Saying Goodbye

So Mark came up to me last week and suggested we recreate an image with him being the subject. This was the shot he wanted to be a part of.

What better way to say goodbye to a professor than spending 5 hours with him, setting up his shot, making sure he was as comfortable as possible (cigarette included (it shows up after the display image)). 5 minutes of shooting, and 40 images later:

**Special thanks to Seth Revetta and Taylor Jensen for helping out with this shoot.

All images may be seen larger here.

~Zachary

All Things Come to an End

Well, as this year finally dwindles down I managed to squeeze into two more studio time slots. One was last Wednesday, and I shot both Sam F, and a few different products. Sam is by far the easiest model to shoot this year. Sadly the studio is closing on Tuesday. The choice of clothing was superb, and seemed to tie in well with the images I wanted to produce. Using different props we came up with poses that accentuated her outfits.

The past 4 days have been spent in photoshop, and I've gained a ton of knowledge. Wahoo!

The rest of the images from this day's shoot can be seen here.

~Zachary

Spontaneous...

Lesson Learned- NEVER go into the studio without an idea.

I asked two young ladies to model for me on Sunday night, and they both more than graciously said that they'd be happy to. The problem was that I had nothing for them to do except pose when they were in there...



Thankfully I had great ideas from the most helpful Madison and Jessie. Jen and Melissa were both awesome models.

At first, I tried to use just two alien bee's to light up my model, but I couldn't get the flashes to sync with just two pocket wizards (one being on my camera and the other on an alien). I finally gave up and brought the octabank out. Wahoo!



Next projects are going to include the famous Rebecca, and hopefully some ideas for off site shooting will spring into action.



(This shot may inspire me to do a Big Kids series...)

Blue Ridge Parkway

So Kristin kidnapped me the other day and took me on the Parkway...Dangerous idea, probably...

We attempted many things, including the crossing of barbed wire, which resulted in some close-to-very-painful injuries. Ended up with a few shots I enjoy, and yeah!

Flickr

50mm

So I got a new 50mm f/1.8mm lens a few weeks back. Haven't had time to upload pictures taken with it until today. They were taken on my Nikon FE2 fully manual film camera. Yeah, I love it, and the shot was wide open.

Yeah, it's a short post. More or less trying out the new lens.

Party in the Studio?

Haha, well let's just say it was a Saturday night. There's a lot of snow out, and nothing's happening. So Kaitlyn wanted to shoot in the studio and Brooke and I were her assistants. It was mad fun watching Kaitlyn trying to order her model around. The lighting was interesting, and she did a few different set ups as she was trying to mimic an advertisement out of a magazine.

As she was shooting, I managed to grab a couple shots with my new 50mm prime lens. It wasn't too expensive, 124 bucks off Amazon. Can't wait to shoot in the studio with it. I was shooting at ISO 800 and f1.8 due to the fact that I didn't have the pocket wizard on my camera; it was on Kaitlyn's. The one shot that seemed in focus (hard to do with an f/1.8 and a moving subject) is the one below.

Now this shot was without a flash, but the model lights were on. I did not shoot a grey card cause it wasn't my shoot, and I just toggled around with the exposure settings on my camera. In photoshop, I took some of the grain out, and balanced the color off the cyc wall, which is white...ish.

Ideas for the studio are flowing into my head! :D

Studio Shoot with Marcie

So today I scheduled my first shoot in the studio. Setting up lights and having assistants is extremely fun. Marcie was easy to shoot as she's a pageant lady. She wanted some head shots and crown shots for a pageant she's participating in within a week.

Light is fun to play with, so I've determined. I have started a little notebook of diagrams of different set-ups that I have already executed, seen someone else use, or plan on testing in the future. The shot above consisted of 5 different lights. A big soft box in front for her face, two rim lights on either side, shooting into foam board to illuminate her sides, and two umbrellas pointing towards the wall of the studio.

Marcie is Miss Cabarrus County, and is now going for Miss North Carolina. She asked for the shoot so she could have a head shot in a program going on this weekend. I gladly said yes, and brought her in the studio for one of the best times I've had behind a camera.