Category: shoot
Forest for the Trees
Time Trial
|| Rather than pound away at the standard stuff that I like to shoot I decided to challenge myself and take on something new. I bought the cheapest metal watch I could find at Target, a few pieces of black poster board, and some tape. After rigging up the watch on a Bogen Magic arm to suspend it above table, I positioned a few pieces of black poster board to flag off light spill, set up two used SB-80dx (one optical triggered and one firing from a Pocket Wizard) and used a third piece of black poster board as a black background (but with proper lighting you can turn even white background black). Once shot I dumped all the images into Adobe Lightroom and then directly transferred to Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta. Once in Photoshop it was just a matter of curve, level, and tone adjustments along with some clone-stamping and patching to correct watch imperfections and dust spots. Honestly the WB isn’t the best between the images, but this was a trial run. Also because this watch is budget-grade it has imperfections I didn’t bother correcting. Ultimately I learned quite a bit about specular highlights, controlling reflections, product styling, image correcting, the difficulties of managing flags, etc. Solid exercise with a valuable payoff. ||
Equipment Used
- Canon 5D Mk II @ 200, f7.1 / RAW
- Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro Lens @ manual focus
- 2 Pocketwizard Plus II Radio Transceivers
- Bogen Magic Arm
- Bogen Super Clamp
- 2 beat up Bogen 9ft Light Stands
- Black Poster Board, white poster board & a grip of spring clamps
- Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta
Across the Canyon
The Ride Before the Last
|| Just before the first snow fell in Park City I set out for a ride on Glenwild. Long DH shorts, tall socks, a touch of snow and some mud were the order of the day. A day later we were racing the storm down this very same trail, watching it drop snow in the mountains just West. The small amount of snow seeped into the well-worn trails making everything nice and sticky, so much so that you would lean into turns past the point-of-no-return without fear. Last ride of the season and the best ride of the season, a new reason to live in Utah. ||
The Mow Ends Now
|| The final installment in my behind-the-scenes series of photos from Stan Evan’s commercial shoot at Powder Mountain, Utah. This last batch was shot near the end of the day, after we rode sleds to the top of the Cat drop off. We filmed a few shots on the cat and around the cat just before it left for the afternoon. The terrain at PowMow seems endless once you reach a peak high enough to start really looking around. Stan and I grabbed our gear once the crew loaded up and left the drop off point, and with a little bit of coaching into some sweet spots I started the descent back to the base area… on a snowboard. Admittedly the last time I was on a snowboard was my first year here in Utah, so it was an adventure. Once back in the parking lot (all in one piece) we traded some high-fives, set the rest of the afternoon in motion and finally returned home around 8pm. 5am-8pm on a weekend makes Monday a little challenging. ||
Powder Mountain Shoot Continued
|| Another round of behind-the-scenes photos from Stan Evan’s commercial shoot at Powder Mountain, Utah. Most of these were candids from shooting in the parking lot around midday, and all of these were captured on my beat up Canon point-and-shoot. Two fun facts for the day: 1. I stood in for a snowboarder 2. The half-moon shaped auger seen above was actually the FIRST mechanized ‘pipe’ (halfpipe) cutter in the country according to the PowMow guys. A little history just hanging out in the parking lot. ||
Outside My Window
More Mow
|| Another grip of behind-the-scenes photos from Stan Evan’s commercial shoot at Powder Mountain. Also pictured above is cinematographer Jeremy Miller who was onsite with Stan. All of these photos were pulled from my rinky Canon point-and-shoot that I’ve put through the ringer over the past couple of years. Check out some of the other photos in the series to see more of the day, and if you’re in Utah I would highly suggest checking out Powder Mountain, terrain and untouched lines for days. Anyone who says the same about Little Cottonwood or Park City is lying, Big Cottonwood would be the exception. ||
PowMow Shoot Pt. 2
