Katie B: Week 3

May 4, 2011

I told Katie to wear something slutty. She even put on heels for me, which she hates since she’s already so tall. So just to torture her a little more, we went to the Distillery District which is chock full of cobblestone walkways. Luckily she didn’t break any joints, nor her shoes.

With the exception of the first shot in the back seat of the car, all the rest were shot with the ambient light on location. The back seat shot was lit with a small flashlight that I balanced on the driver’s seat.

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Em Round Two

April 30, 2011

Round one with Emily was so successful, we decided to do it again. This time: outdoors!

At the beach, no less.

In mid-April.

It was like 12°C.

Ugh.

But we made pretty pictures!

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Beauty Shots, Ghetto Style

August 13, 2010

Amy’s back!

This is my first (and possibly last) foray into the genre of beauty photography. I don’t necessarily own all the proper equipment to do “real” beauty shots, but I figured it was a fun challenge to see how far I could get with what I have.

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Because I was travelling, I could only bring a minimum of gear with me. The three shots of Amy you see here were all lit the same way (see diagram below). I had Amy perch herself on the armrest of the couch in my hotel room, which was in a corner. The walls had a textured beige wallpaper but I needed that to be white, so I put a Nikon SB-800 flash (1/8th power) on a Cameron W-804 light stand behind Amy and aimed it directly into the corner. Next, I put a Nikon SB-900 on another stand to camera left with a Photoflex 30″ UM-RUT30 convertible white umbrella in shoot-through mode. I didn’t aim it directly at Amy, but rather just to her right, to feather the light slightly. The whole rig was fired wirelessly from the pop-up flash in my D300S.

The light stands and two umbrellas easily fit into a medium-sized suitcase for travelling.

Before I left Toronto to go to Halifax, I headed to Forever 21 to pick up some necklaces to use for the shoot. I found a cute owl and a neat peacock design — only $6.80 each, believe it or not!

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned Amy’s ridiculous blue eyes before, but I’ll point them out again for fun. They’re fantastic.

Makeup was courtesy of the wonderful Kaily Grist, who you’ll hear more about when I post the next batch of Amy photos.

All in all, I think the whole team did a pretty tremendous job considering the limitations on our resources. Who needs a studio?

All New Samantha

May 29, 2010

This post only has ALL NEW Samantha content in it:

  1. New pictures
  2. New video
  3. New, uh, “enhancements”

One caveat, though — the new pictures are in the new video. So you’ll have to watch it to see them. But don’t worry, real static versions are coming to the blog soon.

Without further ado, here’s a little video I put together of Sam, made from stills and video of our latest beach shoot, as she competes for Miss Hooters of Canada 2010:

[RSS users, please click through to see video in your browser]

You might notice that Sammy looks a bit different since the last time you saw her… that’s what #3 above was referring to.

If you like what you see, do Sam a favour and vote for her from your mobile phone. Like the video says, text the name SAM to 747474 once per day, and you’ll be entered to win a trip to Hollywood, Florida for the Miss Hooters International Pageant.

She’s also on Twitter and has a Facebook Group too!

Two Years Ago Today

December 19, 2009

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My gorgeous friend Katie, just 17 here, photographed at the Jam Martini bar. Nikon Speedlight bounced off the ceiling.

The green and white object behind Katie’s chin bothers the hell out of me, but this was just a quick snap so I can’t be too hard on myself.

Shya Close-Up

November 7, 2009

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This is one of my favourite headshots for two reasons.

  1. Light.
  2. Shya’s face.

I was shooting Shya outdoors in harsh, mid-day sunlight, which is pretty much the least flattering thing on Earth. I had brought along an Alien Bees 1600 monolight to overpower the sun but I actually turned it off for this shot. There are two things going on here with the light. Firstly, I positioned Shya so that her face was completely hidden from the sun. All of the sunlight was falling on her hair, which shielded her face. Secondly, the sun was bouncing off the light-coloured sand and on to her face, which provides the highlights in the bottom half of her eyes. If you look closely, you can see a little orange speck in there — that was the ridiculous pair of orange board shorts I was wearing.

Shya’s face, of course, is fantastic, and nothing more needs to be said.

Labour Day Weekend

November 3, 2009

From two months ago, here’s Amanda, photographed on Labour Day weekend. It was quite possibly the worst shooting weekend of my life, as I had one model cancel on me, Amanda was hungover, another cancelation late one night, and then the discovery that another photographer used some of the same setups in the same location (I’ve already deleted my versions).

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