shoot Archives - Page 13 of 19

Light Painting with Keira and Angela

November 8, 2012November 1, 2012 bill Leave a comment

During the summer days I love working in the mountains. If you’ve not experienced it, it can be hard to believe the difference a couple thousand of feet in elevation can make. The downside of that can be when shooting late or at night you can get into some cool temperatures even in the summer months, especially for the model standing around nude. But during these summer days I took advantage of the warmth and a nice isolated area I’d discovered to try my hand at some outdoor light painting. I’d started with light painting earlier this year in a couple shoots. Here I wanted to take the concept outdoors and see what I could work out. Both shoots were interesting that they had some complications and were not smooth coordinating schedules, but both worked nicely and I’m happy with the results.

First with Keira and I already shared photos from the daytime part of that shoot. Afterward we waited out the late mid-summer sunset and tried some light painting. A few nice results below:

Also had a similar experience with Angela. She and I had tried to work out a time that worked for both of us when suddenly we were able to work out a time to collaborate. I met her in Asheville and we again headed up into the mountains. The weather threatened enough that we at shifted our location to be neared the car in case the lightning that flashed around us turned into an actual storm, which it never did. I was happy with the work and felt a little better control and understanding of what I was doing this time. The shift had a nice benefit in that it located a wonderful bank I was able to pose her against including the photos below.

Going to a Darker Place

September 29, 2012September 28, 2012 bill 1 Comment

Sometimes photo plans don’t work out. I’d planned this shoot with Melissa to be outdoors on a nice late summer afternoon. In the mountains though late summer brings the threat of storms and we prepared to go shoot, the weather to the west was quite ominous. A quick check of the radar on my phone showed several lines of rain and storms coming in toward town. So we went to a plan B, shooting some light painting indoors.

I like the first one here as part of a set we did. The idea is a mix of a couple of ideas, but the strongest is probably the horror movie cliché of the old asylum. The sepia toning I think adds to the older feel of looking at something from the past. The story here is one of questions. The slight out of focus to give it a feel of being a little off normal. Is she someone trapped and trying to get out to the viewer for escape or is she trying to get out to ensnare the viewer? Is the hand restraining her trying to keep her in to protect the viewer, or keep her from being helped by the viewer? Melissa nailed the expression perfectly here, a mix of desperation, fear, and hope.

Some others around the same theme, but more directly something menacing than the first photo. Here there’s no doubt of the intent and I think the starkness of the lighting highlights that. Love her expression in the first of these too. It really conveys the the emotion wonderfully.

Getting Emotional

September 21, 2012September 20, 2012 bill Leave a comment

A little something different today from my shoot with Jolene Hexx earlier this year. I asked her to do a set giving me different emotions and assembled this motion set of them.

Some Glamour with Hannah Perez

September 10, 2012September 9, 2012 bill Leave a comment

Always enjoy getting the chance to work with Hannah. She lately has also been bringing great people to work with along with her. In our shoot in August she came through travelling with Angelique Kithos. In this first set some glamour photos done with Hannah. Don’t worry you’ll get to see Angelique and the two of them together soon.

Keira and the Falls

September 5, 2012August 30, 2012 bill Leave a comment

Working with models that are travelling through the area always requires some flexibility. Plans change due to everything from the weather to cancelations to transportation problems. In spite of the best efforts of all involved sometimes things fall through. A little luck always helps though. Keira Grant and I had a shoot scheduled in late July, but her plans got thrown into chaos by some transport problems. Luckily I had a few shoots already scheduled in Asheville the same time she was near the city and we were able to connect. First part of the shoot we worked around a waterfall that I’d found earlier in the summer. I love this location, so much that I kind of worry about overusing it. The distance should help with that though and this is only the second time I worked there. As always Keira does wonderful work.

Painting with Light

August 30, 2012August 30, 2012 bill 1 Comment

I can’t say for sure where I first got the interest in light painting other than I got the idea while out west. My best guess of the inspiration came while watching the light play as the sun set while shooting with Jen near Phoenix. I’d seen and read about light painting before of course, but I don’t remember ever feeling a strong desire to try it before then. I do remember on my drive north out of Phoenix thinking about looking into the concept some more. I set up the first shoot that I’d planned to try light painting while in Las Vegas, but that shoot ended up falling through. The first time I brought a model to try light painting came in mid July with Kelsey Dylan.

If you’ve not come across light painting before, it’s photography with artificial light, but not the traditional strobe or flash. Instead of a short bright light, light painting works by putting a subject in a dark room, using a slow shutter speed, and moving a light source to light the subject. It allows effects that are difficult or impossible with normal flash. It’s not easy though. The long exposure times tax the ability of even the best model to remain motionless. A lot of trial and error is involved. Even now with several more shoots behind me I still find that I make more mistakes than I get right. I’m enjoying the work though and you’ll see more coming in the near future.

It was my first time working with Kelsey and she was great. She was also very patient as I tried and experimented through this. The photos aren’t perfect, but I did get a few that came out pretty well. These are probably the two that worked best. More to come.

