Luke Strauchmans E30 on Interstate 75/85 in downtown Atlanta
Luke Strauchman, Halston Pitmann, and Josh Dahlstrom picked me up at the airport in Atlanta 2 weeks ago today. When I arrived in baggage claim, Luke was holding a sign that said I ❤ Casey. I figured the least I could do was get him some night time rolling shots on our way to the Waffle House for a little 1am breakfast. I figured with Halston at the wheel of the chase car, and Josh holding my ankles, it should be a breeze. Breeze wasn’t the word for it, 65 degrees is cold on my San Diego ears at 75 MPH.
**Please for your own safety and the safety of other motorists, do not attempt rolling shots from one vehicle to another without proper safety equipment and obey all laws in your local areas.**
Looks like we were all getting our picture taken.
Larger photos can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwithersmedia/sets/72157627785152450/
and then we had waffles.
Day 16: My apologies
I just want to take the time to acknowledge my absence from the blog over the past week and offer an explanation for those of you who anticipate regular updates.
I have been experiencing some tenderness in my pectoral area for a little over a month and at first did not think anything of it. I carried on like regular and dealt with the minor but steady pain that was there. Until recently I hadn’t thought much of it.
Upon mentioning it to my wife, she felt around in the area and thought she felt what could be a possible lump. This prompted a doctors appointment which landed absurdly right at the end of a very busy shooting week. I anticipated minimal updates this past week, however I did not anticipate the fear that would overcome me in the days leading to the appointment.
My appointment went well, everything looks normal thus far and it doesn’t appear that any worrying was necessary. I have continued on with conducting business, promoting events, editing, enjoying my children’s activities and even somehow managed a few hours to attend my wifes recent roller derby bout with San Diego Roller Derby.
I just want to thank those who were aware for the kind words and support, and those who were not for the patience and understanding for shortage of new material. I have been shooting, I am nearly caught up on my back log of work and I have been making notes of some pretty fun stuff that has happened over the last week or so. Everything is almost back on track and in addition to all of that, I am preparing to launch my newly constructed website which will become the face of C Withers Media on the internet.
Thanks again guys, I appreciate you.
Casey
Day 12: Lakeside Rodeo
Okay so this happened a little under a month ago and I haven’t talked about it, but it warrants the attention.
I received a call from some good friends Mark and Michele Corneglio to come check out their new house and we could hit up the rodeo. I grew up in a community much like Lakeside and to be very literal, this wasn’t my first rodeo. I have never really ventured out into Lakeside, but was pleasantly surprised with its small town charm and feel. People were definitely dressed the part and it had a country feel to it. Men with boots and cowboy hats, women with far too little clothing and big hair, and the smell of livestock in the air. The first thing I noticed was that it was a community event. People knew each other by name, sat together and hollered to other people they knew across the stands, and many beers outlined the landscape.
There was much pageantry, a lot of liberal hippy jokes from the PA announcer and some brave people climbing on wild animals all for our amusement. Good times for sure.
Behind the Scenes Video with C Withers Media
Check out the behind the scenes video made for us by Alain “the Juggernaut” Alba at a recent shoot we did for San Diego Roller Derby.
C. Withers Media hits the shelves again with Francine Sablan.
Francine Sablan/Muscle Mag
Figure competitor athlete Francine Sablan is a rising star in the competitive Figure Modeling circuit.
C Withers Media recognized on Cruzine.com
Just wanted to share that we had a recent photo run at cruzine.com today. Big thanks to all who continue to support and follow, even when there are a lack of updates. We try to keep things fresh, but the work involvement sometimes overrides my ability to keep this blog moving as it should.
Expect some more edgy and exciting stuff in the near future.
Just a basic one light beach set up.
This set up allows me to shoot into the sun and maintain soft even light over the model. It also gives me the ability to blend the light from the strobe naturally with the ambient light.
The size of the soft box is directly related to preventing light falloff near the legs and feet.
By shooting into the sun with enough light to properly expose the model and blend the ambient, I am able to use the natural sunlight as a backlight or rim light and create dramatic seperation of my suject to the background.
BWWCCA Clean Car Competition, HIstoric Show, and Charity Auction.
Hundreds of Southern Californias rarest and most well kept BMWs converged on Spanish Landing in San Diego for their annual charity event. A relaxing environment with a great group of owners and enthusiasts help this event maintain itself as a great annual Sunday get away. For visitors and guests its an opportunity to see rare option packages, rare cars, and classic BMW body styles in mint condition. It’s over this year, but mark your calendar for next as we have covered this event for 3 years running and it continues to grow all the while maintaining its charm and greatness.
Photographing cars in harsh daytime sun.
We always hear about soft light and shooting cars when the light is low in the sky. Unfortunately, client requests don’t always accommodate what works best for you as a photographer. You just have to find ways around the obstacle. So what is the solution to “too much light”? Ironically, it’s more light. Overpowering the sun is no simple feat and requires an understanding and ability to balance natural or ambient light with strobe lighting. Here is an example of a recent set up and the resulting shot of the set up.
Set Up
Result
Creating “The Scissor Kick” with Jess R. in San Diego.
