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photo break down

My quest for the winery photo

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I found this crazy old winery in the golan (north of israel), and I immediately fell in love with the place. Specifically, the front yard of the winery has some old vines and a gravel road. Those created a wonderful symmetry and a great pallet of color to work with. So with the location set, I started to build a shoot around it.

I set a pan in motion. Starting with a model – Hila Bouskela, a designer – Kamelia Mor Toledano; through deciding on the lighting scheme all the way to planning the time of day to get a perfect sky.

How I blended photography and CGI to create a desert door composite

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Good morning guys! JP here again with another image breakdown. I’ve been friends with Mario for quite some time now and his recent work just blew me away, so I wanted to get in touch with him and get a step through of his some of his latest work.

Today he’ll be sharing how he blended CGI into his composition to make an album cover for the artist Carlos Contra. Take it away Mario! *points to Mario*.

How I Shot These Etherial Portraits With A Lensbaby

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So this is happening more and more… I’m talking with a client who wants me to shoot a creative portrait of them, and they say, “I like your blurry photos, I want that look.” My blurry photos? Most of the time that’s not something a photographer wants to hear, but I know they’re referring to the shots I’ve done over the years with the Lensbaby creative effects lenses.

I’ve been shooting studio portraits with them for a long time now and there’s nothing quite like them. It takes practice, some trial and error to learn the idiosyncrasies. And with lots of lens kits, focal options, etc., their product line now has a very comprehensive set of tools and it continues to grow (yay, more toys! err…I mean tools).

This is how you take a soft light group shot

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Forget Mr.White, today we’re Breaking Clay!

I am a long time follower of Clay Cook, and one thing that always amazes me is his softly lit group shots. I mean soft light for one person is easy, but a group is a whole other story. I sat with Clay (well, virtually sat with Clay) and asked him about his workflow.

Hey Clay! I can see a lot of interesting factors here that I think the readers will want to know about.
Let’s start top and work our way through.

How I shot a photo of Glenfiddich on fire

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Explore the idea of hanging products (like here and here), I decided to add a new element … fire. I had used fire in another image of a bottle  (here), but this time I wanted the fire to encompass the bottle, which meant taking a few more safety precautions.

I started by choosing the background for image, I chose an old wooden board because of the organic look and warm color. For the base I used a glaze Floor Tile, because it’s resistant to heat, at least I expected it to be …

How I shot a witch doctor surrounded by wolves

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One day whilst I was sprinting my heart out on the running machine at the gym, an image popped into my head. The scene was a tribal/witch doctor lady, surrounded by wolves. I wrote it down on a scrap of paper when I got home, and threw it into my ideas folder. It was around 6 months later, after finishing some client work, that I thought it was time to create some personal images and flex the old Photoshop muscles. The first piece of paper I picked up was the witch doctor idea. Knowing it would make a cool image, and challenge me, this is the project I would choose.

Watch how I shot Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII with the world’s first 360 BTS

A while back, Eujin Goh from Broncolor Singapore approached me and asked if I would like to collaborate using some Broncolor gear in a conceptual photoshoot that I could hammer out.

I jumped at the chance and was thrilled to know that I would be using some of Broncolor’s latest tech – the Siros L system – a completely wireless battery-powered lighting solution for photography. You can even control the Siros L from your smart device if you download the Broncolor BronControl app for the iOS!

To sweeten the experience further, I got to shoot on the Phase One XF 100MP as well as the old but gold Hasselblad H3DII-39 (medium format) camera systems!

Storyboarding came next. I had to decide what concept to work on and settled on cosplay photography.

I gathered my team for this epic endeavour and got hold of Rainer Cosplay for an epic collaboration that saw us experimenting with water, smoke and fire.

How I shot this 4X5 large format portrait of Assassin’s Creed’s Altaïr in Akko

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Bringing something to life is always exciting for me.

One of my friends was playing Assassin’s Creed and I caught a few seconds of the game. (Then minutes…, then hours…). I immediately fell in love with the characters, and we got into an Assassin’s Creed conversation. After a few minutes of talking, my friend told me that the map for the first game was made from the ancient cities Acco and Jerusalem.

I got hooked! I knew that I have to make Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad come alive through my photography.

How I brought Fate Zero Saber to life with a spray bottle

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Sometimes bringing a toy to life is just a matter of setting it in the right environment. For me this was the case when shooting Fate Zero’s Saber and her Motored Cuirassier. While this shot may seem fancy, it was actually taken in a corridor just outside my home. I did ran into some difficulties as I did not have anyone assisting me for the shoot but I did come up with some solutions that worked well in the end.

I did this shot as a single exposure, so all the effects were done in-camera. With a spray bottle.

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