Jay Philbrick

We took four models into the desert to create dramatic portraits in the landscape

Nov 28, 2017 by Jay Philbrick 7 Comments

My wife, Vicki, and I are full-time portrait and wedding photographers. When we aren’t shooting these things, we like creating dramatic images of people in fantastic surroundings. One of our favorite locations to photograph is the desert Southwest of the United States. We have made many trips there in the past and always have a great time photographing models in some of the unique locations to be found there.

We just recently returned from a trip photographing four models in and around Moab, Utah. The area is covered with fantastic shooting locations both within and outside of the nearby national parks. The area is well known to any landscape photographer and there are many famous and well-publicized locations that are well worth visiting.

How I shot dramatic portraits on a wonderful Icelandic landscape

May 26, 2017 by Jay Philbrick 4 Comments

My wife, Vicki, and I are full-time portrait and wedding photographers. When we aren’t shooting these things, some of our favorite concepts are creating dramatic images of people in fantastic surroundings. After years of doing this kind of work I now find it difficult to photograph landscapes without placing a human subject into the image. Some of our work of this type has been featured by DIY Photography before.

We work with a lot of models and one of our all-time favorites is Sarah Maillet. When we heard she was going to Iceland for a visit I knew we would have to go as well. Sarah arranged for some gowns from some local stateside designers and we brought along some of ours, including a fabulous purple parachute dress from Alice Andrews Designs. Along with Ryan McCabe, who provided invaluable support to the project, we set out on a two week photo excursion to some of Iceland’s most scenic locations.

How To Shoot Photos Of Dancers and Flour

Jan 29, 2016 by Jay Philbrick 6 Comments

One of the many types of people photography that I love to do is anything involving dance. I love the motion, the grace, and the positions dancers are capable of. I try whenever I can to do something a little different with dancers. Something where they are out of their normal dance studio surroundings. There are so many different things you can do. One thing that can be a lot of fun and really make your dance images stand out is to photograph dancers along with some form of flying powder. Dance is so dynamic and adding flour, talcum powder, powdered paints, water and things like that can really add to an image and make it really vibrant.

I’ve done these sort of dance images a number of times and have used various powders. My favorite is plain old flour because you can buy so much of it so cheaply. Talcum powder just seems too fine and is more expensive. Tempera paints are a lot of fun and add a lot of color to your images. Just be aware that these powdered paints can get all over and into everything and can be hard to remove. Some of my lights are still covered with yellow from years ago! For any images using powders you will want a lot of room and be in a space that you are not afraid of getting covered with the powder. Clean up can be a nightmare! Outside in the dark would be a good option if it’s not windy if you can find a place.

These sorts of images are not very difficult to do (except for the cleanup!) I will describe what I have found to work for me and talk about one of my more recent powder images, Dark Angel. This is a concept I had tried years before but was unable to get the wings to shape properly and was more fortunate a couple weeks ago when I tried again.

Photographer Shoots Epic Portraits On Cliffs, Ice Cliffs, Snow Slopes And Wells

Dec 13, 2015 by Udi Tirosh 3 Comments

Taking a good portrait is hard enough, but taking one hanging from a cliff with model is balancing on the edge of another cliff is a whole new ball game. Photography duo Jay Philbrick and his wife Vicki are known for their devil daring (yet utterly safe) extreme photoshoot where they put models on cliffs edges, inside deep wells, and on steep snow slopes and light them to perfection.

We sat down with this New Hampshire based photographer for a quick Q&A: