Well after a fair bit of planning… and a couple of false starts,  I finally executed my “Homebush Steampunk Shoot”, and I couldn’t have been happier with the way everything turned out.  If you haven’t already, you might want to read my earlier postings which showed the planning and “vision” for the shoot.

This post is going to go into some behind-the-scenes stuff on the shoot itself.

The first interesting thing that happened was the scouting trip.  Colin Bates (my assistant cameraman) and I went to the site to do some scouting, look at the light, check angles, and also plan out our depth of field settings.  We were there for no more than 2 minutes when a Ranger pounced on us and asked us what we were doing…. and where was our film permit.    Well we didn’t have one, so we had to pack up the lighting gear.

Note to self:  Get film permit before doing the real shoot!

Chrissy our Stylist making some wardrobe adjustments to Faith.

It would have been disaster had we spent 4 hours getting the model through hair, makeup and wardrobe only to have our shoot cancelled by the absence of a photo permit.  So anyway, I applied to the Sydney Olympic Parks Authority and was granted a film permit after jumping through a few hoops.

The week before the shoot, the original model pulls out…. and our hair stylist also pulls out… So we had some last minute scrambling to find replacements, but we got the lovely Faith Hill as our model and Denise Xidas as our hair stylist.

On the day, everything went like clockwork.  I had put together a very detailed shooting brief for all stakeholders, and every body just followed it to the letter.

When we got on site,  Colin and I set about getting the lighting set up properly and balanced.  We had decided to keep the lighting setup pretty simple.  One key light which was an Einstein with a white beauty dish firing about 80% power (at f16).

We let the sun become our backlight.

We did use a reflector to provide a bit more fill for a few shots where the shadows were getting a bit deep.

I shot using a combination of hand-held and tripod.

The blue thing under my right arm is not some fancy-schmancy stabilising technique, it is actually a sling as I had shoulder surgery on my right shoulder the week before the shoot.

I will do a tutorial on the way I post processed the images shortly.

Here are a few more shots from the shoot.  I have processed about 8 keepers so far, but there are plenty more lovely shots from the day.  I did really like the graphic simplicity of the location… I felt it worked really well.  Of course we were lucky with the weather… dark rainy clouds… but they didn’t drop a single drop of rain on us for the shoot.

Brent

I had set myself a number of explicit goals for the scouting trip.

1. Find out what time the fountain turns off
2. Eyeball the direction of the setting sun and determine how to factor this into my composition
3. Work out my camera angles and choices of lenses for the various shots I wanted to take (wide, mid, and close-ups)
4. Experiment with various different depth of field ranges to determine which aperture I was going to shoot at on the day to get just the look I was after.
5. Determine the position for my off camera flash key light and power settings.

So how did it go?

Mixed!

We got there and set up, and within 5 minutes there was a ranger on our backs telling us that we can’t shoot there without a film permit.  I had already investigated shooting permits quite some time ago, and felt I didn’t need one, but it appears that things must have tightened up a bit since then.

The ranger let us continue our scouting shoot, but minus the strobe.

So we did achieve goal 1 – 4 above…. I got everything worked out except the strobe position (which I’ll do on the day).

Big lesson…. It pays to scout.    I have re-scheduled this shoot until 3rd of May when I’m back from New York.  The entire creative team are confirmed for this date now.   However it would have been a disaster had we turned up to do the shoot without scouting and the rangers stopped us from shooting.

I am going to be submitting my film permit application and will make sure to have my approved permit with me when we turn up to shoot for real.

I’m off to New York on Sunday and plan to do a similar shoot with a New York team while I am there.

Here’s my  mood board.

However the stylist that I am using is going for a leather and latex steampunk look…. More like this.

Should be cool… stay tuned… I’m doing the New York shoot on 27th Feb.

Brent

In the second article I showed the creative input that the stylist has in terms of wardrobe, accessories etc.

In this article I’m going to share the creative concepts from our Makeup artist – Tracy Becken.

Here’s what Tracy is thinking for the shoot

 The obvious makeup for this theme would be charcoal smokey eye and pale lip and a little grunged up. But I am leaning towards something more futuristic and fictional and Sarah has the eyes to make this work.

It depends on whether Sarah’s hair is currently blonde or red (just waiting to hear).  Being steampunk, I will keep the colours based on metallic and earth tones but it will be dramatic.  These are my initial inspirations in terms of makeup to suit this theme, model and wardrobe.

cheers

Tracy 

 

Our Model Sarah

 

Tomorrow afternoon, I am going out to scout the location with my assistant cameraman, so I’ll do another posting showing you the scouting shots, and how I was preparing for teh shoot in terms of lights, filters etc.

Then I will post the hair concepts from our hair stylist Cara.

More to come

Brent

I wanted to show you what a good stylist will do for a shoot.    Chrissy has just sent me her concept for the Steampunk shoot that we are doing,  here’s what she sent.

These images served as inspiration for Chrissy.   She has put together a concept sketch of the outfit she has in mind.   Lots of jewellery, accessories, some fur and a kind of leather dress.

Now that the team has a good idea for the look and feel of the costume, the make up artist and hair stylist can start working on their own creations to go with the outfit..

My my… haven’t I neglected this blog for a while.  It’s not as though I haven’t been shooting, but I just haven’t been motivated to update the blog.  With 2012 drawing to a close I’m going to hit 2013 with more energy and see if I can dust off the old blog and post some material that might be of interest for other photographers.

I’m actually planning a whole stack of shoots for 2013.  I’ve got 3 planned already…. 2 in Sydney in January, and 1 in New York city at the end of the month.

I’m working on a project that builds on some images that I made when I was at Burning Man earlier this year.  I want to continue with the style of photography that I shot in Nevada, but I want to adapt it to local shoots.

I’m going to share with the blog my plans for the shoot itself,  how I executed the shots, how I post produced them, and then the finished images.

So, for shoot number  which I’m doing in early January.  Here’s the mood board….

I find mood boards work really well in conveying to everybody what it is you are looking to create.   In the mood board above, in the top left you can see the model I’m working with (Sarah), who is gorgeous.   In the middle you can see the style of image I’m looking to create.   On the right of the moodboard you can see the Steampunk look & feel for hair, makeup and wardrobe, and in the bottom left you can see some scouting shots I took at the location.  The B&W one is a long exposure of the water coming from the fountain, and the colour one is with off camera flash showing the dramatic lighting I can get at this location.

I will be doing a series of posts talking more about the preparation for this shoot.   I will be working with a team consisting of.

• Model
• Makeup artist
• Hair stylist
• Wardrobe / Stylist
• Assistant Photographer

Coordinating all of these creative people take time and energy, but if I can unleash all of their creative talents optimally, then we should get some wicked images.

By the way, the software I used to create the moodboard is an iPad application called Moodboard for < $11.  It’s a lot of fun to use.

Full credit to Lee Duguid, he did something that I didn’t have the time to do… rescue the photoguides project.  I was pissed off when Google announced they were discontinuing their Knols… which was the foundation of the photo guide project.   i chose Google Knols not only because of the functionality, but because it was “Google” and I thought it would last the test of time.      Oh well.. you can’t win them all.

Anyway,  big thanks to Lee for keeping all these great guides alive.

Go check them out at http://freephotoguides.com

I have arranged a trip to the Burning Man Festival in Nevada at the start of September.  Now if you haven’t heard about Burning Man… you aren’t going to believe it.  Check out this video for an insight into one of the worlds biggest, weirdest, craziest music and arts festivals that is held in the middle of the Nevada desert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jm1PMU6jLk

I’m planning on taking the same Off Camera Flash gear that I took to photograph the Himba tribe of Namibia and create some super-stylistic environmental portraits of the all “interesting people” dressed in costume in this bizarre environment.   I also want to do some really wild and wacky long exposure and night photography of the fires… artists…. fireworks…raves… lasers…. night cyclists… mutant vechicles, sculptures etc..

I have a funny feeling that the images from Burning Man are going to be …. well … different.

I can’t wait….. August 30th – September 3rd……

All information about the workshop can be found here.

Places are strictly limited, and it’s first come, first served,  so email me at brentbat@gmail.com if you would like to learn how to use Off Camera Flash out on location.

Brent

I really wanted to explore the HD video capabilities of my D800e, so I borrowed a bit of video gear (light, fluid head tripod, dolly & track) and spent the day shooting this behind-the-scenes footage.

If you want to really appreciate it, I suggest you jump over to Youtube and view it in 720 or 1080 resolution.

I love the shallow DOF that you get with the large sensor size.

I learnt a lot from this shoot and plan to do more work fusing HD video with stills on multimedia productions.

Since then I’ve bought a bit of gear especially for HD DSLR video.

Brent

Why?

Several reasons

1) I’m shooting with my new D800e  (first shoot in anger)

2) We are shooting in the Sydney Prop Specialist Studios (and in fact all through their facilities)

3) They have made their props available for us to use

4) I’m working with a producer called Laya who is fantastic and has put together some great themes… here’s a sneak preview of what Layla is cooking up.

First Up – Theory and Light Modifier Demos

• Next – A group setup with a ballerina
• Then Lunch

We then split into two groups and work with our models and make up artists to shoot the following four concepts

1. Bridal Shoot
2. Brit Pop
3. BladeRunner (think big industrial fans, backlit coloured lights, smoke machine etc.)
4. Alice In Wonderland – With 1950s housewives

This is going to be so much fun…

I’ll post some photos from the workshop next week.