Marks relaunch

The past few weeks have really been busy. Shooting has entailed alot of new campaign work for several agencies.

This post was shot for the relaunch retail clothing store called Marks formerly known as Marks work warehouse.  I shot these on white seamless and used the large elinchrom 6 foot octa.

(even the CBC camera guy who was filming us got in on the action...)

My firefighter exhibit opens on the 4th in Edmonton at City Hall and I have a media day set up for interview on the 5th...

Then I plan on giving almost blog daily updates from shoots these past few weeks in next week as I take a 2 week hiatus from shooting.

Enjoy!

C

Melting Pot and shooting Fashion with a Jet

Todays shooting went really well. We shot some interiors for the new restaurant called the Melting Pot. A high end fondue restaurant chain with 130+ stores in the USA. The one we shot today is the first one opened in Canada.  We shot this series from 10am-230pm.  (unfortunatly I cant release any of these images yet for proprietary reasons)

Then I had to haul a** to the city center airport to photograph Rees and Michelle on a private Jet we only had till 4pm. 

Basically while I was shooting at the Melting Pot Rees was getting his clothing from Sterling and his crew at Derks formals, while my assistant Nat was running Michelle to Identity Clothing to get her wardrobe.

(Michelle at Identity Clothing with Nat trying on shoes... love that carpet)

We all met at the hanger so Michelle could get her hair and make up done by Prince Nikolas... In the mean time I light the scene, I while Nat ran back and forth from the hanger to the tarmack making sure the shoot ran on schedule.  

(Nikolas doing his thing...)

It was really cold outside and the drizzle was making life really uncomfortable but the models pulled it off. We shot this series in about 30 mins. Total time 120mins from arrival.  

(my initial vision for this shot)

For the teckkies out there. I shot this with 4 heads and two packs. Pretty technical for me, and not something I like to do alot of.

(are u kidding me??!!?? this guy is from Edmonton)

The Elinchrom ranger packs had 3 heads. One head for Michelle on the exit of the plane. Another head for the jet engine, and the last head which ran off Michelle's pack acted as Rees's back light... but just a little "kiss of light" (and many of you know I feel that the use of a heavy backlight seems Wal-Mart portrait like and very contrived) .

(completeing my tests before Michelle arrived)

The last light an Elinchrom Quadra head (quickly becoming my favorite). This Quadra light Rees just off from camera right.

I shot it on the Phase One... with exposure tests on the 1DS mark 3. Typically I would have metered properly but I was short on time, and needed a visual so I shot on the Canon (cause the screen on the $25,000 phase one sucks)

(here is the gear used to complete this shoot the car is loaded with other stuff we didnt use)

Shooting Vons Steak house tomorrow 9am!

Enjoy!   

Day 9 of 9 - Beauty Product for West Edmonton Mall

Today we wrapped up the final day of 12 shoots in 9 days.

It was a full day of beauty products shot for WEM. Today I worked with the WEM marketing team and pretty much huddled around the studio step up we brought to the location.

The shoot itself was varied. We shot shoes, jewelry, and make up. So the lighting needed to change a bit to ensure each product was shot properly. I am very happy with the results of everything I shot the past 9 days.

I thought I would post this pic, as I know I will be asked by a few readers about shooting the shoes. How did we get the straps to stay? It was Luke's idea - Fishing line.

I personally have used other methods, but the line worked great and I will be using it again in the future.  

Thanks for all the comments via email and checking in each day to see what's up. I am taking the next 5 days off of shooting (and blogging)... and going to process some of the shoots over the next little bit.

Next week some pretty cool shoots, so check back and I have a lot of nice tear sheets that came in over the past week I want to post as well.

Ciao!

C

Day 8 of 9 West Edmonton Mall bridal fashion spread.

(my shot, which will not make the cut, because it does not work stylistically.. but its nice)

Today we spent the whole day shooting West Edmonton Mall's 2010 bridal fashion spread. The shoot itself took place at WEM and we were supported by their great marketing team.

As many readers of my previous blog posts know I sketch out pretty much every shoot I do. Its a previs technique I learned in Television which is basically storyboarding.

I use sketches as guide line when things arent going so well, or when I want a refresher when shooting for 6hrs or more. If you look at the sketch on the right, you will notice its an awful lot like the photo above. I used the sketch as a starting point, and in the final image, basically evolved the idea to a more "straight up" pose. For this shoot I brought 3 pages with 6 sketches each.

