Posts Tagged ‘photoshoot’

Behind The Scenes : Planes and MiniCoopers

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….


Planes and MiniCoopers from Alan Matthews Photo on Vimeo.


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Behind The Scenes

August 6, 2010  |  Behind The Scenes  |  No Comments

Yeah I know that Behind The Scenes (BTS) videos are old hat for a lot photographers but hey – I finally got one. Anyway, thanks to Leila for whipping out her Mark II and shooting just a few seconds during the shoot with Heather at the garage.  I used it to try my hand at video editing also with Final Cut and I know all you guys with much better skills will laugh at me but I’m learning so send me your tips and critique!

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