A Semi Successful Solo Shoot

Last time we left off I was explaining the pitfalls of a not so successful 1st photo shoot. The shoot discussed here is not my second solo shoot since my colossal blunder, but the second interns of actual full moving parts, ie,.. makeup, stylist etc..

Securing A Model 

With this shoot the first thing I did was seek out a reliable model who I have worked with on a previous shoot.

Enter stage right Samara.  A talented young lady with a killer smile.  I had worked with her a year or two earlier on the pic posted about and wanted to work with her again.  So now I have the model in the can lets move on to step# 2, lets secure some help.

Securing Help

I preach in my last post about doing stuff on your own, well that's the major stuff like booking a model and hair and mua etc... Now to help with the nuts and bolts of carrying and helping you wrangle equipment and catch stuff that you can't see, and art direct :-)  you most definitely could use a second set of hands.  In comes Steven a brilliant second photographer and  God send.   Steven is an indispensable and invaluable friend, and photographer. You couldn't ask for a better friend or fellow photog to work with.  Pardon Steven below as he's dealing with some really harsh mid day sun right now.

Having A Working Concept

So with experience with working with many models and combing the pages of model mayhem I have found that people like to have direction, a feel of where the shoot is going before they get on board.  When I first started to seek out models the only direction I had is need pretty lady, bring light make picture. Ok, so maybe not so Neanderthal, but I just wanted to light and shoot never really thought of what to shoot or what I wanted the picture to say or express other then lets make some nice lighting.

So when looking for your inspiration to create a concept look at fashion or any magazines for that matter.  Look around at whats going on in the world or in your personal life. What would you like your image to convey?  What are you trying to say.  In the case of this shoot I had come across a series of pictures with long blowing dresses or fabric.  It then hit me that I wanted this type of infinite dress look and feel to the images. So I went about finding and looking at pictures creating a type of mood board to work with.  This way I now had something visual for myself,  the model and makeup artist.

Finding Someone To Bring Your Idea To Life

Now that I know what I had in mind the next step was to bring the dress/concept to life. This part can be tricky or expensive depending on which avenue you travel.  It just so happens that I have a friend who is a wonderful up and coming designer check out her work if your in need of something custom or designed specifically for a shoot House of Iso  .  If your not lucky to have a designer I would checkout etsy  your maybe able to find someone locally via craiglist or maybe a nearby fashion or design school.  You may be able to find someone thrifty and just buy some fabric and have it shaped into a dress, anyway you try you should come out a winner just for the effort alone.

Securing Hair/Makeup Artist

I usually work with a great makeup artist who unfortunately was unavailable for the shoot.  So I again let my fate lay in the hands of finding someone on model mayhem.  This time I was however prepared to pay a few to insure that someone would almost indefinitely show up.   I posted a few casting call and got nearly 20+ replys in about 2-3 hours.  I can't really explain why I chose the makeup artist That I went with  Mua Wendy ,but I think it was something in her reply that said take a chance, and I must say it was one well taken.  Her work and willingness to get fully involved with every aspect of the shoot was far beyond my expectations.  I think we all had a great time shooting this day as we formed a genuine bond. These are the type of relationships you need to try and form as a working creative. This way hopefully everyone can push one another and further advance everyone's cause.  So now the dress is designed the makeup artist has an idea of what you have in mind and the actual wardrobe you are almost there. 

Choosing A Location.  

This dress shoot could have pretty much been pulled off anywhere, and was almost done at the beach, but I digress.  However, when in a big city like Nyc try to choose the path of least resistance, central park.  In Central park there are no worries of fines for putting down lightstands or looking like a professional shoot etc.  No need to run and gun either.  You can setup with little to know resistance and for the most part not to many on lookers as this is fairly typical in nyc.  

Success & Failures During Shoot

One thing I learned from my old mentor Lou Garou Madart-LouGarou  is that you really should take 5 to maybe 10 frames and move on.  If you don't have the shot by then your probably not going to get it. You should move on to the next pose, location or look.  I unfortunately neglected this rule.  Partly because the plan I had in my head I did not right down and we had so much fun that we pretty much stayed in the same location for far to long.  I initially planned to have some shots located by the castle in central park and a very thick wooded area, but we wound up staying around the opening shoot location. So, try to make a plan of the places and ideas you have in mind flesh it out on paper (old-school) or on a tablet etc.. and share it with your group so that you guys can stay on schedule.

For me failing to complete all of the shooting locations and fleshing out all of the ideas I had in my head was the biggest failure.  But again, the knowledge that I gained from everything the shoot did not accomplish was a success. Before I continue to go on and on becoming ever so long winded I will end here and post some pics from the shoot. 

Please keep shooting, learning developing and growing in your craft and all that you do. 

The Endless Dress

The Endless Dress  

    

D800 -Review Part-1

Hello all, its been quite a while since my last blog.  I have purchased the d800 since then and have spent some quality time with it.  Man, first off I'd like to start off by saying this camera is not for everyone.  First off if this is your first blog post of mine that your reading or have happened to stumble upon, I mostly shoot people/portrait photography.  What does that mean as far as the d800 is concerned?  A crap load of detail.  Which is great if your a retoucher or love seeing every little flaw and pore in the skin of your subject.  This took my by quite a surprise when using the camera for my first shoot.  I was amazed at how far I could zoom in  while in Lightroom and Photoshop and still see pure skin before hitting the pixel level grid, and even at the grid level in some instances I'm still able to make out skin.  This is great when dabbling with dodging and burning when I pretend to be a professional retoucher.  If you shoot landscapes or architectural photography I believe this camera is for you hands down.  If your a run and gun type of portrait photographer this camera is probably not for you, but if your  a self proclaimed  n,a,s head like myself, you know that you probably really really, don't need this camera but you'll find an excuse to get it. I would suggest at this point looking into a used d3s, d700, or the new d600.

Down side

The downside so far has been the upside, which would be the extreme level of detail.  Hey, looking back at my d700 there were times when I could get away with doing little to know retouching on a model, but the d800 will not work that way.  In person, in front of me the model looked fabulous; however, the extreme amount of detail in the file proved to be my undoing.  I believed we unmasked flaws and pores she didn't even know she had.  This camera if you so dare to step up to the challenge will call upon you to up your post processing skills to take full advantage of the files and to make your clients happy.  I plan on doing some d700 to d800 comparisons as time and subjects allow to show some visual representation of what I'm discussing.  But at this point one shoot is not enough to give anything more than a general opinion on the camera.  I will need to do a lot more work and report back to you guys/gals.

Disk Space

  This section will be short and sweet.  on my first shoot out I was happy as a pig in a blanket to finally have a dual card camera, coming from the single slot d700. However, that quickly changed when I filled up my 8gb sd card(setup to capture jpegs)  and only had a gig left on on 8gb cf-card   ( setup to shoot raw).  I believe I had almost 14 gigs after the shoot altogether.  My gig is a terabyte but averaging that much a shoot would surely send me to the poor house, or at least have me appear on an episode of storage disk hoarders.  So you will most definitely want to slow down when shooting and chose carefully the images you take and plan on keeping.

Vertical Grip

After much debate about spending an obscene amount of money on a grip, I went with a third party option.  So far the grip seems ok. (Flash Point D12 Magnesium Grip )  The grip can be purchased from the link above.  I am in no way associated with Adorama, just thought posting the link could be helpful.  So, the grip actually feels great.  Like I've heard others say besides the softness of I believe the af button or the back focus button and the clickly sound of the main and sub command dials I really don't notice much of a difference between this grip and my nikon-made d700 grip. 

Well, that's it for now  But I hope to drop updates in the coming months on my photo shoots and adventures with this camera.  So please like always whatever camera you shoot please keep on shooting and learning.  I'll leave off with a few pics that I've captured so far.