Behind the Scenes: Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again

1 breath-taking park in full autumn bloom, 10 photographers, and 3 vehicles filled with costumes, props, and smoke bombs galore, make for one epic photo adventure!

Back in September, my friend Rob (of Robert Cornelius Photography) and I were hanging out in Philly, on what happened to be Free Museum Day! We met up with our friend Steph and went to the Academy of Natural Sciences. Rob started telling me abut this Flickr meetup he'd been invited to by Val (of Valerie Kasinski Photography) and it sounded like really fun trip. I had asked if there could be room for one more, and I'm so happy I was able to come aboard! 

This meetup was in mid-October, so I drove to Rob and we carpooled to the cabin in upstate New York for a new adventure! On our second day of the meetup, we traveled to Genesee Falls to take advantage of the amazing fall foliage. It was a bit chilly out that day, but I was really excited about the waterfall nearby. After watching a few of the others working on their own concepts, I climbed down over a ledge to check out how deep the water was by the edge and see if I'd be able to use that location for the concept I wanted to shoot. 

After Rob shot this amazing photograph, he helped me bring my equipment down to the water and then we helped the amazing Aleah (of Aleah Michele Photography) down in her dress. I'll tell you for sure that this girl is a trooper. The water was pretty frigid, so we worked on the shoot as quickly and safely as we could.

Personally, I'm not one to go tell a model to do something if I'm not willing to do it as well, so I walked as far over to the waters edge as carefully as I could on the squishy and slippery rocks, and man did that water feel icy (at least I didn't get frostbite this time though!). Aleah got into position in the water and I found a spot to anchor my tripod on a flat surface in a shallower part of the water. 

We practiced a few poses fist before shooting, knowing how to react and move to the smoke bomb we were igniting. Once you light one of those suckers, you gotta move quick! I used a purple smoke bomb here because I liked how it complimented Aleah's dress and would nicely contrast against the fall colors in the background. 

Aleah ignited the smoke bomb, hid the lighter, and stepped into action so quickly and it was amazing. A subtle breeze came in as the smoke was pluming and created a beautiful and natural spiral effect that trailed behind her. The whole thing was magical. I had her stay in position just for a little while longer, while I shot additional images, panning the area, to use for the expansion I stitched together later for the final image. 

At some point when I was shooting the expansion shots, I squatted down just a little too low and jumped up at the sudden shock of cold water on my booty. Because I was already wet and down in the waterfall, Aleah then took the opportunity to shoot me over on the side of the falls to create this epic photograph. 

I still have a number of images to edit from this Flickr meetup, now it's just trying to find the time to hopefully continue to release once each week. 

This will hopefully be the next image I'll have finished for next week. 

Admit this is the best group photo/gif you've ever seen! 

Photo Credit: Joel Robison

Photo Credit: Val Kasinski

Photo Credit: Val Kasinski

Photo Credit: Lulu Lovering

Behind the Scenes: Replaying Lost Memories

My friend Julie (of Julie Belton Photography) shot me this day in a cabin and used that image to create a photograph she shot on a recent trip to New Orleans. She asked me to title the image for her and was so excited for the name I had given it, so I thought I would share the process on how I created the title for this photograph. This is how I work with titles - I start out with key works and work my way through what I feel connect best with my image. I also used a few textures that Julie released for download as a gift for everyone on HER birthday. Isn't she the best! Some of these made me drool. 

First off, let me lead into this by saying that this photograph literally broke my computer, Betty. It's strange how sometimes I'll find myself in a lull and not work on editing for a few days, but as soon as my ability to edit is taken away I seem to fall in what I've been calling "Photoshop Withdrawal." 

This was a pretty big edit, too. The full final file size of this image, along with its lighting/color adjustments and texture layers, equal a whopping 15.5GB large format document! I need a full-frame sensor, haha. That number doesn't even account for the expansion file separately made to stitch the image together. So, if you want the full number, add about 6 more GB's. YIKES! 

My friend Robert (of Robert Cornelius Photography) and I headed up to a photo-meetup that our friend Tatiana ( of Tatiana Lumiere Photography) was hosting in Valley Forge National Historical Park, a few days after Halloween. When we arrived we explored some log cabins on the side of the road, and we tried not to be blown away from the immense winds we were experiencing that chilly day. I went out that day without any real solid intentions on a concept I wanted to shoot. I skimmed my Brain (notebook) and I had a few ideas I was bouncing on, but I wasn't completely sold on them just yet. No reason to rush myself, always save ideas for later. 

After leaving the cabins, we went to a cool spot in the park where there's an old abandoned greenhouse. Earlier in the year, I was at this same location, and wanted to shoot something, but the light wasn't on our side and I didn't really have an idea to play off from, so I was more determined to finally shoot in this location for a new concept. I did what I usually do. I walked around and inside the greenhouse about two dozen times, trying to frame out an ideal point to shoot from. Rob and I stood inside and bounced a few ideas off each other, then we met up with the group again at our cars in the lot, full of bins filled of costumes and props.  

