I recently ventured into West Virginia to do a personal (fun) shoot on a horse farm. Just an opportunity to mess around for a couple of hours on a beautiful day. Most of the shots were done with one or two lights, combined with ambient light. You can really see the dynamic range of the Phase One camera in the sky, and that new 75-150 leaf shutter I’ve been using is SHARP.
Feel free to ask technical questions in the comments section below.
2 lights. Gridded beauty dish main light. Flash with silver 7″ reflector on the back for a bit of rim. Check out that dynamic range! Click photo to see larger
Click to see larger
Click to see larger
The color and exposure effects on the image above were created using Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4. You can see my settings here. Click the photo to see larger.
Click to see larger
Love the natural depth in this. The beauty of medium format and long focal length. click to see larger
My portrait of Rod Stewart: 3 minutes of setup (due to multiple location and schedule changes on the talent side, which is normal on a portrait taking place the same day as a concert) & literally 2 shutter clicks before the shoot was wrapped. Taken with my Phase One IQ140 with their brand new 75-150 Leaf Shutter zoom which looks pin sharp!
I wrote a blog post on Fstoppers about what it’s like to take celebrity portraits for a living: LINK
Over the weekend, I turned another year older. Hard to imagine, but despite my antics, I have survived to live another year. Coincidentally, the Phase One worldwide team was in town here in Washington DC as well as the US distributor and retailer of digital format systems, Digital Transitions (they sold me my Phase One digital camera system) for the Phase One World Tour. After the event last Friday, the Phase One team joined my friends for some drinks at my favorite local Irish Pub. To my surprise, they presented me with a really nice custom birthday card (see above)!
It’s been about a year since I started my relationship with Phase One and it has been really fantastic. Not only do I have the pleasure of shooting with the world’s best camera system, but they’ve helped share my work with the world. What a brilliant, friendly, and awesome group of people. They are truly leading the way in medium format digital photography.
Sure, Detroit may be known for things like its extreme crime, car theft, corrupt mayor, Detroit Auto Show, but it also happens to be one of my new favorite places to shoot in. Detroit has some of the most incredible “ruin porn” locations (places that look like they were ravaged by the post-apocalypse). For example, see Saint Agnes Church below. I may or may not have walked in the wide-open front door of the long-abandoned church with or without a permit and proceeded to do an entire portrait session.
- The abandoned Michigan Central Station. Recently a 50 Cent rap video was filmed in there. You apparently can permit to get inside, just be weary of the wild dogs that allegedly patrol the property. Yikes: http://www.seedetroit.com/MCS/mcsweb/
Detroit is not a terrible place. It’s just a city filled with a lot of spirit that faced some hard times, but is fighting its way back up. Downtown is full of life and culture. When you’re in town, make sure to hit up one of my favorite BBQ joints: Slow’s BBQ
My production company, 8112 Studios, shot this music video for our friends Crash Boom Bang a few months ago. Below is a sneak peak of how we created the earthquake scene. Check out the video!
Great intro to studio lighting class today in the Washington DC area! Thanks to everyone that came out and collaborated. We discussed the fundamentals of portrait lighting, light modifiers, shaping light, and telling a story with light. I will be doing more classes in a city near you in the future!
Phase One asked me to go on a speaking tour through China for a week (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing) to share about my photo career, creative inspiration, and being a Phase One shooter myself, to demo their innovative new IQ2 digital medium format camera back system. Now, many miles later, I am back in America.
This was a huge honor and incredible experience. Huge thanks to Profoto china and Phase One worldwide for treating me like a king. Something I’ll never forget. Especially all that great food and all of the cool people I met!
Franck from Phase One in front of the Forbidden City
On my way back to Washington DC, I had an extended layover in San Francisco, California. It was either a 5 hour layover sitting in an airport or rent a car and go sight-seeing. The answer is always : adventure
Of the activities I crammed into a 5 hour period, I had a chance to visit the Golden Gate Bridge. What a beautiful sight! I took photos with my Phase One, but haven’t had a chance to edit them yet. I hope you accept an iPhone 5 pic in the meantime!
iPhone 5 photo of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
After flying in to Hong Kong from Washington DC just hours before for my speaking tour, I had the great honor and pleasure to be a part of Digital Rev’s Cheap Camera Challenge. A broken Holga + jet lag + beer + a goof like myself = What could go wrong?
2 days before hitting up Hong Kong, I emailed the DigitalRev team just about meeting up. To my surprise, they responded that they would love to have me do one of their cheap camera challenges! A series in which other pros like Vincent LaForet, Chase Jarvis, and David Hobby were given crappy/broken/toy cameras and filmed as they tried to take artistic photos. I was shocked to be looped in with such talented creatives, but was happy to accept the challenge…
As some of you may know, DigitalRev.com is a popular Hong Kong based photo gear retail site. They are also very well known for their youtube channel which hosts their numerous camera reviews, photography tips, and the Cheap Camera Challenge which has become a hit on the web. As I mentioned above, I was incredibly honored to be included in this series and despite only having a 2 hour window in my schedule to meet with the Digital Rev team, we had a blast.
I hadn’t touched a film camera, aside from my Polaroid 600, in probably over 10 years. I even forgot how to load 120mm film! For shame! It was fun to get out of my comfort zone and have some fun. Although, not knowing what half of the buttons on the camera did and lacking a working viewfinder did make for some interesting challenges. I noticed I kept trying to look through the phantom viewfinder. Call it muscle memory. I was also reminded about the days back when you had to wait until film developed to see your shots. It’s more frustrating than I remembered…
