Simple Yet Effective

Here's a closeup of Norris Frederick from our first shoot. If you know me then you know I'm obsessed with lighting in general. I love complicated multiple light setups to bring attentention to a specific object or place in the frame. However, lately, I've found comfort and beauty in single light setups. They're much more organic and feel so real. I thought this was fitting for a man like Norris, because he is the real deal! Lit with a single gridded beauty dish through Einstein 640 boomed overhead. No reflector no rim. http://flic.kr/p/nPkNAp

Rilla Fame Downtown

Composite of downtown Seattle just off of 1st ave in Pioneer Square. Subject is lit with large Octa above and camera left. Fill directly behind camera through large PLM. Rims provided by b800's gridded striplights. http://flic.kr/p/ncsTvk

JaybrieBrown-445-Edit

Lit with Beauty Dish boomed overhead and two gridded rims on either side. Plm served as fill behind camera and silver reflector on b800 behind the subject onto the background http://flic.kr/p/mZAAWh

JaybrieBrown-371-Edit

Lit with beauty dish boomed out of frame camera right. Gridded strip for rim camera left and gridded strip much more in front camera right with PLM serving as fill behind camera. http://flic.kr/p/mZyNSB

JaybrieBrown-358-Edit

Lit with beauty dish boomed out of frame camera right. Gridded strip for rim camera left and gridded strip much more in front camera right with PLM serving as fill behind camera. http://flic.kr/p/mZAB6L

Clements Family Photo

Love this family! It's fun photographing old friends I haven't seen in years. It never really feels like work! This was lit with black background with 1/2 cto gel on the background through white lighting x800. The key light was an Einstein through a large Softbox camera right. Fill was provided by EXD400 in Paul Buff PLM camera left. Rim and hair light with gridded softboxes on either side and high. http://flic.kr/p/mUfRsR

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Beautiful Pup

This little girl is just to adorable! I lit her with two stripboxes in nice and close as well as a gridded beauty dish above and Large PLM behind me for fill light. Background splashed with a light just behind the pup. http://flic.kr/p/mCJGnD

Silent Storm

Getting setup for my last shoot, I thought I'd take a few test shots. shush, don't tell anyone. I wanted to play with some brushes as it's been a while since I dug them up in their dusty folders on my computer. A bit of Render Clouds, Lightning brushes and smoke brushes along with a composite background. Lit with Beauty dish boomed overhead and striplights on either side for the rim. Background light placed behind me and pointed at the background for som separation. Best part of using backgrounds in overlay blending mode is that they keep the overall lighting you had in the original image. If you had a background light on gray paper it will still appear to have the same background light in your composite! http://flic.kr/p/j4EUp7

Starburst

Quite possibly my next composite background! We'll just have to wait and see if it makes sense for the subject. This shot would have been impossible were it not for HDR (High Dynamic Range). Over the years I have learned to tone down post process of these images in favor of more realistic landscapes. This was created with three seperate imagas several stops apart. Here's a link to my process of HDR using Lightroom and Photomatix. www.nakeanworkshops.com/blog/new-love-for-hdr/ http://flic.kr/p/iNXsLB

True Arrow

This is one serious Bow with an equally serious arrow. The tip of this particular arrow is essentially 4 razor blades that are serrated on the back end! You do not want to be on the business end of one of these bad boys! I still don't think I can comprehend the amount sheer force behind an arrow on a bow of this kind. This particular composite took me quite sometime before it felt right. There are countless adjustment layers dealing with color, light and sharpness to name a few. If I had tried to create this 3 months ago, I would have posted it on day one even though it didn't quite feel complete. I couldn't bear to do that to this particular image. I slept on it at least a couple nights and made incremental changes as ideas came to me. Sometimes it's hard for me to give a project, I'm so excited about, some breathing room and time. It's like putting together an intricate puzzle. No one completes those in one sitting, and when your run into a brick wall the best thing you can do is walk away and come back later! Matt brought his bow into the studio here in West Seattle so as not to scare the bajesus out of passers by in public. The background was taken at Lincoln Park near the bluff overlooking Puget Sound. I posted a similar image on my facebook page with the fence located on the opposite side of the frame. Matt was lit with a large octa right behind me and the rims were b800's through medium sized stripboxes. http://flic.kr/p/ikskvM

Sweet girl

-Profiles of little ones might be my favorite photographs to take. I love the shadow and attention to the eyes. This was lit with a large octabox camera right feathered in front. a strip box was placed camera left and high as a hair light. Lastly, an alienbee b800 was pointed at the background with a grid to give a nice gradient. http://flic.kr/p/i2AmrL