Daron in Media
Technique
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.
I recently had the occasion to fulfill the vision of a band -- they wanted promotional images that matched their sound and vision. Dark, Moody, and urban in a post-industrial armageddonish sort ofway...
So, I processed a selected image in a number of styles and presented it for their review.
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