Recently, I had a photoshoot with 2 different girls in the same town. Montgomery is about a 1 hour drive from me and I knew that I wanted to split the day in half by shooting one girl in the morning and one in the afternoon before I had to drive home to Birmingham. Always I’m trying to think of something completely new and different regarding situations or props. Sometimes I get inspired by looking at pictures of the models or the subject to determine what we will do. A shoot like this is a bit different than an assignment from a magazine. When a magazine asks for me to shoot someone they are profiling they send me out and leave it up to me to do a portrait. In those cases I just have to figure it out when I arrive but in this case I planned ahead.
I have connections all over with lots and frequently cars are a good thing. I knew from past shoots that my friend who is a member of the British Motor Club that perhaps that is where I could start on finding someone in another town and sure enough that’s what I did. I saw on their site a guy with a vintage convertible Porsche but he had moved to another town and unavailable. But, the club president referred me to Mr. Diaz who didn’t have a Porsche but mini-coopers PLUS an airplane he willingly offered for us to use.
My assistant, John David, and I headed out early and met up with Mr. Diaz and Janna (our first shoot). One thing to notice in the video is how I made use of one location to get multiple shots and looks. Of course I was in a 1950′s era airplane hanger with a 2010 Cirrus that happened to have an old yellow bike and some cool lockers but my point is that if you really think through a shoot and a location you can achieve multiple shots from one location.
Sadly, the battery ran down on the video camera by the afternoon and we didn’t get any footage of Haden in the alley shoot. I climbed up on top of the roof of an adjacent building (thanks to Jamie for leading the way) where I tore my jeans (hey thanks guys for not pointing that out to me!) on the way up or down – can’t remember which. Check below for some of those photos.
Another lesson for photographers – while shooting Haden’s photos in the residential neighborhood in and around the mini-cooper we saw a lady walking with her enormous Bulldog! It so happens that I don’t meet a stranger and I’m pretty proactive (some say cocky but that’s another story) so I said hello and asked if we could borrow her pooch! The dog turned out to be a big handful but Haden handled it well and I think we got at least a couple of worthy shots. My advice: try anything that comes to mind!
Now, on to the video! John David did a great job shooting this on the 7D (thank you Canon!) and I edited it and had a great time doing so….
The simplicity of a face is lost many times with a color portrait. Now, I know that sounds counter-intuitive but when you remove color and you’re left with black and white and shades of gray the drama comes out in portraits. Black and white can be formal or informal. I have had the pleasure of shooting many interesting people and have always had a love for black and white so I thought about merging the two. In the new digital world there is much attention to color and color management that the art of black and white seems lost somehow – and if we are honest b&w may seem a little too simple for many. With b&w there is still subject and composition to make it either interesting or not. I just love b&w portraits and I hope you do as well.
D. Watts was a pleasure to shoot with because she made it easy and a few other things made this shoot go well. 1) She has a striking appearance with her blond hair style and the dress she picked suited her well. She accessorized very well with bracelets and jewelry. She has spent some time in front of the camera which does help. 2) The time of day was great. It was 6PM and the evening sun was nice and warm. 3) The sunflowers was a very nice setting to match not only her style (personality and music) but the paisley dress also fit nicely. 4) Assistants. Jeff and Brad, helped a lot on this. If you will check out the napkin diagram below you will see how it worked. Brad held my scrim to filter the direct sun off of Denise while Jeff reflected the sun back on her using foam core essentially creating a “Denise Sandwich.” If you notice you can see the left side of her face you can see the foam core reflection. I shot with a 50mm prime opened pretty wide and the rest is a bit of Photoshop retouching with color and contrast. I added some design elements to it with brush swirls, etc.
Also check her tunes out on iTunes…
The Callerbones Boys
The Callerbones seem lost in this portrait but I can assure you they are not lost in more ways than one. Focusing on their craft – their art – is paramount to their calling as they weave energy and determination in with cool sounds and interesting rhythms. I already knew Josh but met Caleb, Wes and Kevin at the shoot. I felt their vibe would fit nicely with a VW Bus and thanks to my new friend for loaning us the 1974 prop. I think it helped the feeling quite well.
Now I’ll include a couple more of the “pipe” which a couple of them seem to enjoy as well as good poetry…mate.
Kevin & Caleb