Photo Shoot with guitarist Shane Carling

I had the pleasure this past weekend of photographing Shane Carling for his upcoming website and CD. This guy is really amazing and you must check out his performance of "Dust" on YouTube which he played for us live during the shoot. You can also find out more about Shane on his Facebook page. Shane was introduced to me by Pirabalini, a great stylist that I have worked with before and who was also the creative behind the outfits for this shoot. Rounding out the team was Kyla Charney who was in charge of makeup. We had such a fun time during the whole shoot and there was just such great chemistry with the team. Here's a small sample of the shots from that day. Only the one at the top of this blog was really edited in Photoshop. The rest below were pretty much as they were shot. I kept the lighting very simple but did mix a little bit of natural light along with flash. I shot most of these with a 50mm 1.4 wide open.

This shot above is one of my favourites because the depth of focus is so shallow. Notice how Shane's face and hands on the neck of the guitar are in focus but his shirt and vest are blurry.

Zuka Shoot with Ali and Samantha

As promised here are some more final edits from the shoot that I did a few weeks ago with Ali from Lexington Models and Samantha from JK Models. The makeup and hair was done by Natalie Jean who happens to also be a fantastic model with John Casablancas and the jewelry was from Kari Staten of Zuka Artful Accessories. This was shot in a park near Kari's studio where she designs and makes all of her wonderful creations. The photo shoot started around the mid afternoon and the sun was perfect. Not too high in the sky to create unflattering shadows and not too blindingly low for the models. I stuck with pretty much just a big reflector for these and used it as either a fill or as a blocker. Here are some shots from that day starting with Samantha.

In the shot below where Ali is lying on the grass I actually took off the reflector cover and just used the translucent fabric as a shade. Open shade created this way is actually a very beautiful light and is very soft. I shot that one wide open with a 50mm at 1.4 so you can see the shallow depth of field. It was actually kind of tricky because I was standing over her and the minimum focus distance at that range meant I had to do some balancing on my toes. Note to self is to bring along a small step ladder for shoots like these in the future.

Preview from the Zuka Shoot

I teamed up this past weekend with Natalie Jean, a very well known local model who is also an amazing makeup artist and one of my favourites to work with. The shoot was centred on high lighting some jewelry pieces from local designer Kari Staten of Zuka Artful Accessories. We had two models that day. Here is a teaser for my upcoming blog post featuring Samantha from JK Models and Ali from Lexington Models. Stay tuned for more pictures of this shoot.

Model Shoot - Stephanie

Shot these series a few weeks ago with model Stephanie Hay who is represented by Carrie Wheeler Entertainment Group. She was great to work with and her experience in modelling definitely shows. I would be thinking in my head "can you move a bit to your left and place your chin up a bit" and before I could even say it she would already have done. So crazy it was almost like she was reading my mind and she continued this all throughout our shoot that day. I really love it when models know how to work the camera. Our team was comprised of Diana for makeup who I had worked with before on a photo shoot a few weeks back with Tony. The styling was done by her friend Christina who did an amazing job and I especially liked the jacket that she brought for the shoot. Maggie was our hair stylist and she transformed Stephanie from long flowing hair for the first part of the shoot to a short classy style that just pulled the look together perfectly for second series . Another fun location shoot!

Model Shoot - Clayton

On my last day of class at Vancouver Photo Workshops I did two separate shoots and the other model that I worked with that night was Clayton. He was styled by Amanda that evening. We did a similar edge lighting setup that I had used before and the look with the grey suit and sunglasses worked out well. Amanda brought along a very stylish long leather coat that had great texture to it and it worked really well with both the edge lighting and also the full white background shots as well. The third lighting setup we had was a pair of Kino Flo lights against a brushed metal background. Here are a few shots from that evening.

Later that same week we teamed up again for a location shoot this time. Amanda once again pulled some great outfits together for the shoot. We did the shoot in the early evening just as the sun was starting to go down in the sky a bit. I was really hoping for a day with fewer clouds but as it turned that day was partly overcast. For the lighting on these shots I used a small softbox and portable strobe triggered by Pocket Wizards. I did some minor colour balancing in post to give it a warmer look too. Clayton had been talking about trying to get signed with an agency. He mentioned that his agent really liked the stuff we had done together and soon after these photos were taken he was signed on by Next Canada and it even has one of the photos we did together on his portfolio page. Congrats Clayton! Here are some of the location shots.

Model Shoot - Carolina

The very last class of my course at Vancouver Photo Workshops wrapped up a few weeks ago. It was a great night and I shot two models that night. Our assignment was to put our own creative teams together and to plan things out. One of the shoots that night was with model Carolina. Working their magic behind the scenes was Lindsey for the wardrobe and styling and Ruhi was in charge of hair and makeup. The concept came from Lindsey who wanted to create a look inspired by the movie Before Coco Chanel. Carolina was a real joy to work with and her modelling experience really shows in how she struck her poses and her fierce expressions. We had some fun with a few jumping shots as well.

The other model that night was Clayton. Stay tuned for pictures from that shoot.

Model Shoot - Tony

This set of photos is from the second to last class of our course at Vancouver Photo Workshop. I gathered together the team of make up artist Diana, stylist Pirabalini and model Tony. This team had a lot of chemistry and I look forward to working with them again soon. Three separate lighting setups where used. One was done against a grey backdrop and consisted of two gridded strobes of to the left and right behind Tony and then a beauty dish above in front. The two back strobes were about one and half stops brighter so that gives that nice bright edge look. I included an out take that looks pretty cool as Tony totally stayed in character while Piraba and Diana touched him up.

The next was a just a pure white setup and I took multiple shots and composited the image above. Finally I did some shots with Tony using a pair of Kino Flo lights and angled them so that I was using the light falloff to light him. This gave it a bit more light and shadow to the look than just sandwiching him between them and blasting him with light.

Stay tuned for my next post of the last shoot from the VPW studios. Two models and two teams.