I Directed a Beauty Commercial

THE IDEA

A few weeks ago I got this brilliant idea that I wanted to shoot a spec cosmetic commercial. I love photographing beauty work, and I want to move more into motion picture. I’m a firm believer that generally, people don’t hire you to do something they’ve never seen you do. Therefore creating more work that illustrates your capabilities and passions is valuable both to your company and your creative desires.

I pulled together commercials I found compelling or inspiring in the beauty space and used them as a point of reference when structuring my own 30 second spot.

Speculative work or Spec work is voluntary work made by creatives to illustrate an idea or concept to submit to prospective clients in hopes of ultimately getting paid work with a similar scope

THE CREW

I then assembled my team:

Hair: Quick Hair Solutions

Makeup: Kenya Haynie

Wardrobe: Trenez Scott

Talent: Ashley Arre

THE EQUIPMENT

For lighting I used this new light from ParabolixLight called an Omni It pairs perfectly with my parabolic umbrella from them as well. I added a bounce board below her and kept the lighting the same for all the shots with the exception of the opening shot. For the opening shot I bought this $40 party strobe off Amazon.

For my camera, I ran with my Red Komodo and bounced between a sigma 18-35 and Sigma 50-100 lens.

BTS

ADDITIONAL ASSETS

I wanted to incorporate product visuals into the spot as well, so I reached out to a motion design studio to assist with this process. I supplied a rough cut of the spot and references to what I imagined, and they created renderings of the lipstick and then an animation that I could then incorporate into the video. Here are some of the early renderings of the lipstick.

THE RESULTS

Allen Cooley + Design Essentials

One of my favorite clients and new clients for this year has been Design Essentials.  We've been working on doing something together for a while, and we were able to pull the trigger earlier this year and I really love what we were able to do together.  One of the reasons I really enjoy working with DE is, typically with clients at this scale, there are very rigid, unforgiving scopes and things that must be accomplished during the shoot, not leaving much room for exploration, and DE gives very nice broad strokes allowing for more personal interpretation.  I was co-producer of the shoot, so I was able to source several of the models, as well as use my hair, makeup and wardrobe.  All those things allow for a very comfortable enviornment, mainly because I know my crew, I know how to push and motivate, and equally I trust their eye as well as their feedback.  So I know if I think i'm doing it, and I look at my team, and I'm not getting the proper energy in response, then I know adjustments need to be made (hope that makes sense).

Here are a few of the visuals from our initial shoot together.

Along with this project we also did a celebrity ambassador campaign with music sensation Ledisi.  I'll give more insight on that shoot in a separate post but here are the final images from that shoot, which was laid out into a lookbook for the product launch.

More to come soon.  I'm sure you can tell by now that I suck at blogging, but I'm working on it...so be patient with me.

My European Trip

I can't begin to tell you what this trip did to me, and meant to me...but I want you to at least see some of the things I saw, as close to how I saw them as possible.

So a year or so ago a good friend of mine gave me a camera that was sent to him (long story that I wont get into now) but the camera is called a #ricohtheta Check out the website to get an idea of what the camera does...or just keep reading....anyway...I personally love taking pictures for a living but I'm not really a fan of taking pictures when I travel because I enjoy just looking, and I feel like my camera gets in the way of me just experiencing.  The #Theta is super cool for this problem I have because i take a quick shot of my enviornment and keep moving...I'm not trying to compose the image, or setup the perfect mixture of elements so whoever I'm showing the image to gets a feel of everything, I just hold my theta to the sky, press the button and walk away knowing everything I see, and saw will be seen by whoever i show lol....

Enough talking, just take a look.

First stop was Paris... This image is from underneath the #EiffelTower

Under the Eiffel Tower - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Second Stop London for the #BIgBen and the #LondonEye

Big Ben and London Eye - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Walking up the Arc De Triomphe in Paris, France

Post from RICOH THETA. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

After what felt like 3000 steps... the top of the Arc De Triomphe

Top - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

 This last image is of arguably one of the most famous paintings in the world...well the room with one of the most famous paintings in the world in it.... The #MonnaLisa

Monna Lisa's Small - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

That's it for now!

