In the Studio with Etienne Similien "Boss Shoot"

This week I had an incredible shoot with an up and coming model named Etienne Similien Model Mayhem Account. I rarely shoot male models but not by choice just because I haven't been contacted by a lot so I was super excited! Etieene had a great personality and was extremely easy to work with. We started out doing some basic head shots for his port. As always I shoot with 1 AlienBee B800 and 2 Neweer 180w strobes. 

I wanted to go into a little about this photo I got with him. Im still in the process of editing several photos but here is the 1st one from many. 

So the Etieene brought this cool vest and and bow tie and some sunglasses and boom immediately "Mafia Boss" came into my mind! Unfortunately I didn't have any cigars so I had him hold a flashlight and figured hey I'll go back in and composite in a cigar. 

So we shot this with the 2 Neweer Lights directly on the side with 1x1 softboxes. I had to take several shots just using the boxes  to make sure the light was where I wanted it to be. 

After several shots where the light was perfect on the sides giving me that edgy look and the middle of his face was completely in shadow I turned on the AlienBee which was above the camera about 8" from his face. I made a custom modifier by taking a 10 degree grid and using gaffer tape and taping it leaving about a 3/4"-1" gap where the light could come through. I like this modifier because it lets just a slit of light come through. 

The next step was to make sure that light wasnt overpowering the side lights. As you can see the reflection in this picture from the modifier. 

You have to keep the modifier close so the light will stay thin. I've learned the farther away it is the wider the light becomes so hes about 8-10 inches from the light which is still rather far.

The final image I decided to use was shot at 80mm with the Canon 6D 24-105mm lens. My setting, as they always are in studio, were ISO 100, F8, 1/160 shutter speed. I never change my setting I only change the output of the lights. The following are the original photo before editing and some behind the scenes photos to show the setup.

As always if you have any questions please contact me at Matt@PhotoDayography.com and visit my website www.PhotoDayography.com.

I will post a followup blog about the retouching on this and a couple other pictures from our shoot.

~Matt~

Light Painting ooo la la

So I'm on a new kick! And it's called light painting. It's really awesome. I saw some cool pictures done by some people and I started to think. My creative side came out and I pondered "could I do this as a portrait?" So I answered myself as I always do and started brain storming. I have this picture in my head of what I want to do. The downfall has been trying to convince a model to test it out with me but fear not! I've finally found a model and we are going out to shoot! I will post BTS photos and Final Images and do some post on the retouching part of it soon so stay tuned! In the meantime here are some light painting examples if you aren't familiar with it.

Is Photography Dead?

 One of the biggest questions amateur photographers ask everyday is, “is photography dead?”. Many believe that with the invention and lowering cost of technology and professional equipment is is easier now than ever to be a quote on quote photographer. The general population of clients see their friends and family members who have a DSLR cameras as being good enough to take their maternity photos or engagement photos and even sometimes even their wedding photos. This creates a deficiency and problem for the entire industry. These, what I call “friendly photographers” produce very low quality unedited images that may please the client at that time but in ten years when technology and editing styles change they will look horrible and the client will most likely regret their decision.

However a lot of the blame has to be placed on the ever growing “cheapness” of consumers. It's been proven in studies that consumers would rather pay a much lower price for something then a higher price for a better product. With this economy price is everything.

 So why not change your prices?

  I've been asked this several times and have been laughed at by clients when I give them a quote for my work which was way over what they were expecting to pay, sometimes hundreds of dollars over.  Even after I tried to explain to them what the cost is for. I do this because the majority of people see photography as a photographer coming out and spending 1-2 hours and taking pictures and that's all they do. Then you tell them this service is going to cost them $800 (just pulled that figure out of my head). To them that seems way overpriced and in their minds they're thinking who do they know that owns a camera that will do it for $50. These are what I call simply “cheap clients”. And you aren't going to fix their cheap ways unless you are really good.  You have to think outside the box on how to explain your price.

Ideas

  Make your original quotes 20-30% more. And when they say that's a little to expensive for them, shoot them a deal and take 15% off or 20% whatever, you have 30% to work with. General psychology of marketing and sales will tell you people love to feel like they won, they got one over on you! This is prevalent in car sales. Read books on marketing and sales and educate yourself. The more your educate yourself the better you'll be.

