Christy Turlington Cover Shoot!

Ok, so here I am in the Dominican Republic, on my Honeymoon, enjoying this beautiful weather and perfect scenery…

…and then I look down at my phone(I know…I’m on my Honeymoon, I shouldn’t be looking at my emails…lol)…but what would that have gotten me?…Ha!  Anyway, there was an email from  Women’s Running Magazine asking me if I’d, “Like” to shoot Christy Turlington for their March/April 2012 issue.  Ummm…well….you know…Yea!

To shoot one of the original Supermodels of our time, and a personal favorite of mine…. Aaaaamazing!! It turned out to be a really wonderful shoot.  She’s absolutely one of the nicest people I’ve ever shot.  Beyond being physically beautiful, as has been captured for her entire career as a model, she’s also a great human being.

Much of the feature in the magazine covers Christy’s foundation, www.everymothercounts.org.  It seeks to help increase education and support for mothers and their children’s health.  Did you know that a woman dies every 90 seconds from complications of pregnancy?  Neither did I before I met Christy.   You wouldn’t think that in today’s world, this could still be happening. Please check out the foundation link above for more information.  Christy also directed a documentary film, “No Woman, No Cry”, in which she travels to four parts of the world where maternal care is desperately needed.   You can see more about her film here, “No Woman, No Cry” Film.

It was truly an honor to meet and photograph her.

Can you believe she’s a mother of two?  Insanity… 🙂

Here are the results of our shoot…

Here’s a little behind the scenes video of our shoot. 🙂

I must thank my wonderful team for their amazing work here.

Team:
Photography:  James Weber, www.jamesweberstudio.com
Hair Stylist: Giovanni Giuntoli, www.giovannigiuntoli.com
Makeup Artist: Tamah K, www.seemanagement.com
Art Direction:  Melissa Mellert
1st Assistant:  James Sullivan, http://www.1prophoto.com
2nd Assistant/Videographer:  Jesus Baez

Thanks to David Zimand for the portrait of me in the contributor photo.  It was taken at the May 5th, “Art for the Cause” event for my foundation, The Leukemia Needs Foundation.  www.leukneeds.org

It was nice of the magazine to do a little behind the scenes of the shoot.  We had such a great time shooting it.  It all happened in 2 hours.  Hair/Makeup/Photography, and even a small interview during hair and makeup.   It’s amazing how much you can get done when you have to. 🙂

We had some fun at the end of the shoot with her in her, “Every Mother Counts” t-shirt.  I LOVED her energy!

Thanks so much for checking this out…more to come soon.  I’m working on a little video behind the scenes right now…check back later for that…

Portillo Wine Ad Campaign

I’ve teamed up again with Creative Director, Henry Alvarez on the new campaign for Portillo Wines.  It’s always good to know the agency point of view, so I asked him, “From a branding point of view, what did you want to accomplish for Portillo with this ad?  What was the Client looking for?”

Henry: “We wanted an image with strong appetite appeal as well as create a mood and atmosphere that would bring an elegance to the dining experience.  Our assignment was to connect Portillo Malbec with steak. We played back and forth with a strong tagline. We finally arrived at “A Cut Above the Rest”.  Once done we ended up with a strong consumer Point of Sale campaign that elevated the brand.” 

The shots we needed were broken down into three individual images, which would then be combined to make the different creatives needed.

1. Shoot the wine bottle alone and the wine glass alone.  That would go towards the first creative.
2.  Shoot the food + wine glass, then add in the wine bottle shot in #1, which would go towards the second creative. The shots would all be used in a mix of website use and advertising formats.

So here is the first creative, made up of the bottle and wine glass separately and put together in post.  There would be no way to light both of them together and achieve this same result, thus the decision to shoot each of them separately.

So here was the set for the bottle shot.  The main light is coming from 2 strobes with reflectors shooting through the 4’x8′ plexi on the left hand side.  This softens up the light so that the rich detail in the label doesn’t get blown out.  The reflection on the right is created by the silver card on the right, sitting on the table.  The two reflections running up and down both sides of the bottle are created by the soft boxes in the back facing in.  Lastly, I’ve got one more light on the floor with a beauty dish + grid hitting the backdrop so that there is some separation from the background.  Below is the shot.

