Friday, August 28, 2009

Start Your Engines!



Been doing some automotive photography recently. Thought I'd try my hand at photographing really large reflective objects. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment.

Quite a lesson in patience though. You would sometimes think a 3 hour photoshoot would be for a really picky client, or maybe some really big celebrity with lots of different looks and wardrobe changes. You don't typically think it would be for a car. But in reality, the picture above was the quickest shot taken in the whole Corvette series.

Inspired by a shot I saw on http://www.strobist.com/ I decided to do something more complicated. Oh boy, complicated, just how I like things! A few hours later and about 18 or more frames, I wound up with all the building blocks of this shot:



It's not the most layered shot from the set, but it's the one that I like best. You can see more of these in the Automotive Section of DIGImmortal Photo's website

The next stop was a Mini Cooper. I took the shots dark, like the Corvette, and boy was that a lesson in patience. Large reflective objects are one thing, but large reflective WHITE objects.. whoo boy!



Nice right? You should see the bruises on my forehead from banging into a wall until I got this just right.

The client for this shoot is Italian, from Italy, came here when he was young, and bought the car because it reminded him of back home. So I decided to do something nice for him and exercise my Photoshop airbrush muscles. Came up with this:



Finally, last weeks job put me in front of a 1982 Fiat Spider convertible. Wanted to do this one in natural daylight and take a break from the brain-twisting chore of setting up lighting. Found a nice location that complemented the color of the car and snapped away. With no lights to worry about and a nice overcast sky to diffuse the light it took all of about 30 minutes. Much better than my more complicated setups. Here's a couple from that shoot:





I'm currently available for car shoots for as long as the weather holds up around here in NJ. I'm willing to travel if expenses are paid. Contact me through here or through www.DIGImmortalPhoto.com with your shoot request. Make sure to include the year, make, model, and color of your car, and any extra details that are important, like any modifications or special paint types. Let me know what kind of look you're going for and if you have a location in mind, and I'll get back to you with a price. Every shoot includes 1 free 8x12 print, print prices are affordbale through my site.

Don't forget to check the Automotive Gallery on the site for more images from these shoots.

That's all for now, but more soon!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Meetwood Flack

Recently, I sent out a few dozen (probably few hundred) marketing emails to entice some local bands in my area to hire me for portraits and live shots. I got a few replies, which would probably count to more than a 1% response (that's a pretty great ratio, for those who never studied business). One of the first bands to contact me back was a local Fleetwood Mac tribute band, Meetwood Flack.



As it turns out they needed someone for a show coming up that weekend. We went over the details quickly and I got the job. The basic idea of the assignment was to shoot their hour and a half set and to take some photos of the band as a group as well as individual portraits.

Everyone in the band was great and we had a fun time taking the posed shots. The backstage area was very tight and crammed with gear and other things, so we opted to take them outside, around the back of the venue. There was a great green brick wall there, so I set everything up, took some test shots with my assistant and the band came over and we knocked out a bunch of group shots and portraits in less than 20 minutes.



Inside they played a great set that included some of my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs, here is an exact copy of the setlist:

THE CHAIN
DREAMS
SAY YOU LOVE ME
SECOND HAND NEWS
RHIANNON
OVER MY HEAD
BIG LOVE
WORLD TURNING
GOLD DUST WOMAN
LITTLE LIES
SILVER SPRINGS
OH WELL
LANDSLIDE
MONDAY MORNING
GYPSY
YOU MAKE LOVING FUN
EDGE OF SEVENTEEN
GO YOUR OWN WAY
DON’T STOP


Click the photo to see the band's MySpace page


I was also able to take some video of the band's performance. I decided to post the video for "Go Your Own Way" on YouTube

There are more portraits in the Portraits Gallery on my site, as well as live photos from the entire set in the Live Gallery.

Be sure to check out the full galleries, video, and the band's page. Check their upcoming dates for when they'll be playing near you.




More soon.