I stepped back and watched the others concepts come to life, while I was still developing a story I wanted to tell with this location. While standing back and watching Rob shooting, I watched the light peek out from nearby trees and hit the structure in the most amazing light. My heart starting racing and I saw the story in my head. When I get into go-time mode, I run around and act a bit crazy. You never know how'll long you'll get something special when it comes to light beams, you just have to move fast! 

I gathered handfuls of dead leaves and scattered them all across the lawn and in the bushes in front of the greenhouse. I love how the wind tossed them slightly, giving the scene a more authentic feel. Rob kindly stood in as my model, as I knew I would have to shoot him in multiple frames to make the scene work - a little too much work for a selfie this time. I posed Rob leaning against the door, and I wasn't feeling the story in that position. I ran back and forth several times, changing his pose and gestures. I added one of my briefcases into the scene to add a little more of a visual narrative element that would help guid the viewer to the story being created. My friend Julie stood on the side, helping reflect some light onto Rob in the scene. 

After all was said and done, with all the additional shots for the expansion completed (along with some questioning by a curious park cop who drove by) we packed up for the day and went to feed ourselves, ASAP! On these photo adventure days, we get SO focused on created, we lose track of our hunger until its in full rage. 

A few weeks later, I started working editing this photograph. After finishing the expansion for the image, I went and worked with the lighting adjustments. Fast-forward to six hours later and like the lighting, I group my adjustments and start playing the the color. Not long after this, Betty froze. I knew things were bad when the clock stopped working at the top of my screen. I had to shut Betty down, restart her, and see what data recovery I could do for the document. Three hours later, I was able to save around 80% of the work I did. Once the document was saved, I started working on the photo again, when Betty crashed, again. Long story short, this photo proved to be too big of a match for Betty, after all the years of pushing her limits.

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A close up of a new photo I'll be releasing next Friday! 

Because of the holiday, It took about a week to get Betty returned back from Apple for repairs. Here video-card was fried, and she was't coming back with out a new one. In the end, that was way cheaper than buying a new iMac. Betty's home and not going anywhere! Now back to work! 

Behind the Scenes: A Journey Ended in A Land Unknown

A few weeks ago I attend one of The Wild Ones workshops, this one was held in D.C.. I was really happy that we had a very overcast sky to work with that day, though it was a bit more damp than what we had anticipated, but we didn't let it get to us. A light drizzle never hurt... much, haha. 

After introductions and demonstrations, we headed off to a shooting location we scouted out earlier in the day. It didn't even feel life we were in the same park anymore, the tall jagged cliff's looked so amazing. If you seriously ever get the chance to visit Great Falls Park, DO IT! This park is enormous and has so many things to offer for almost any photographer! 

The day before The Wild One's workshop began, my friend Julie Belton came down to Philly, and I helped assist her on a concept that she wanted to shoot in a nearby park (her photo turned out amazing, just so you know). After we wrapped up her shoot, I decided just to have a little fun while we still had a little time to spare before traveling down to D.C..

Steph absolutely loves this dress, and I've never used in an image before, so why not give it a go. We walked over to the nearby skate park underneath the overpass in F.D.R. Park, and picked a spot to shoot in. I decided to shoot something totally different, so I had Steph lean up against this broken TV, and we gathered all the trash surrounding us and setup this little scene (don't worry, that french fry was something we brought from the diner beforehand, haha). I call it "Trashy Glamour."

Julie had a whole bunch of smoke bombs with her, so we chose to use this huge one that was called The Chainsmoker. Steph posed and we lit that sucker up! It was kind of crazy, the smoke bomb had 4 chamber, each lasting about 15-20seconds and went from purple, blue, green, to yellow. A bunch of nearby skaters came by to see what was going on. An audience is never bad, right?  

Well, here in this image we have the wonderfully kind soul, Joe (The Boy Wonder) Robinson - a true world traveler and creative spirit. I've been following Joel's work for years and he was one of the first photographers I found who introduced me to conceptual photography. I decided to use Joel for the first image I shot during the workshop that day. 

Down near the river, the cliff had a deep depression in one spot and could easily be mistaken as a cave. It was definitely a spot that me and a few others knew had great potential for a bunch of different concepts to be shot their. We each took turn shooting images there. 

I used an extra smoke bombs that Julie gave me to set off for the shot. It was larger than others I've used in the past and I was excited to see what it would really do. We got everything setup and Joel lit the bomb and got back into position. Slowly the smoke rose up from the depression and said straight up because of the windless air. It must have produced smoke for at least 45seconds, and there was so much! Joel got caught in it for a minute, and these things never smell pretty... ever. It's more like suffer-y eggs, yep. 

After shooting Joel in his pose, I began shooting the rest of the scene by panning the camera around. This is pretty tricky when it comes to smoke bombs, and I always will have to manually blend and stitch each image for the composite together. This is because as I'm shooting, the smoke is still constantly moving up and through the air. It's necessary to shoot a whole bunch of extra shots and making sure you've captured images of all the edges of the smoke plumes for the best believability. 

Stitching this image together was trickier than others I've done in the past, but I'm so happy with the final result of the image! 

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As a special treat, here's a close-up of the next image I'll be releasing next week!