The individual wine glass shot I don’t actually have a behind the scenes photo of.  I had to create a totally black room out of black v-flats.  The only area for light the was possible was from the back side where I had the 4’x6′ feathered off.  It was a one softbox shot.  Getting the angle right was the hardest on this one so that there was a nice reflection on both sides of the glass and the wine showed up just enough.  I fired the camera remotely so that I wouldn’t be in the reflection.  It was much more to setup than to actually shoot.  We did have to do a little post on the glass as even as much as we tried to clean it, there was still a little dust here and there.

Here is the version with the Argentinian Steak.  Although I don’t have a behind the scenes for this one, I used Dedo Lights to do the job on this one instead of strobe. They allowed me to spotlight what I needed and provide a low depth of field.

A little about the wine and the region…click the image to see it larger.

So that’s it for now…stay tuned for more…

Thanks to the Team:

Photography: James Weber, www.jamesweberstudio.com
Creative Director, Henry Alvarez
Food Styling: Ed Gabriels, www.halleyresources.com
First Assistant:  James Sullivan

Evolution – Shannon

I had another wonderful Evolution shoot today with one of my favorite models, Shannon. We shot a few years ago and I’ve been trying ever since to get her to pose for the project.  It’s taken me a few years to break her down, but she finally agreed…so here’s to tenacity… 🙂

Even in a studio that I had prepped to be nice and warm, the moment you put the mud mixture on, it gets a little chilly. It’s kind of like jumping into water that you know is a little cold, you just have to get in and get it over with. She dove right into the mud treatment.  So she was a real trooper.

I shot these with the Hasselblad H3DII, 80mm lens, with the HTS 1.5 Tilt shift Adapter.  I like using the HTS as it gives you some of the controls of a 4×5, but in the Hasselblad system.  It changes the plane of focus, which can be a nice change of pace from the norm.

I used a few different lighting setups.  A few direct light, but most of it was bounced light through a beauty dish with grid or P-50 reflector with grid.  That leaves the background a nice gray and the light soft.

Here are a few of the images from the shoot…

This was one of the first shots in the shoot…it’s nice to start off with one you like right away.

On this one I did a little slow shutter and liked the effect…

I’m not sure between these last two which one I like more.  I’m leaning towards the last one…care to vote?

So there’s a few more for the Book and Show later on this year.  I’ve probably got three or four more and then I’ll close up the project for the moment and concentrate on editing and getting the book/show ready.  Until next time…and thanks again, Shannon for giving the project a second look. 🙂  These will be a fantastic addition…

The Evolution Project 2010…

It’s been a While since I’ve shot for ‘Evolution’.   The hospital stay had put a little hold on the project, but it’s something that I can pick up and get back into pretty easily.  I’m working towards a gallery show of the work and still have a long way to go before I’m ready to show the work as a whole.  Editing down the work is another issue, but I digress…I got the bug to get back on the horse again and continue the work and am glad that I did.  My latest subject, Lisa, was wonderful to work with.  She understood the project’s need to let go and just get into character for the shoot, which is important to get really new fresh imagery.  We got some really compelling work out of this series.  It’s going to be hard to edit down from the selects, as I’m happy with many of them, but that’s a good problem to have.  As it goes for many of these shoots, it’s going to be a while from now when I can look back on them objectively and make the final selects.

Technically, there is something a little new as I used 2 cameras to shoot her.  I shot the first 1/2 with the Canon 5d Mark II, which always gives me great results.  To try out something different, I also shot her with the Hasselblad H3DII 31 mp body + 80mm lens + HTS 1.5 adapter(gives shift and tilt capability to the camera).  The HTS adapter was a real treat, giving me some of the controls of a 4×5 camera, but in an easy, compact solution.  I think those images are softer and have a more vintage feel than the ones taken with the Mark II.  The first four images were shot with the Hasselblad.   Another noticable shift in shooting medium format is shooting less and taking my time more to compose the shots.  I think it definitely helps me slow down and take my time with the setup.  Although, the speed of the Canon is also a benefit sometimes as well…

These first four images were taken with the Hasselblad using the tilt shift HTS 1.5.  The images below were shot with the Canon 5d Mark II.

So there’s the latest update to the “Evolution Project”.  I’m looking forward to shooting some more subjects this spring.  I’m also going to start including men into the project, which I think will balance it out some.  Check back here for updates…