: little viking
Posted on 17 November 2011 | No responses
I couldn’t think of a better title for this one. This little peanut is Emma. She was born on the first of November, and she was exactly two weeks old when we did these. Yes, she was born with a full head of red hair and beautiful blue eyes! I know, why do them in black and white if we have such gorgeous colors? Because I just LOVE the black and white. You’ll get to see her beautiful eyes and fiery red hair soon enough.
She’s quite a well adjusted little sweetie. Of course she didn’t want to sleep while I was there! I think in two hours of photos we got about thirty minutes of sleeping baby. She’s strong too. She wasn’t going to put up with being balled into all those Play-Doh poses you see in artsy newborn photos.
So Gorgeous!
: owen
Posted on 5 November 2011 | 3 responses
Normally I don’t go too far into the background of a photo shoot, but this one warrants a full story. Actually I’ve been thinking that I need to do a lot more in-depth writing, so stay tuned.
A couple of weeks ago I saw my friend Cristina Martinez Byvik and her son Owen at Pannikin Coffee here in Encinitas (one of my favorite haunts). We chatted a bit and I mentioned that I wanted her to bring Owen into the studio one day, just for fun. She immediately said she had a very cute Clark Kent Superman costume for Halloween, and she wanted some pictures of that. Could we? Uh…OMG! YES! Absolutely!
I knew instantly that I had to go beyond a studio shoot this time. I really wanted to end up with a gritty, dark-story look, set in the downtown urban environment, with some intensity and drama.
Not having the actual street photos yet (I would shoot them later), I set up the studio for a dark, street-lit feel, with a little flexibility. Having a two year old as a subject meant that there was no such thing as posing, just setting him up on the spot and working with reactions.
Ultimately we got about fifty raw shots, which were easily trimmed down to a dozen select images, and then filtered again to the best half-dozen.
Because I would be shooting wide angle for the backgrounds, I had to shoot wide angle for the portraits, and wide means WIDE. That’s nine feet of paper you see behind him. There was no practical way to shoot it clean, just go for it and try to keep him close to the mark on the floor. Also, I set up the lighting specifically to mimic a streetlight overhead, with cross lighting from other streetlights. I didn’t color my lights because I couldn’t realistically plan for the different colors I would have in the street scenes. So, I would have to adjust it later in Photoshop anyway.
With my pint-sized model photos in the bag, it was a matter of getting downtown for an evening and walking around. I actually got quite a bit of material in a short hour or two and a few miles of walking.
After that, it’s mostly a matter of Photoshop. I spent the better part of a full day selecting backgrounds and editing them for some drama, matching the studio shots and background shots, masking Owen (by far the most intricate part of the process), adding adjustment layers to correct for lighting, and blending the studio shadows into the street scene. Finally, I ran each image through a custom filter to give it a little grit.
I love what happens with a little creative thinking, ingenuity, and willingness to run with an idea. I could have very easily shot a bunch of cute photos in the studio, as per my original plan, and everyone would have been quite happy. Instead, the whole thing was hugely rewarding, and it looks like this may even become a series. A few of my best clients are about to get a phone call!
: paul
Posted on 12 October 2011 | No responses
One more on the corporate side this week. After another food event, a design project, a video production, and a kids’ photo shoot, I really needed to get a blog post up! So today we have Paul in the studio. Paul Tobia is a senior network security expert for a major corporation (a household name), and needed something corporate, but modern and friendly.
: julie frans
Posted on 30 September 2011 | No responses
I’m a food guy, so photographing kitchens, chefs, and cooking themes are a real joy for me. There are very few things I won’t eat, and I appreciate it when someone shows me exciting ways to enjoy the things I should eat.
Julie Frans is a local chef here in San Diego. She runs Dining Details, Chickpeas, and a half dozen other cooking related ventures. The bulk of what she does now is teach, and she’s very good at it. Her ongoing mission is to promote healthy habits, local/seasonal ingredients, and food awareness.
If you aren’t much of a veggie person, Julie will show you how to truly enjoy them. She even makes eating broccoli for breakfast exciting, delicious, easy and fun. Don’t take my word for it. Try some of her recipes and see for yourself.
And no, she’s not a vegetarian, she’s just really smart and passionate about fun, delicious, sustainable and health-conscious foods.
: bonni and kent
Posted on 18 September 2011 | No responses
Last weekend I had the genuine pleasure of working with Bonni and Kent, who are expecting a girl. As of this post, Bonni is 34 weeks pregnant. I cannot express how excited I am for them! They are such a great couple; very silly together in the studio and very loving.
On a side note, Kent is quite the social media guru. He runs a local marketing and promotions company, All Things San Diego. Follow him on Facebook, and get special access to local events, restaurants, and entertainment. Plus, he’s a really nice guy.
: details
Posted on 13 August 2011 | No responses
Product photography is all about details. Every single detail. After tweaking all of the lighting, controlling the reflections, cleaning everything for the umpteenth time, and delicately setting up the subject, it still comes down to a serious amount of Photoshop. Here’s a few before and after images (roll over each one for the ‘before’ shot).
: chris
Posted on 3 August 2011 | No responses
Sometimes what you really need is just a clean corporate style portrait. For example, if you are an accountant, looking like you are about to kick someone’s butt is probably counter productive. So we go for clean, professional, approachable, intelligent. That’s Chris in a nutshell. A really genuine guy and a good friend. In this case he needed images for his grad school and for various professional profiles.
: crackers with tomato and hummus
Posted on 29 June 2011 | No responses
Yeah, I’m really the kind of person who does this for a snack, and then photographs it. Fresh vine ripened tomatoes, wheat crackers, chives, hummus and a dab of low fat sour cream. It probably would have been even better with a little minced onion and cracked pepper too. But then where do I quit?
Heh. 
: scott isley
Posted on 13 June 2011 | 1 response
Nice guy. Businessman. Bad A$$ personal trainer.
: trench photography – live catering kitchen
Posted on 18 May 2011 | No responses
I joked with a chef the other day, that trying to take delicious looking food photos in a live commercial kitchen is like catching ants with chopsticks. It is however a LOT of fun! Especially so if you are a bit of a weekend warrior ‘chef’ like me. This job was for a western themed charity event, with about 250 seats. Grilled chicken breast, roasted corn salsa, tri tip, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted squash and an amazing white chocolate raspberry bread pudding for dessert. I was in heaven.
Every one of these images is live, in the working kitchen. No food stylist, no staging. Just me and a camera and about eight catering staff crammed into 200 square feet of hot and fast commercial kitchen. Since it was evening, I had no natural light option. So I set one flash up high in a corner and just worked the angles. You learn something every day!