It’s hard to set this stuff up even when you try!

I was digging through my archives from many years back and came across this image which was in my ‘life is funny’ pile.  I was shooting this model in a phone booth (notice there are no more phone booths round Vancouver) on the corner of 7th and main when this lady started observing from the sidelines.   Normally i like to juxtaposition a beautiful model in a grungy alley or create some form of contrast and compare in my images. . . I think this one does it.   Do you think she was posing for me? . . . maybe it was  product placement  by Coca Cola!

Well it has been some time since my last post… what can i say, it was a fabulous summer!  Topping everything off was a great Vegas wedding with all the 1970 trimmings.

This image was taken in ‘the boneyard’ . . . where all Vegas Signs go to die.  It has just about all the favorite ‘oldies’.  Renting this location for a ‘non-commercial’ photoshoot  is $200/hour. . . and there are lots of rules, so you need to be creative to get your shots since you can’t touch the signs in any way (1 foot rule).

The AC cobra was a nice prop (especially since i got to drive it), but the hot door exhaust was definitely a one touch lesson!  The caterers of the place were telling me that late evening was the best time to shoot there, but i think i would have taken an earlier time as the tall signs started to fall into shade and it was hard finding a perfect ‘light’ spot.  I personally like having more direct sunlight, because it’s easier to control with reflectors and shades.   I adjusted the color/contrast/saturation of these images using ‘overlay’ layers and the aging effect was a scan of an old crumpled dirty piece of paper set to ‘hard light’ on its own layer with some areas masked out around the bridal group and car.

Except for the astounding heat of 40 degrees, and only a couple hours of shoot time,  I was like a kid in a candy store in Vegas,  the questions were just of which fabulous location to set up.  Fortunately the Wynn was just accross the street and  provided a classic background reminiscent of victorian days.

What’s a proper vegas wedding without an Elvis impersonator?  We fondly named him ‘perv Elvis’ as he hit on just about every available and unavailable woman.

And no, I don’t do weddings anymore,  but in this instance the lure of Vegas, Harleys, Elvis lookalikes and a Retro wedding kinda tweaked my interest.

Channa is a very sexy girl i have know for years and she is definitely getting better with age.   Channa has been serious about her training and it shows. . . She’s  probably in the gym as much as I’m on this computer.  All this hard work is going to pay off for her in the WBFF Worlds Bikini Diva Competition in Toronto on September 19.

Here are a couple images from our recent shoot.   The next image is a ‘one lighter’   I try to light ’simply’. . .  but after placing the first light, i am thinking where to put the accents, a hair light and a ‘kicker’ in the eyes,  but i resisted my ‘playboy lighting’ tendencies and went with a single 36″ softbox with a 30 degree grid.  The Background is a stretched piece of metallic fabric mesh.  I gave her a bit of a ‘plastic’ look by using ’smart blur’ in photoshop and then hand smudging some of the transitions.

The following image is more of my traditional style with a main overhead,  subtle flash fill and an accent light to bring out the curves.  I love the lower accent light in the eyes that brings them to life and gives an air of anime innocence (The thought behind the eyes doesn’t look so innocent though).  I love doing the bedroom sets,  with just a few materials you can go from a candy sweet bedroom  to something quite naughty and dark,  I just need to find a new assistant as i hate folding up my fabric messes after the shoot!

Follow up email:

“Thankyou thankyou thankyou!!  Today was by far the best shoot ever, eveything was perfect and the pics look amzing, i cant wait to see them all!!  Im a bwp exclusive model from now on ”

If you want to see more of Channa,  Check out her blog:  http://www.channalovesmma.com

Here’s a video presentation of four makeup transitions as Colleen creates a ‘Pinup’ look.  The 3rd slide is subtle, but one of the interesting techniques i’d like to point out is the use of Talc under they eyes before she applies the mascara.  Specs of Mascara can be the most troublesome to remove and a thin dusting of Talc prevents this.   One caution with pinup is that makeup artists tend to use very Red lips.  I have Colleen lean towards a more magenta or orange shaded red. Careful with pure red as it is very hard to reproduce on press and tends to ‘Block up’ unless you are using specific pantone colors or Printing in Hexachrome.

The Pinup artists that inspired this look  are Art Frahm and J. Frederick Smith.  Both their styles are  a little ‘edgier’ while most of the other artistis of the time painted with softer lines.

Lesley came to me about a year ago with a body cage and a big furry carpet.  Luckily i had a funky space gun ( It’s actually an airbrushed toy gun from ‘Star Wars’) which gave it a ‘Red Sonia’ meets Battlestar Galactica feel.

I was sitting in front of this image for a few days trying to come up with a concept to ’spice’ up the body cage and ‘gun’  . . . Voila!  a southpark episode just played with a parody of the classic cartoon ‘Heavy Metal’ . . . yes some inspiration comes cheap!