If you are unable to sell to clients with your work quality or with your sales tactics, then yes is the answer to your question.  Photography as a business just might be dead for you. As the saying is in golf, “driving is for show but putting is for doe”, the same could be said in photography, “shooting models is for show but general clients are for doe”. Don't restrict yourself to one thing. Branch out and work events, weddings, etc. and do some modeling work on the side. I can almost guarantee you will not have a successful career in photography just shooting models unless you work really hard and make your name known. 

This is part one of the “Is photography dead” series. Stay tuned for part 2.

Tampa Trip #2

So it's my brothers bday this weekend so I headed over to tampa again. This time (along with celebrtating his bday) I wanted some downtown and some more skyline images but from a distance. My first night I stayed in "the hood" haha there was an establishment that will go unknown near it so I figured I would grace it with my presence since I havent been there in 2 years. Anyways, I went to ballice Point Park and got some awesome long distance daytime skyline shots, unfortunately it was not clear but hazy out so hopefully the pics turn out.

I took my laptop this week and for some reason I can't even look at my pics because they are so big or whatever so I had to go download Adobe Lightroom and I'm hoping once that downloads I'll be able to look at them. I use the Adobe cloud, because I'm not about to pay $3,000 for all that crap.

I just took some interesting architecture shots and look forward to tonight taking some night shots of downtown tampa. Pics to come soon.

Trip #1 to Tampa -Skyline and Hyde Park

So I traveled to Tampa this weekend with the intention of getting some cool skyline pictures. Luckily the bridge changed colors every 30 seconds and it's so bright down there you don't need anything more than a 15 second exposure. Here are a couple of the pics from the Platt Street Bridge.

There were so many cars passing us I decided to do a long exposure on the bridge we were standing on. 

The next night we went to Hyde Park, an upscale shopping area. We hung out until it was night. 

It was still busy with cars so I got this cool long exposure light trail. 

So this was my first trip. My next trip this weekend Im going downtown and taking night exposures of the building downtown.

Sushii Xhyvette Promotional Video

So like every photographer I look for ways I can make a little bit of money on the side. I had just gotten a ton of video equipment so I figured I'd give the model promotional video a try and Sushii was my test subject.

Portraits Part 2 - Gemma and Sushii

My first working opportunity with another human being  was with Gemma James. We were at my secret shooting spot in Melbourne beach and captured a couple cool pictures.  Heres a few

First off, people think you have to have all this thousands of dollars in equipment to have the ability to shoot a great photo. The 2 photo's I had a Nikon consumer DSLR like $400 and a $40 Reflector. That's it. That's why I loved shooting at the beach in the afternoon because you didn't need $5,000 in lights to get great shots! 

This shot was colored in lightroom as I'm sure you can tell. But I LOVE the detailed line down the side of her breast and arm pit. It gives it a 3 dimensional aspect and makes the photo pop! 

Pretty much the same pose just from a different angle. Now she is looking directly into the sunset light. Where you get that beautiful Orange glow and highlights instead of the typical white highlight from a flash or direct sunlight.  I always try to shoot at the beach either at sunrise or sunset. Usually I will start the shoot around 4pm depending on that stupid daylight savings time. I never shoot on the weekends at the beach or outdoors anywhere because there are too many people out that you have to photoshop out.

Gemma was a great first subject, she took direction well and knew how to give a look. Just like an actor, its all in the face. These girls who starve themselves to because they think it's in the body are whacko's. I'd take a great facial expression over a tight body any day. 

Ahh Sushii Xhyvette, one of my favorite models I've ever worked with. I've shot stills and did a promotional video with her. She is great and really has a thing for being a personality and letting that personality show in the picture. I shot her inside with LED lights and natural light. 

This one shot was one of the best portrait shots I have ever taken in my opinion. It show sexyness, class, and a little bit of the subjects personality. I did some color correction to get the green overtone to it but the pose and expression speaks for itself. I used one 500W LED light on her right and I had a large window on her left which let in a great amount of natural light. I used a canon 7D for this shoot. 

Nudity is overrated. Yes you heard me. I strongly believe nudity is simply easy. Anyone can go online and see a pretty girl naked but teasing is much hotter. I like doing implied nudity because it lets the viewers do what their used to doing... using their imaginations. I've always like this pose due to the angles and the use of ones imagination. I think the use of a red silk sheet really stood out to.  

This picture I think depicts the model more than any other, with her spiked braclet, boots, multi-colored hair, etc. T\I've done this pose several times but like I said before Sushii was able to pull it off more than others.

Another Teaser but this one I loved so much because it has a great shadow to light ratio. I love color so I try in every picture to bring out as much of the color as possible. In this picture I made the pink stand out using lightroom.