The shoot itself we shot 9 or 10 dresses with 6 different models.

Stylistically we had to shoot it on white or light grey because the women were going to be "cut" out and placed in the layout. This posed a challenge as dresses are white and we wanted the images to be easily cut out, with little or no color casts.

I shot it on the Phase One because I really wanted the highlight details so the designers could have great tonal range making their job easier.

At the end however I did do one shot the way "I wanted" and the lead designer Luke was cool with letting me do it. Its the girl in the red dress (the first image on this post) on the dark grey background. Although this shot rocks (in my opinion) It is completely un-usable in the spread because its too moody and too dark for the concept.

That's the thing a lot of photographers forget, often what they may consider are the best looking photographs are not the ones that can be used in print because of things like layout or conflicting style dictate how you need to shoot.

(stylist from Evelyn Charls touching up hair)
I think that's why it's really important for a photographer to be able to understand different styles and ways of shooting.

Please excuse all the dust specks... these again are clean out of camera with 0 touch ups.

Enjoy!



C

Day 7 of 9.... to calgary and back again..

Day 7 of 9

Its 12:30am. I got back to edm from cgy at 11pm, then booked it straight to the studio to prep and sketch for tomorrows fashion spread for West Edmonton Mall. We arrive at 8am, so I have to post this and head off to bed.

Shooting in CGY went well today. I shot another round of images for a skin care clinic. The owner had a some really out there ideas, so as you can see they are really off the wall, I cant really post alot of these because they need to be chosen by the client. 

(troopers.... It was cold out side! )

Before the crazy skin care photos. I shot some trash the dress photographs for Sarah and her two closest friends from high school. They are all married and are each other's brides maids. So Sarah thought it would be fun to do the photos as a group.

(i think all girls like twirling in the streets in their wedding dress)

Pretty much all of these were shot on the Phase One camera.  

 Sarah's dad is does astronomy photography as a hobby. In chatting with him, I found out he can actually shoot galaxies from his telescope. I plan on visiting him when I get a chance, but time was just to tight on this trip.

(when i asked Sarah to take off her shoes, one of the girls politely told her to watch out for needles... now thats urban shooting!)

Enjoy!

C

Day 6 of 9 (product in studio)

Today was pretty easy, just shooting product in studio. It was kinda nice because I had a chance to catch up on sleep.. I didnt get into the studio till noon.

I the first series was more windows product for Pure Vision. The other was a 12 inch sideshow collectables figure. 

I had alot of fun shooting the sideshow figure because of the insane detail the figure sported. 

(i did more than just play with action figures today!)

I really don't have much to write about shooting product on seamless with the exception that I pretty much used various strobe lighting techniques to get the results I needed.

(windows product is in no way as cool as action figures)

Just this quick post, as I have to head back to Calgary tomorrow at 9am for a 12noon shoot.

Enjoy!

C

DAY 5 OF 9 Long day of Interiors and a Readers Digest tearsheet

I just got back from shooting another round of Interiors for the new 9 schools built by Bird Graham in Calgary. We started at 7am and ended at 5pm. (So I drove to CGY last night arriving at 11pm to get a few hours sleep)

 I have finished shooting the Bird Graham project, and am hoping in some spare hours tomorrow to process out all the proofs for the client for mid next week.

My CGY hotel was really nice. The Acclaim hotel in north Calgary, which is brand new. Plus I just loved the Acclaim's tag line of "Sleep with someone new" - brilliant!  

(racial based hand puppets for Kindergarden kids, I had to pose for a pic with them)

Processing out 18 schools with exteriors and interiors is going to be a lot of work, and I am kind of dreading it. I also need to fit it into my the time line of shooting more product tomorrow in studio which needs to be shot for a Monday deadline.

Anyways I also wrote a blog earlier this month on seeing your work in print quite a while after you shoot the project. Well I shot a portrait of a for readers digest in early spring for their Canadian Innovators section, and I hadn't seen it in print until today.

I was taking a bit of a break in the teachers' lounge at a school, and picked up this month's issue of Digest and saw the piece. We shot it knowing they were going to blend the image into a blue background.

I really thought they would have picked another image of him holding a molecule.

I think they choose this one because he was smiling, which is cool. But I rather prefer the other one I have posted below.

Either way it worked out, and I like the rendering the graphic team did for it.

Anyways its 8pm and I have to unload my gear and prep for tomorrow... Thanks for checking in!

C