. I wasn’t able to appreciate being in a different place. I basically went from the hotel to the studio and back. This time around Luis was gracious enough to have us stay at their home where we experienced a longer drive to the studio and we were able to see more of Virginia. Having Jade with me also helped me appreciate being in a different place because it was her first time there. I was able to feed off her energy of discovery.
I was so inspired by the change of scenery, I couldn’t wait to shoot. We quickly put a shoot together at Luis’ gorgeous backyard the day before the workshop. Kathy was kind enough to do makeup and even their kids got in on the fun. Luis pulled some lighting gear from his studio, but in the end, I decided to shoot with ambient light because it was so beautiful the way it was lighting the scene. These shots of Jade were taken right at sunset with a Canon 5D Mark II and a 50mm F1.4. I metered both the background and Jade with a Sekonic L-358 to arrive at my exposure, which was 1/640th @ F2 at 400 ISO. I really love how painterly the 50mm F1.4 makes the background when shot wide open, and I went with a slightly higher ISO to give a little tooth to the image.
Often times our daily environment becomes mundane to us because our eyes simply become numb to it. At my workshops I always talk passionately about finding inspiration, and how important that is to the creative process - it is the basis of creative motivation. Traveling to new places is one of the best ways to spark inspiration in your work - so long as you open your eyes to it. Whenever you travel, whether it be to visit family in the neighboring state or to an exotic tropical location, take the time to be a tourist. Allow your eyes and mind to feast on the new scenery and it will do wonders for your creativity.
Behind the Scenes footage of a Wet Seal 2010 summer campaign
Location, location, location - you hear this all the time in the film and photo industry in reference to the importance of having a great location to shoot in to produce great photos. I disagree. I think it’s what you do at a given location that makes a photo great.
Shooting for Wet Seal these past 3 years has given me some great opportunities with my photography - I was able to build a great lifestyle portfolio and jumpstart my celebrity portfolio with the shoots they have produced. We’ve shot at Santa Monica Pier, Hollywood High School, and Laguna Beach - all great locations that make it fairly easy to find your shots. We didn’t always have that luxury, however. In fact, we started shooting Wet Seal’s lifestyle look right outside their corporate office in Foothill Ranch. When budgets are tight, we have to make do with the locations we are given. As photographers, we are responsible for the image of the clients we shoot for, and of course we need to deliver the best images possible to best represent their brand. I take pride in being able to take on a challenge such as this - giving the illusion of being in a different place than where you really were.
This last campaign was again shot in a small grassy area that borders the side of their corporate office. I joke with the Art Director that we have now come full circle.
Knowing that I needed to work around a number of distracting and unattractive elements such as industrial buildings and streets, I had to shoot wide open to give the images a shallow depth of field. I shot these with a Canon 5D and a 50mm F1.4 at F2. Another variable I had to deal with was the position of the sun throughout the day, and having to shoot under an ever changing lighting situation is difficult, especially having to shoot midday where the lighting is quite unflattering. We brought an Elinchrom Octabank and some Speedotron gear to create a fairly consistent lighting scenario to work with. Not having a power outlet to plug into makes it a challenge to run electronics, so we also brought a Honda EU-2000 to power everything from lighting to computer workstation and some much needed music. One of the most important things I bring on location with me is Think Tank Photo’sPixel Sunscreen which makes viewing images on my Macbook Pro easier under direct sunlight. Having all these tools at my disposal and an awesome team helped transform the location we were given into some great photographs.
At least once a year, I try to produce a fashion shoot at The Joshua Tree National Park. An immense and varied desert location and it is one of those places where you simply point your camera at any direction and it looks amazing.
I put together a small team of one model, one artist providing both makeup and hair, a fashion stylist, and a photo assistant. I wanted to produce images that were classic, not overly trendy, and would remain relevant for longer than a season. I also planned on using two lenses for the shoot - a 50mm and a 180mm. Using a 50 would allow me to get just enough environment in the shot without being overly wide, and the 180 would be great for beauty shots and full length shots which would show depth and I really wanted to make it different from the previous outing to Joshua Tree where I had shot everything with a 35. The shots you see here were taken in April 2009, a bit off season to avoid all the usual tourist traffic to the park.
So over the weekend what started as an idle tweet by Mark Jobson turned into a 3 ways tweetfest with Mark, Sean Armenta and myself working our way through a Photoshop ABC and I thought it might be quite good fun to put it up here to show that we actually managed it! And I don’t think we cheated too much!
Below is an edited version of the transcript, (though it hasn’t been altered too much)
Feel free to disagree with us, this isn’t supposed to be a definitive list or even the best list, this was the list we came up with whilst bantering over twitter… if we’d been in the pub then I’m sure it would have been heated!
Mark Jobson: Seriously considering teaching my 5yr old how to retouch…
James Lightbown: Keith Clouston is looking for retouchers if you get your 5 yr old up to speed quick enough! ;-)
Mark Jobson: Scary thing is though… she seems to be genuinely interested. Right. A is for… Adjustment Layer lol
James Lightbown: haha We’ve got to do a #photoshopabc … B is for Brushes
Wet Seal came to my studio to shoot their 2010 Model Search open call video and get some behind the scenes footage of me shooting Brittany, last year’s winner.
Congratulations to Paul Mitchell Hairstylist Ashley Hall for her nomination in the Student category of the North American Hairstyling Awards. We shot this late last year and I always hate waiting for the results! I hope she wins her category at the ceremony in July!
Had a great shoot yesterday for the Wet Seal Back to School campaign. Mary booked Hollywood High School for our location and we pretty much had the run of the place. I can’t wait to see these images in use!