Sunset at the Grand Canyon

August 14, 2012August 6, 2012 bill Leave a comment

I’d had seeing the Grand Canyon on my todo list for a long time and I really made it the center of my trip out west back in June. I took a number of photos, but found myself oddly having a lot of trouble editing them. Right after coming back I simply felt none of the photos really captured what I’d seen. In some ways I think part of the grandness here is something you only see in person. The sheer scale doesn’t come across in a photo or anything other than reality. Still with a little time I got better at working some of the images.

This photo is probably my favorite. It’s a panorama shot taken right at sunset from the North Rim looking back south to the South Rim and beyond. I believe the mountains visible in the distance beyond the other rim are the San Francisco Peaks toward Flagstaff, Arizona. For those who wonder why so many Americans are bad at geography consider the San Francisco Peaks are in Arizona while the city is in California. The photo were taken from Bright Angel Point about the same time as the sunset photo I posted while flying home. A better edit of that photo will be coming soon.

The colors of the night sky were just amazing as and after sunset. The peace, even with probably another dozen people enjoying the views, also stands out. What I remember most though was the wind. Here and later at the lodge while waiting for dinner the wind gusted over 40mph quite often. I was standing on a point out into the canyon for these photos and the wind coming up out of the canyon was an interesting experience. It cooled so much after dark that I actually went back and changed from my shorts into jeans between taking these photos and dinner at the lodge. In my little cabin that night though it felt rather cozy and relaxing lying there listening to the wind gusting outside while warm under a couple blankets. At the same time I knew that I would be in Las Vegas in less than twenty-four hours with a temperature over 100 degrees.

Melissa in the Waterfall

August 10, 2012August 1, 2012 bill Leave a comment

The trip out west left me re-energized for photograph like I’d not been in a while. I’d taken a break from shooting for several weeks including all of May as I’d mentioned in an earlier post. When I started back with the shoot with Ginger I just felt more into the shoots, more engaged with the models I collaborated with, and clearer on what I wanted to accomplish at each shoot. One part of this was a willingness to try some things and work without a plan as much. Generally before an outdoor shoot I’ll scout the location several times to establish locations and spots. I found myself more open now to just going out and seeing what we came across in the process. It’s not something I would do with any model, but there are ones that I know it would work.

That’s how Melissa Troutt and I found ourselves exploring a new location on a hot day in late June. These were the worst days of a heat wave in the south with temperatures setting daily record highs. This day would be one of the hottest reaching around 105 degrees at my home. Even in the western North Carolina mountains around 3,000 feet temperatures climbed well into the 80s. That elevation and the wood cover probably cooled it at least ten degrees over Asheville.

Our first spot was a nice wooden bridge where I got a wonderful headshot of Melissa.

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Our first exploration from here came to a bit of a dead end, but still found photo I liked in a bit of a dreamy style.

And then we found one of the best waterfalls that I’ve come across in the area. It’s a wonderful private location and surprisingly easy to get to once you know it’s there. We did a few photos around the falls

Then Melissa braved the cold water for some simply amazing shots in the flow itself. Her willingness to endure the cold water to get shots like these is part of what makes her such a joy to work with.

Xlcr Moon – The Butterfly Whisperer

August 6, 2012August 1, 2012 bill 1 Comment

An obvious shoot idea for someone that often photographs models outdoors is for various parts of nature on the model. I’ve done a few of these such as fall leaves covering an otherwise nude model to insects on a model. One that had never quite worked out was having a butterfly land on a model for a few photos. There have been encounters with butterflies in the past at shoots, but they just don’t seem to want to cooperate. They seem quite camera shy in fact. For some reasons the butterflies would much rather land on me than the young, pretty model that I’m photographing. I’ve even had them land on the camera, though not the lens which would at least end up with an interesting angle. Fact is that butterflies just don’t cooperate for me.

So when Xlcr Moon and I went for an outdoor shoot I had no thought of them. In late June where we are going I knew they would be common. In my planning though I had given much more thought to the last rhodedendrum flowers as background. We met up for an early shoot, which was a good thing given the worst of a heat wave coincided with our shoot set up weeks before. Luckily we’d planned to start early and a bit up into the mountains which let us avoid the worst of the heat of a day that neared 100 degrees. That special southern blend of temperatures and humidity always makes outdoors shoot draining as the summer turns into July.

As we arrive at the first location, Moon posing in a stream, the butterflies were a constant swarm around us. Teasing, but never quite landing until…

Which is why Moon is now known as the butterfly whisperer.

Jaylynn aka JEM

July 24, 2012January 6, 2014 bill Leave a comment

The only problem with traveling to the west coast is the trip back. The direct flights from my nearest airport to Last Vegas had stopped a few months before my trip so I had to connect in Charlotte. The flight from Last Vegas to Charlotte was over four and a half hours and I moved from Pacific to Eastern time for a three hour time change. In effect it was almost eight hours later locally when I landed than when I departed Last Vegas. With a mechanical problem that had me with visions of sleeping in an airport for a while delaying our departure from Charlotte, it was into the wee hours of the morning when I arrived at home.

The next morning when I had a shoot scheduled with Jaylynn. I’d worked with Jaylynn outdoors earlier in the year taking advantage of the early warm weather. For this shoot we stayed indoors, probably a good thing as I was about half asleep from jet lag. Here I went for a nice white background and high key lighting to work with her skin tone for the first sets. Also a little art nude styled lighting we ended working with a mirror. A few photos below with more from the shoot available on Uncovered Visions.

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