Distility Photoshoot – Behind the Scene
It was a honour to have the opportunity to photograph the founder and PR director of Distility Branding.
The shoot was extremely successful and went according to the schedule. I basically used 2 Profoto heads and a reflector for the photos. The secret behind the school is to balance the background ambient lights with the strobes. The cloudy day also helped by creating a very even lighting on the interior of the MaRS building.
Here is the Behind the Scene of the day:
CEO: Axle Davids
PR Director: Andrew F Stewart
Distility Branding, www.distility.com
“Formerly known as aXle Branding, Distility Branding is a Toronto-based brand identity, naming and design company with a twist.”, quote from website.
What is so special about this branding company? Axle had spent more than eight years researching and developing a system called 1Day1Brand. It is basically a one-day workflow with no prep work or homework. It was designed to meet the needs for small and medium-sized enterprises. The result of this workshop is the rudimentary foundation of the brand; its promise, pillars, positioning and personality.
Special thanks to my personal assistants:
Helen Wong
Jonathan Hutchinson
Terry Richardson – Lacoste 2009 – Behind the Scene
“Terry Richardson is an international celebrity as well as one of the most prolific and compelling photographers of his generation. Known for his uncanny ability to cut to the raw essence of whomever appears before his lens, Mr. Richardson’s vision is at once humorous, tragic, often beautiful, and always provocative.”, from his site.
I basically found these two behind-the-scenes very interesting. The combinations of fans, motions, and water droplets created quite amazing results. Although, I am wondering how he prevented the models from being electrocuted. =)
PS. I love the colors and sketches of the drafts.
Lacoste – Spring/Summer 2009
Lacoste – Fall/Winter 2009
Behind the Scene with Dean Collins
Dean Collins is a grand master at photography. Although most of his work are shot by 4×5 or 8×10 negatives (Ancient History), the techniques are all still very usable nowadays. There is no better way than to learn from his educational DVD set. He shows you example after example of how seemingly impossible lighting challenges can be broken down into a series of small, solvable problems.
In the two examples shown in this post (Thank you to Software Cinema for posting one of the twenty shoots on the ‘best of’ DVDs to YouTube in its entirety).
First is a 20 minutes long video that shows how Collins lit a motocycle perfectly. He handles problems such as creating the illusion of speed where none exists, getting highlights on the dull, black tires and creating absolutely perfect specular highlights before Photoshop.
Part 1:
Part 2:
The second example is quick 5-mins-shoot with the CEO and CFO of an airline. He placed “look-a-like” to set up the scenario and lit the scene with spectacular backlight. He tackles problems such as controlling light spill, creating long sunset shadows with only an orange gel, and balancing background light vs subject light.
And, IMO, the best things about these types of shoots is not that they teach you how to solve a specific set of problems. It is that they make you realize that you can learn to light anything.
Part 1:
Part 2:
The entire DVD set filled with tutorials can be purchased here:
The Best of Dean Collins on Lighting