More to come.

BET's The Game (old post 2013)

To date one of my most amazing experiences as a photographer came at the end of 2012 when I worked on BET's The Game Season 6 promo photoshoot.  For me, this shoot declared me a professional photographer, even if only to myself.  So much went into this shoot that I knew about but never had to put into action and it really let me know that I could rise to the occasion.  There was equipment rental, studio rental, crew, digital tech, mock ups, equipment insurance, shoot insurance, shot list, lighting diagrams, and the list goes on that had to happen in less than 3 days.  What's so funny to me is that at the very core of it, all I had to do was photograph people on a white cyc and that's something I've done a million times over but not like this.  Everything needed to be spot on, exposures needed to match on each person, no hot spots, no blocked up shadows, detail throughout, and no fixing it in post, it needed to be right in camera, because the people looking at the monitor wanted to know they had the shot when they looked at it.  Now I can pretend thats what I do every time but in all honesty I know I've got a little give when I'm shooting for general projects in my own personal studio but not with this.     

Every person was shot individually with the intent of being composited into a group shot or standing alone.  No lights were moved once we got the exposures correct so we had to tape off the floors of the studio strategically to guarantee that everyone stood in the correct location for every shot… even the bench was rolled in and put on top of apple boxes to raise it up, so when someone sat on it, they would be about the same height as when they were standing.  It was an incredible incredible experience and I loved every piece of it.   

All in all, we used about 7 lights.  4 lights were just being used to light the cyc which was being flagged off by 2 v-flats on each side.  The subject was being lit by a beauty dish with a parabolic umbrella flying behind to add some overall fill to the shadows that the beauty dish may cause, and a bare bulb was on the ground at low power serving as a kicker to add a bit of fill to the bottom half of everyone. This was all shot with a Hasselblad h5d with an 40mp back.

Side Note:  Whenever I thought about my profession as a photographer, being a celebrity photographer was never the thought, just being a photographer, and God willing a great one, was my goal.  Whatever the case, I have been afforded some fantastic friendships along the way, and I always make it a point to try to have at least one of my "crew members" be a friend that honestly cares nothing about photography but genuinely just wants to be there when I photograph a celeb…. this shoot was no different… I worked one of my best friends Bob into my crew.  Looking back I maybe should've hired one extra person that actually knew how to setup the lights and be an actual assistant but Bob held his own, as best he could lol. 

Composition Rules the World

Good composition in an image is like a well formulated thought.  It's necessary for the viewer to really get a grasp on what you're trying to say with your image.  Now, it can be argued what good composition is, because it is to some degree subjective, but there are some canons that we can begin with.  One that many have heard is the "Rule of Thirds".  This method is very traditional, very 'Old School' if you will, but mastering it is a mandate in your tool box of photographic skill sets.  Once you understand the 'ROT' , you can be more conscious in how you choose to break this rule. 

The Rule:

The image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.

In this image, I have my subject falling on the left side of the frame along the line. Also, I attempted to use the actual buildings structural lines to fall along those same gridded lines to make somewhat of a frame around my subject creating a frame inside of a frame.  

A similar situation can be seen with this image of Chrisette Michele.  One major difference is I wanted her head to fall at the intersection of the lines in the top right hand portion of the frame, allowing her body to trail into the bottom left portion of the frame.

Keep in mind this isn't a rule that only works when framing horizontal images, it also can apply for vertical images as well.

In this image I put the eye specifically in the intersection of the lines in the top right.

Sometimes its also appropriate to have your subject fall into the center of the frame or heavy to the left or right without actually landing on the lines or the intersections of them.

The challenge is to really consider how you compose an image.  Be sure to take care in where your subject lands in the overall frame.  It will make your images come across more thought out and more professional.  This doesn't mean you always have to follow this rule, but hopefully now that you know this rule, and how it can be applied, you can go back through and audit your own images. I'm sure you'll see that some of your most successful pictures follow this rule without you even noticing.