Besides a lot of airbrush work,  I gave this image a little more of a ‘cartoon’ feel by using the ’smudge’ tool set to ‘darken’ and brushed through the hair to remove ‘whispies’.  The layer was duplicated, given a small gaussian blur and set to ’soft light’ at about 60% (this raised the contrast, saturation, and smoothed the skin – i did erase around the eyes, gun and some areas that i still wanted to apprear sharp.

Sometimes i wish i was better with Wire frame creation, but for now i’m using some stock images from Istock photo.  Here are the images that went into this file. . . can you spot where all the suit of armour pieces came from?

Follow up email:

I totally love it! The armour looks so cool and I have never looked better! Great ideas, I’m  really excited.  Thanks,  Lesley

I’m pretty excited. . I managed to get about 10 000 minutes on my iphone!!!!   How you ask?

Well Start by going to the app store through itunes and load Skype.  If you are in Canada however it is a little more work as Skype is currently not offered. . . But heres a workaround.

If you are signed in to itunes, sign out.   You will need to create a new profile.  .  . first scroll to the bottom of the page and choose ‘United States’ under ‘my store’.

Now go find a free application to download ( how about skype!). . . with a free app,  you do not need your credit card to verify your address.   Set up an account with a ‘U.S.’ address.    Now simply update your phone and you have Skype running on it.

Set up Skype. . . I went with a package that is $3 a month for unlimited talk anywhere in North America ($12 for the world) .  This also includes setting up call display that will show my Cel number whenever i call. Now you can make unlimited calls anywhere you get a wifi signal on your phone. . that was pretty simple!

It gets better though. . .

Download Quickpwn. . at this time the current version is 2.2.5 Here (mac version). Run the program and attach your phone to the computer.  This is going to update your software and allow you to load programs that are not controlled exclusively by apple.  If you have a broken (unlocked) your phone,  this is going to update your baseband to 2.30.03 which has not yet been broken. . so keep that in mind.  It’s not really an issue if you are using a Rogers phone with Rogers,  Fido with Fido, etc.  I also just ordered a hardware solution to unlocking. . .  A small card that piggy backs your sim card.   Again, there is currently no SOFTWARE solution to breaking the new baseband… if you see it out there, its a scam!!!

The rest of the downloads can be done ON YOUR PHONE through the new App ‘Cyndia’ that was just loaded by ‘Quickpwn’

Download ‘Backgrounder’

It will now show up as an icon – Run the program. . . click  ‘Application specific’  then ‘Always Enabled’ and turn Skype on permanently. . .this allows you to accept incoming calls at all times.

Download Boss Prefs from Cydia

You now have control to turn off the edge, 3G or the wifi network among other things.  This is great to test your connections like turning off wifi and running skype and seeing how it works with the 3g network.  You can also do stuff like turning the battery into a % charge remaining.

Download ‘voipover3g_1.0.1.deb’

This is the best part. . . this program fools Skype into thinking it is on the wifi network when it is actually using your data plan – 3G network.  It runs invisibly . .so you wont see a button with this one.

It seems like alot, but all runs really seamlessly.   The benefit is that you can talk on Skype from the network when you are away from wifi.  On a 1 minute phone call i used about 450 kb of data.  With the 6gb data plan that Rogers is currently offering,  you get conservatively 10,000 minutes.   You can not currenlty get a CDN phone Number through Skype but a U.S. phone number is only a few $.  One advantage  is that if you get a California #,  someone in L.A. could call you free locally and it would ring wherever you are.   I have unlimited incoming minutes, so when i call from Skype (FREE!!!), my current cel number shows up and if they call me back, its Free!!!! (unlimited incoming).

One Additonal note:

Cyndi has a great app called ‘Cycorder’.  Its Free and a much better version of the mac recorder. – It turnes your iphone into a video camera!

Enjoy!

Can you spot the difference?

I found a few of my images on ‘hometown hotties’ on the maxim website.   They published my work without getting a photographers release even though my © was clearly visible on the bottom of the image.  Notice how the ‘maxim’ image was enlarged to crop out my logo.

Here was my 2nd email to maxim.com:

My images are of Kinga from Vancouver.   All images i provide to clients have a © logo on the bottom with my name.  I have provided work to magazines (including Stuff online)  for years and it is quite standard to get a photographers release for publication.  I am just a little upset that my logo has been removed and a maxxim logo put on my images that are yet to be released into the US.    As Kinga is a client and i do not want to remove her from the competition,    I would be happy to see my logo/credit digitized onto these images.    ‘ © 2009 BWP.CA ‘

This was the response:

We require all Hometown Hotties entrants to get the photographer’s permission to use photos by signing a Copyright Release form. By Kinga submitting the photos without a form, we were led to believe that she owned the rights to the images. I’m very sorry that your photos were used, and name removed without your permission.

