I'm a little behind this week. I had a paid gig and I had to edit and finish up a video shoot. However, it was on this video shoot that I decided to kill two birds with one stone and complete the Week 19 challenge of "Build a Set."
Photography is more than relying on your model to show up in something cool looking and then clicking a button. Sometimes you have to round out the outfit with a scene. For this shoot, Gina had to film a video representing a pagan practice. She had grapes, wine, candles, sunflowers, and she wanted to dance in the rain for a section. I wound up going to Eye Wander studio in Baton Rouge to do this. There were a couple of props but for the most part we brought all of our own stuff. Eye Wander's studio was very big with plenty of backdrops to choose from and a shower head right inside the studio by the bay door.
For one shot, we ended up using a chair that matched the grapes, a backdrop that matched the skirt and tablecloth, and for some of the shots I used a color temperature orange gel on the strobe bulb to help match the sunflower color and to mimic sunset lighting. I saw there was a cool looking couch there so I moved it in front of the bay door and snapped a few impromptu shots using a portable fan to blow Gina's hair. I thought her outfit and style would stand up nice in contrast with the clean, white couch and bright windows.
The rain shots were done by using a strobe to backlight and a smaller strobe towards the front for fill (also using a color temperature orange gel). The best way to get rain and falling water to stand out and not look like a fuzzy haze is to backlight the falling water.
Gina danced to Danheim's "Blodfest" and will be available soon on YouTube.
We did all this in two hours. I managed to wrap it all up with 1 minute to spare. That's time management skills, folks.
Check out my Creative52 blog with all the weeks challenges so far: https://www.jaylammphoto.com
#eyewander #rain #raindrops #rainphotography #raining #rainlover #pagan #paganmetal #baylight #naturallight #naturelover #spiritualawakening #valhalla #vikingstyle #modernvalkyries #paganfantasy #nordicsisterhood #blodfest #danheim #warrior #womenempowerment #magic
Let's take a little look at how some of the Wizards in the Harry Potter universe are absolute jerks. Of course, this is all in good fun, but I want to take a look at the behavior and piggishness that Wizards have in this Potterverse. I mean, if they existed along with us here, they'd have a lot of explaining to do.
Creative 52, Week 29: Shoot a Very High-Key Image
High-key photography, damn near blowing out your image with copious amounts of light. Make your subject look like a pretty angel coming through heaven’s gate or something.
For this image I wanted to do a slight combination of high-key with low-key elements. By that, I mean, I wanted to put some form of viking face paint on the upper part of my face so I could later overlay an image of stars, the galaxy, or something of that nature. I wasn’t quite sure what yet. My girlfriend helped me with the makeup and even did an initial splatter spray of white on my forehead for texture and added pizzazz.
I wanted to wear a suit for this because you usually don’t see vikings in suits and I wanted to be a Work Viking…Assistant to the Regional Viking.
To make the blown out effect I hung up a white sheet in a doorway. Behind that sheet I put two softboxes with two 100 watt bulbs each to the side. I put two large LED worklights down a bit lower. ...
Creative 52, Week 28: Shoot a Very Low-Key Image
10/14/2021
Low-key in photography doesn’t mean relaxed, chilled out, and soft spoken. Low-key simply means that the emphasis is on the shadows, on the darks. Whereas high-key is all bright and damn near blown out, low-key has crushed blacks and is all mysterious. Perfect for getting close to Halloween, right?
Well, Gina was shooting a video for an upcoming belly dance gathering and was dressed like a witchy crone named Cailleach, a divine hag and Queen of Winter. She had a cool twiggy head band and some matching make-up; plus, we just finished watching this movie, Censor, which had this cool lighting theme all throughout. So, we decided to shoot this low-key image and video using only colored video lights…no strobes. The lighting was inspired by Censor and another movie called Mandy. Both movies are worth checking out.
This whole thing was a challenge because I really wanted to utilize the sharpness and look that I get with my ...
Collective Isolation
I have a strip of 75mm film I use for a bookmark and recently I was admiring just how damn cool it was. And then I was walking past these windows that look out upon the Mississippi River levee. In a way, this section of windows, framed by the support poles, reminded me of that 75mm film strip.
People, for the most part, tend to mind their own business. It's why we can go out to a restaurant with a loved one and pretend that we're not in a big room with dozens of other couples also pretending that no one else is around. When I set up my camera to take these pictures I decided to capture little frames of people minding their own business. So, no, I didn't want to "Shoot a Frame Within a Frame" using shadows or doorways; I wanted to use the entire wall of windows as a frame to separate interactions, use the lower section of windows to frame individuals going about their business while ignoring others, the upper part of the windows to frame birds flying together in ...
