Technique
This week, I had a full-day shoot with Xtracycle, a bicyle manufacturer based in the Bay Area. This was a fairly typical product shoot, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to discuss how my commercial jobs work.
I received a call from the marketing director at Xtracycle a little over a week before the shoot. He had some questions about my work and the studio then wanted to know the price for a 1-day shoot. I asked him how he found me early in the conversation. He Googled studios in Tucson, where I rank very well.
He wanted catalog-style images of his 7-foot bicycles shot on a white Cyclorama. I explained that I create images and price based on usage, so we discussed his web needs and that he would not be putting the images in a print catalog at this time. We discussed his needs and determined that he could have the Post Processing done in-house to save substantially on my fees. I quoted him a discounted price for 200 full-bicycle images and we scheduled a date.
The following day, I forwarded a copy of the contract for him to review and sign.
Later that week, I spent a few hours looking at competitors' websites as well as my client's, reviewing the shortcomings of his existing image set and learning industry standards for his product.
Three days before the shoot, I confirmed with the client that the shoot was on and then secured my assistant and planned my studio prep time and testing.
One day before the shoot, I closed the studio for cleaning and preparation. I cleaned the studio top-to-bottom and organized my equipment. I stocked the icebox.
I tested my lighting concepts by setting up my own bicycle for a shoot and verifying that the studio lighting was exactly what I was envisioning. After finalizing my own lighting preferences, I marked everything with gaffer'st tape and sanbagged my stands. Then, I painted the Cyclorama.
When I shoot tethered with an AD on site, I customize the white balance and calibrate my laptop monitor so that the image looks spectacular in Camera Control Pro. Once the paint dried, I shot reference photos and fine-tuned my white balance.
Morning of the shoot - I arrived an hour before the shoot and got myself organized and briefed my assistant on the details and explained my lighting approach.
Client arrived at 9:00 am, and client, AD, assistant, and I unload the equipment truck of bicycles and accessories into studio. We discuss the shot list. We position a test bicycle, choosing the lightest color so that we can verify how it looks on white. After review, we decide to make some slight changes - client thought contrast between highlight and shadow of crossbar was a bit high, so I raised the overhead softbox and added some fill card. We retest and are ready for production within 10 minutes of rolling the first bike into the cyc.
The next 8 hours are all about shooting multiple bikes in countless configurations with accessories.
We finish by photographing a dozen or more accessories unmounted. This was done on a tabletop setup on 40x60 foamcore.
I deliver the camera-raw images immediately via a personalized USB Flash drive engraved with my website and phone number.
After the client left, I documented the locations and settings of all of my equipment so I am able to reproduce the exact look for their next model year, then I tore down my lights and painted the Cyclorama.
For this shoot, I used my Nikon D90 tripod-mounted with 30lb of sandbags to weigh the setup down. Shooting tethered, the AD was able to approve each image and record filenames to match his spreadsheet. All images were photographed with my 60mm Nikkor lens for its legendary sharpness. Because we were shooting multiple angles, I chose f/16 for all images.
Total time invested in this 1-day commercial photo shoot: 20-24 hours. Any idea what's missing from this time? I didn't do any post processing on the 225 images that I delivered to the client. That can greatly increase the time investment and is entirely invisible to the client. The cleaner you shoot, the less processing, but there will almost always be some -at least a few hours.
What else is missing from this quote -- website updates, maintenance, SEO, direct marketing, networking, social media marketing, etc. etc. Cost of doing business.
That's why I can't simply charge a 'day rate.' It's not fair to me or the client. If I was charging a day rate, would I have spent as much time preparing for the shoot or would I have spent the first two hours of billable time figuring out my lighting? If I worked slower, would the shoot have gone to two days and I would have doubled my money? These are questions i don't even want to think about. I plan, prepare, work efficiently, and provide a great product to my clients. They are paying for my photographs, not my time.
I had the opportunity to meet and photograph former WBE World Champion, Charles "Showboat" Davis for the Old School Gym.
The main theme of the OSG photo shoot was to show dark and moody images with an empowering "this could be you" for the prospective gym client. I didn't want to obscure the championship and toughness with too much individual personality.
This image was very simple. I opposed two lights and stood him just in front of them. It created this tough looking portrait with a dark, moody feel.
In this image, I chose to break out the beauty dish. I love the beauty dish for its non-standard lighting. With the dark spot in the middle, it has a unique fall-off characteristic with a smoothness you don't get in other light modifiers.
This image was shot with a simple overhead beauty dish, notice the catchlight in the eyes and hot spot on the head. The dish was just out of view and close in to Charles. I wanted an old-school boxing look to this image that made the viewer feel as though we are in the ring. The overhead light is intended to be reminiscent of the dimly lit old boxing rings with a single lamp over the center of the ring. Reminiscent, but not identical. The beauty dish is a softer light than a bulb with reflector, but I wanted the slightly softer and smoother shadow lines.
My beauty dish is one of my favorite modifiers -- and I don't shoot much 'beauty' work. Don't let the name of the modifier deter you or make you feel as though you must use it based on what you shoot -- it's a great light modifier that has its own unique lighting style. Experiment with one and see what you think... hit me up in the comments with your own experiences.
Mitt work with Coach Valdez. I wanted to get some classic looking workout images, so I set up two lights opposed to eachother and asked them to progress with their workout. As they circled, I would shoot as the lighting angles were right and the action was exciting. Yes, I had a low success rate, but was able to capture a number of intense sparring images like this one.
I am often asked by other photographers about my lighting setup. Most photographers find a lighting setup or style they like and stick with it for most everything they shoot. I never take this one-size fits all approach and engineer the lighting based on the qualities of the subject I intend to feature as well as the limitations of the subject, equipment, and conditions.
This image of Brittany is a perfect example of engineering the light for the situation.
This image was preconcieved - I wanted dramatic lighting but I didn't want a dated 'edge' that is very popular right now. I love that edgie look, but it doesn't flatter this beatiful young woman and doesn't necessarily work with the cowgirl old-west theme very well either.
I've had many requests to create a walk-through on the processing of this image. I decided to
recreate and do screenshots of each step.
Here is the original image, basically straight from the camera.
Here, I simply removed the reflector and the trees and ground from the next image.
The next installment in my series is an image of Justin Current, an athlete and model based in Phoenix. I wanted to create a very athletic image with a doomsday, "escape from New York" kind of theme. We chose my favorite Grunge location, but a different section - this row of concrete pillars was perfect to create the height and illustrate his athleticism. Here is the final result:
Here is the Original image, Straight from the camera. Photographers will notice something very different about this image than most every other on the site. This is an entirely natural light exposure. I used a 4x8 v-card as fill, which you can see camera left, but no other supplemental lighting was used. I shot a couple of images with a rim light but it really detracted from the impact of this image, so I decided to go existing light! I am laying on the ground shooting up with a fisheye lens to create the illusion of extreme height.
The second image in this composite was shot a few minutes later from the same location with a short telephoto lens. This dark OD military ops helicopter is one of a number of cool choppers that take off from Pinal Airpark, an old CIA Air Command Center and military training base for Apache helicopter pilots and Special Ops paratroopers. The area is also rich in Border Patrol helicopters. I had hoped for an Apache to fly by, but this Army Bell 206 chopper was perfect for the paramilitary theme.
This sky from an outtake of a shoot in Elgin, AZ was used - overlayed on the background and toned down to look like a night sky.
Together, these separate photographs make a powerful image. If you are interested in a step-by-step how-to, send me an email. If I get enough interest, I will pour it all out for everyone to see.
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