I’ve attached our Copyright Release form for you. Since Kinga is currently in a voting week and hasn’t yet moved on in the contest, if you’re unable to sign the release form I’ll be forced to remove her from the contest. I hope – as I’m sure you do – that I don’t have to remove her. Thanks for helping us – and Kinga – out with this. Sorry again for all the trouble.

Melissa Ward
Assistant Editor, Maxim Digital
1040 Avenue of the Americas, 22nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
212.372.3949

How casual. . .sign this little release giving them full usage, resale, cell phone uploads, manipulation, poster and cd reproduction oh, and the big clincher. . renouncing all moral rights and association that I created this image.   I have alot of strong words for that!!!!

I just confirmed with a lawyer that the burdern or proving ownership fully falls on Maxim and this ‘led to believe’ crap is just that.  It’s usually pretty easy to differentiate professional images from snapshots (especially when they are clearly marked!!).  Now how many other photographers have had their work stolen in the same fashion?   I just have to rant how pissed off i am when a company such as this with all the financial means has to ’steal’ work and especially remove credit.

So,  if anyone sees these images out there with the maxim logo,  I will be very appreciative if you could let me know. . . stay tuned!

Alyssa is going to be this years hottest Rookie up and coming cart racer!  She Just flew up from Edmonton for a race in Coquiltham and stopped in to shoot with her new high speed racer.  Apparently it can hit up to 160 kph. . . not bad for a go cart!  I also found out that she made the podium. . . Congrats!

I thought I would go for a modern take on ‘pinup’.  I used a hard overhead light set slightly to the left with a gridded softbox (30 degrees) at camera position on the floor (1 fstop under).  The rest of the effect was done in photoshop using the effects i detailed in the ‘kelsey & Lola’ photoshoot.

Yes you’re a ham!

Well it was nice to see Jason Dussault again after a long absense.  I would have seen him sooner but  unfortunately could not make the Vegas party with Chris Angel and Gene Simmons because of an overlapping holiday to mexico.  (yes,  that really sucked!)

It is always fun however doing a shoot with Jason and Mashia.  We were off to a modest start with some low key studio images and lots of post production styling.  These images were shot, retouched and laid out all in the last few hours. . . hows that for turnaround?

The distressed look came from a crumpled piece of paper with a darkened and worn edges. . kinda like something you might find in your jean pockets after a mud fight.  The image was inverted and the highlights (apple/click on the rgb layer) were selected and set to ‘liner light’ on a separate layer over Jason.  I used Alien Skins ‘brushed metal’ filter for the ‘Next’ logo, and deleted portions of with a custom brush i made on a masking layer.  Additional distressing was brushed on the metal with various shades of grey.  The write up came from the mind of Jason. . .

This Concept of Mashia I pretty much had to come up with on the spot.  They brought in a big white comforter and wanted to go for a bedroom ’snuggly’ look with teddy bear and all.  I would have gone that direction if the hoodie was white or cream, but the contrast of black on white did not speak ’soft’ in my mind.  I’m glad they trusted me to take it another direction. . . I also think it’s a better match next to the ad of Jason.

If you’d like to learn any more about this clothing line and see more of my work,  check out  DussaultApparel.com and their blog at Nippermulberry.com

What can i say,  these two rock!  Alyssa and Abby are best buddies and  think they had a ton of fun ‘playing’ together on this shoot.  I went on the road last year to shoot in my home town of Edmonton.  That week was anything but easy,  I forgot about the windstorms, dust storms,  sudden thunderstorms. . .oh and did I mention storms?  Well here’s the day that everything worked out,  including the sun!

The bottom right pic is them in front of a 1 million BTU burner. . . When i say it was hot in there with the door open,  that is an understatement!

It took a bit to get permission, but i managed to get into the concrete plant in Edmonton.  It helps when you don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.  When i shoot at locations like these,  Everyone including the models signs a ‘Liability Release’ . . . this makes it much easier to get on the properties with the owners knowing we won’t hold them liable if someone falls into the concrete shredder.

I was rather amused when the foreman starting cleaning up the shop for me. . . I picked this location specifically for the  dusty windows and abundance of grease.  He didn’t understand why i wanted a dirty shop to shoot in and kept trying to clean, so i gave him the hose and asked him to keep the girls misted for the photo. . . maybe a little over zealous or too excited, but he sprayed them in the face and almost ruined the makup!

The lighting from this image came mostly from an open garage door to the left and a silver blanket on the ground.  The light was a little strong from the bottom and i needed to retouch a little bit of shadow under their eyes,  but overall i think it worked rather well for all natural lighting.  Normally i would be adding an accent light to their bodies, but space was constricted and i liked the darker outline in this instance.

If you’re curious about the subtle look of this one,  I selected the highlights on the channels layer (Apple + click on RGB layer) Selected the inverse (shift +Apple+I),  clicked back on the layers pallet,  copied and pasted, and set the new layer to ‘overlay’.  Everything was then desaturated slightly.   The image was expanded with a white border, the outside edges were selected and the ‘chalk and charcoal’ effect was used.