After 2 weeks of planning, a lot of rain in San Diego, a major break that lead to a location change, and a lot of email communication, I was finally able to pin down the amazing Jess R. for a photoshoot session. Jess is a fitness/athletic style model who enjoys running and soccer, so rather try and pull her out of her element, we aggressively pursued some shots within her element. The question loomed though, how do you provide a fitness model who has fitness shots, something dynamic that will upgrade her portfolio. The decision was ultimately made that the first half of our shoot would be spent getting warmed up with some fitness style stretching, running, and lifestyle fitness type shots in Balboa Park, but for the second half of our shoot we would need to really bear down and focus on getting that one shot just right to make her stand out in the sea of fitness models. This is how “The Scissor Kick” came to life.
The scissor kick is an aerial maneuver performed by high caliber soccer players and is often used a potent offensive weapon. It requires tremendous strength, balance, agility, and hand eye coordination. It is the type of aerial maneuver that a small percentage of soccer players in the world can accomplish effectively.
Once arriving at Balboa Stadium and being given the opportunity to shoot there thanks to Joel Goetzinger of www.flightactionsports.com, we waited for about an hour to give us the lighting we wanted on the shot. Being a sports shot and in our attempt to keep the level of realism very high, we opted for natural light. Then came the setup…..
A shot of the empty environment.
Once the environment was in place, it was time to add Jess into the shot… This required a little help from the amazing Tracy Withers who does more to support the creation of art than anyone could imagine.
With our environment covered and our star in place, the image still felt flat with the empty space on the left, plus this type of levitation shot would require a little bit of action in order to make sense..I mean we can’t just put a pretty girl out there and have her doing Ninja moves. It has to make sense. So we added some action and some depth to the shot with one final frame.
This was exactly what we needed to create. Here is the final product which we aptly call, “The Scissor Kick”.
Please let us know what you think by either clicking “Like”, sharing a link to our blog on Facebook, and or leaving a comment. We hope you enjoy the process as much as the product.
Behind the scenes with Christina Knight..
Just wanted to share a fairly simple set up shot from a shoot today with the lovely Christina Knight. 2 AB80o strobes with main light on a gridded beauty dish, and fill/rim light bare with a mini dish. Powered by Vagabond2. I will follow this with an actual shot from this set up..
Resulting shot…..
How did they do that?
So you may have already seen the work, but most people want to know what is happening behind the scenes or how something generates from an idea into a photo… This blog is about the creative process involved and will also showcase some of my new work as it happens and give you, the audience a chance to participate in asking questions and seeing setups on certain shots.
My goal is for you to be able to look at a photo and be able to say more than, “hey, that’s neat”.. My goal is for you to understand the complex levels of creativity involved by all parties to create a great shot. This game is far more advanced than having a fancy camera and pressing a button. I want to bring back an appreciation for those who compose and create so that as a person who appreciates art, you are aware of the process involved in getting it from my head to your computer screen.
I want to be able to share some of my shots, how they were created, what was involved in preparation and accomplishing the shot, where ideas generate and lighting techniques used to create effects.
Levitation in the ruins of the California desert.
The pressing most obvious question is about the levitation.
We will get to that but its actually such a minor part of the entire image process that it can wait to be addressed a bit later.
This photo started with a phone call from a Miss California contestant who wanted to work with me but had certain creative constraints based on her pageant status and we wanted to make sure we kept her in line with the rules she has to play by. At some point, the joke was made that she had to be a little angel…This is where the idea stemmed from. We wanted an angelic feel to the shot that was very soft and believable. How could we do it in a way that was unusual and breathtaking, yet still believable.
We knew we wanted to shoot in the Salton Sea and so we began weather watching waiting for the right day to go. In the meantime, we hired Lizz Martinez to travel with us for her creative and make up knowledge and abilities.
Then the drive……3 hours to location, which of course meant 3 hours home upon completion….6 hours of driving to get one photo….ludicrous, right? Well we knew we would have time to get other shots and could do some other concept work while we were there, but this shot was the reason we went.
We knew we had a about a 6 minute window during/after sunset to get it with the sky lit up in vibrant desert color so we began set up about an hour prior. This involved light testing (which was pretty much guess work and prior knowledge as the sun continued to set) and compositon. We wanted the lighting a certain way, yet we were monitoring the sky to make sure we had the cloud and light patterns there that we wanted in case we needed to readjust. While I did my calculating and made adjustments Lizz worked on getting Kayla’s make up right for the shot to compliment the sky colors and to also be soft and angelic.. Wardrobe wise we went with the white halter dress for its puritanic yet appealing fit on Kayla. It really just seemed to work well with what we wanted to accomplish.
Once we established we had the right composition final setups were made with lighting..We used two AB800 strobes on this shot, one inside the abandoned house at full power and one on a 9ft stand completely elevated on 1/8 power to get light on Kayla. We did two test shots, everything looked good so we marked a few spots with blue painters tape and pulled everything out of the shot.
This is where the levitation happens. It was a two shot setup as you suggested…Once the camera was stabilized in a fixed position and knowing we had maybe 5 attempts to get it right, we hustled on the set. One shot blank with just the background elements using the same lighting and camera settings as we would soon be using to shoot Kayla. Then a second shot of Kayla tip toeing on a chair…We got it on the first try and then decided it was time to pack up and head out of the desert so we could get home at a decent time. In post production, the two shots were layered and since the background matched the second shot, all that was required was erasing the chair from under Kaylas feet and a regular post processing workflow.
The surreal effect of the image is in part the result of the levitation, but without a proper setting, proper lighting, proper setup and thought, good dramatic clouds and sky colors, great hair, wardrobe and make up and a team of people who wanted to make a piece of art rather than take some photos, none of this would have been possible.
Feel free to leave your comments and interactive discussion.
Casey
cwithersmedia 