Category: On Location

Archetype Apparel Group Shoot

31/10/2014

Once again my good friends from Archetype Apparel asked for some pictures - this time there were no particular instructions except for "do whatever you want". Well, I didn't need more and finally got to use my new (old) Zenza Bronica (medium format) for a proper shoot as well as finishing a roll of old black & white 35mm film in my Minolta SRT.

All the film shots are natural light using a gold reflector and pretty much unedited. I love the feel of the Bronica shots and the colour film I am using. A lot of people go black and white on medium format and I understand why, but this gorgeous colour is just too good to miss out on in my opinion!

Of course I had the digital camera with me as well and there were a bunch of other takes, of which the ones under the bridge were lit with a single speedlight or a reflector:

Unfortunately, this was also my first shoot that had an injury. I egged everyone on to jump off this stage and it led to a broken bone... at least I have the shot of it though:

0 Comments

Plagues of Pandora - Promo with Archetype Apparel

20/6/2014

0 Comments

Plagues of Pandora has an endorsement deal with Archetype Apparel so pictures which could also double as the band promo were needed. They really wanted an urban setting and some wide angles so we met up for a quick shoot among some of Vienna's newest buildings. The sun had just disappeared behind one of the apartment blocks but it still was quite bright so I had to go full power on my Speedlites. I added orange gels to the backlights and initially wanted to hide them behind the band members but the look of having them visible came out quite nice so we were happy to use it.

With this first picture I used HDR which I normally don't for this kind of stuff, but hey - worth a try!

ISO 400, f/8.0, 1/200s, 15mm fisheye. One main Speedlite camera left at 1/1, two orange gelled backlights at 1/1.

My favourite from the session is from a different angle and processed by adding structure only to the sky and putting a light fog filter on it. All in all a fun and fast shoot and everyone is quite happy with the results!

ISO 400, f/7.1, 1/200s, 20mm. Lighting as above.

0 Comments

Virginia Ernst CD Cover

14/4/2014

0 Comments

Virginia Ernst is a singer / songwriter (check her out at https://www.facebook.com/OfficialVirginiaErnst) who I met while shooting at the Fitfabrik a few weeks back. We got into talking and she asked me whether I would be available for promoshots... guess what my answer was?

So I met up with Virginia to get some shots for her new single "Rockin'" - the song has references to a train and therefore we decided to meet up at a train station to get some shots in on the rails and possibly on the platform. It was a bit overcast so almost ideal for this kind of stuff, and Virginia was happy to walk and jump on the rails - which is what I had initially envisioned as the best place for the CD cover:

185mm, ISO 100, 1/320s, f/4.0 - one Speedlite camera right at 1/4, one Speedlite as backlighting also camera right at 1/16.

I used the trusty 70-200 for this shot and edited it a little bit in Color Efex in order to get the faded look. I tried a different look as well below in order to have it a bit more contrasty and cinematic:

Same settings as above

I thought we had some nice stuff here but we also wanted a couple of shots on the platform so we tried that as well - and it turned out to be perfect! There was absolutely nobody there and we were able to use the whole length of the platform. I changed to the 50mm lens though because I wanted to see if I could get good use out of f/2.0:

50mm, ISO 100, 1/400s, f/2.0 - one Speedlite camera left at 1/4 and one Speedlite as backlight camera right at 1/64

It was important to get the clock into the shot as there is a reference to 7:30 in the song - the final image had a bit of editing done on the fly by my friend Dani Hofer. I used Color Efex again to get the faded summery look. Anyway the one that made it finally is actually this one which is a little on the soft side but that makes the text stand out perfectly:

Let me know what you think. I'm quite happy with the result.

0 Comments

Fitfabrik

27/1/2014

0 Comments

My friend runs a chain of gyms (check it out at www.fitfabrik.at and sign up if you live close - really great value for money!) and needed new pictures for their site - the idea being that we get a few shots of the gyms but mainly show people working out there. He thankfully organized a bunch of models and I spent a day at the three gyms shooting with a small mobile setup of two speedlights, one of them in a softbox, the other naked as backlighting.

Processing the images turned out to be interesting - he wanted something that wasn't "standard", something more exciting, a bit like my live music photography. I was skeptical because I worried that not everyone going to the website to check out the gym would be excited by heavily processed pictures - a certain amount of realism is called for in my view.

In order to demonstrate it I created 4 different processing forms and sent a page of 10 images in each version, giving each form a different title:

Cinematic

Toned Black / White

Realistic "pop"

Toned Concert

As much as some of them look really cool, my advice went towards the Realistic "pop" style. (I called it that because it is very close to nature but I have upped the contrasts and highlights in order to get the subjects to stand out a little). That's also what the customer chose in the end. Here's a selection of some of the pics:

0 Comments

Archetype Apparel Group Shoot

Plagues of Pandora - Promo with Archetype Apparel

Virginia Ernst CD Cover

Fitfabrik

My Photoblog

Archives

Categories