Location Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
So how did I get these great shots of Gretchen Stockdale lying on the stones. The stones are light and dark black in color and can be found in any garden center. I had my assistant rub each of the stones with some baby oil to get them to glow and have a nice shine when the light hit them. This made for a much more interesting look on the stones, it’s little things that will help make your shot stand out a bit more than a model just lying there on the stones. I had the pink swimsuit on hand which I thought would stand out against the dark stones. The set was out-side in open shade which gave a lot of flat light to work with, I also had a large silver reflector off to one side to bounce some bright light into the space to help with a highlight on Gretchen’s body. We sprayed some water on the stones before the model was laying on them and once she was in the right spot on the stones we also sprayed the model with some water on her as well. The makeup girl also put some baby oil on Gretchen’s body before she was on the stones so that she would be shiny and sexy looking. We placed Gretchen hair around her head and made sure to not just let the hair fall down behind her head. Once we had Gretchen in her place on the stones it was time to work with the position of the camera set up and to focus in on what...
Location Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
How did I get these great shots of Diana Rein? I have talked about shooting live events before, this time it’s about shooting in an intimate venue. “The Merc” in Temecula California. I had not shot at this location but I was confident that I could pull off another great set of images. One of my magazine contacts got me on the list of photographers for the event & I arrived at the theater just before show time so I could look around to see if I could find the best places to shoot from and what the lighting was like. There are three things you need to know about a small theater. One makes sure you do not get in the way of people that have paid for a seat, find out who is the lighting director so that you might talk with them as they could advise you of the best-known views and what they might be doing with the stage lighting during the show. If there is security at the show let them know who you are and why you are shooting. (Check in) Once you have done all this you might be able to meet the artist who is playing or their people so they know who you are running about taking photos. That way the artist might look your way for some shots as they then know who you are at their show and that your images could end up being published. You might find there are other guys shooting and a lot of them are just people with cameras who are nobodies. But...
Location Photography, Playboy Playmate, The Story Behind the Picture
I received an e-mail from a producer in Canada that was going to be in Los Angeles and would like to add me to a story he is doing about glamour photographers in LA. His film was to be a documentary of interviews with photographers and their models with some B roll of the photographer shooting a model on location or in their studio. I contacted him back and told him I could do it and that I would have a Playboy® Playmate Barbara Moore as my model to shoot that day and that he could also do an interview with her. He informed me where he and his crew were going to be staying in Los Angeles and I let him know that I would just come over to them and that they could film me shooting in the hotel room and do the interviews right there. I could also give them some of the stills from that shoot, right out of the camera as I was now shooting digital. For this shoot as you could not get that many people in the room I would bring my DP/assistant and one 650 W tungsten light and stand, I did not need a lot of equipment. Barbara Moore was coming on this project with us to help promote her website at the time. We all get to the hotel and it’s just the same as always so no surprise’s there. We set up the light and Barbara got into some very sexy under wear which she would then strip out of as the shoot progressed. I had been...
Location Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
”Nightclub Shoot with Yvette Nelson” - Story Behind the Picture When working on a shoot for Razor magazine I had cast Yvette Nelson as a background model for a men’s wear spread. She is a fabulous model to work with and I was very happy with the look’s that she gave me in my shots with the guy’s. After the shoot I asked if she would model for some solo shots of her in this black baby-doll dress. We set up a 650-watt light (Tungsten) that we used for the shots with the guys for the magazine. I had Yvette stand near to the bar in the nightclub at the location that we were shooting at and had her give me some poses. Now when you work with a professional model you have to respect that they know what to do. The reason you hired them in the first place was for they look like and what they do in front of the camera. All you need to do is give some direction. Now as for my lighting I wanted to have some of the light that I could see in the club to show up in my images so I had to lower my shutter speed and open up my f-stop to get as much light into the camera as I could for the exposure I was looking for. Now in doing this I was dragging the shutter and this way I could get a bit of a blurry glow off the lights that were in the club and also the light that was coming though...
Location Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
This story is about my advice on shooting post cards and how it worked by helping to get me started in shooting sexy girls and getting my photography and name out there. There is a need for sexy looking girls on postcards and the models are also looking for a way to get published so they could use the cards to send to companies to see about getting their attention. I still get my cards sent to me from people who find them all over the world and I am very flattered that people take their time to do this. The card of Kelly in the USA swimsuit standing under a pier in South Laguna, California is a one-off shot as that pier was washed away in a storm so I can never shoot that view again, as you can see the card company took the background out and used a closeup of the stars from the swimsuit as the background. In the popup you can view the image as I shot it with my camera with the original background still there. The other postcard of the model in the black wetsuit looking swimsuit shot is also under the same pier. The other two cards I shot was under another pier in Newport Beach, California, one of the images I used with tungsten film which gave a blue look, the popup image I have color balanced it for a normal daylight look. The girl with the yellow surfboard is Playboy® Playmate Nikki Zering when she first started out as a model. When shooting new shots I would shoot...
Location Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
I had met this lovely looking woman at a car wash and talked with her about modeling. She had been approached before but nothing became of it. I informed her of some of the models that I had worked with and knowing of some of the names of the model’s herself she decided to come see me at my studio to talk about a day to go and shoot some images. I had a client that was very interested in some new swimsuit shots for a calendar and so I set a day and time to shoot a sexy swimsuit shot of this fabulous new model. We went down to the Newport Beach, CA pier to shoot early in the morning and the sun was coming from the Left of the image and in order for me to get some softer light we moved to the underside of the pier, the light under the pier is what we call open shade. I had a small silver reflector to add more reflected light on the model from the other side. Now the trick for exposure is open up your f stop by ½ a stop so you expose for the shadow detail. In doing this you might get a bit of a hard highlight on the body with the sun but I think it works. I found that the structure under the pier gave me very hard lines in my background which looked masculine that then gave the curve shapes of the model’s body more femininity. This is a quick way to get a super shot if you don’t use...
