Had a wonderful time last week clicking off a bunch of looks for friend/hair stylist Akemi Tarembuchi as part of a project for diPietro Todd Salon. Such a smooth and enjoyable experience pushing photons while keeping shadows. I find it tremendously rewarding to have someone appreciate your work pick up on the little things that I feel are important. And it’s nice to have them show up with a bunch of awesome girls from Look and Stars and an awesome creative team. As Akemi is so tremendously busy, the project deadline is not for another couple of months, so I’ll have to keep the goodness under wraps until then. Much wild and wonderful hair was had and it was lovely to light. And hopefully this will be the first of many more fun and interesting projects to come!
And thanks to a quick referral, I truly appreciated the wonderful help of Michelle McCarron in jockeying lights and flags and nets around. It always makes quite a difference to have attentive and capable hands on set … it makes the results sooo much better.
I couldn’t resist submitting another shot to Melissa Rodwell’s lovely and informative Fashion Photography Blog. (And I saw that another prior selectee had snagged a second week in the spotlight so I figured it couldn’t hurt.) You only gain when you take risks and this one paid off with another selection as shot of the week!
The shoot came about as we connected with Andreas Hinteregger, a hair stylist on a world tour to develop his wild hair portfolio and meet photographers. (He’s still on his trek – now in NYC – so find him and shoot with him if you can!) A few email back and forth and we were locked and loaded.
Our studio was in a horrible, no shooting in there, state of remodel and we were forced into our satellite stage (aka our garage). The smaller space limited some of our choices on set design and lighting. We had decided on a very H.R. Giger inspired look (with a sprinkling of Burton) for the concept. Stacey did an awesome job of pulling together a dynamic set out of found fabric and tubing from Scrap and Builder’s Resource that went up easy and could take an interesting shape. It also allow me to place lights behind it and give it a subtle glow that we could control to our desires.
This time we had the striking Sarah Jane from Ford … all 5’10 of her (and at 15 years old nonetheless). The tone on the set was very playful and we were able to take the concepts further into the fun zone. We had been kicking around this huge lengths of spirally hair, tying them to the set, and were getting into the “what else” stage. Stacey led the charge to start working the angle to get the hair to come toward camera (something we were all envisioning, but not how). Good teams produce great images.
On makeup, we talked ex-local Asheley Joy Beck into paying the Bay Area another visit and plying her mad skillz. She had a deft approach in matching the models and set to bring the concept together. She also saved the day for another of the concepts – seen in an earlier post – by coming up with an alternative to a look-essential bald cap (damn allergies). She’s welcome back anytime.
And Eirik Aswang provided the deliciously studded recycled rubber and grommet creations to cover the flesh and accent the concept. You can see in the image that the garment had these awesome wing bone stubs sticking out the back. It’s all in the details.
Enough talk … let’s image.
Schnykies! I dropped off one of the photos of Soo Joo from Ford the other day on the Fashion Photography Blog and … this morning there was an lovely email from the very talented Melissa Rodwell saying that we had been awarded the FPB Picture of the Week!
This is a wonderful recognition for the work and talents of a superb team. Dawn Tunnell came down from Seattle with gobs of hair and great makeup ideas (assisted by Jihyun Kim). Mash that together with the colorful gowns of Cory Tran and plop that in front of Stacey’s amazing set. Lauren Stocker was on hand to help shape and tweak the lighting and fan fog. Pick a nice 85mm portrait lens on a Nikon D3X at 1/200 and about f11 and you get (after a bit of retouching) …
The lighting setup was a Profoto beauty dish with grid as the key off to camera right. A back light raking from the same side both the curved willow and Soo Joo. Camera left saw a 5′ Octabank with crate turned way low to expand and hold the knee. Plus another strobe above and camera left backlighting the fog and catching her just a touch.
We had a total blast this day (also with Sydney from Stars in the picture in the previous). It’s nice when a little inspiration can go a long way.
Here’s another shot straight off of Stacey’s busy little fingers. Lovely work all around.
Another image from the photo shoot with Micaela that turned our great. This time in the series of tubes.
Micaela in hat and corset combo.
Now that we’ve a little time to focus on post production, Stacey’s been able to get in and work on some of our recent photo excursions. Here’s the first couple of photos from the shoot on the dirty / gritty half of the set she started for Aaron and Anders last spot. We had some really great setups combining Stacey’s efforts with Allison Cohen‘s wardrobe and Jiyhun Kim‘s hair and make up. And helping out on the lighting side is Julio Duffoo as the 1st and Tim Daw as 2nd.
Two photos today featuring our wonderful models Mecaela and Anyssa who really brought game to the set and made some wonderful images.
Micaela models a corset and coat combination
Anyssa featuring necklace and pearls
More to come soon …
