Tim Engle 8/12/19 Tim Engle 8/12/19

Color Test

I received an assignment, and in the description, the art director requested super-saturated colors for all the images. The one thing about gels and colors there are a million different combos and saturation levels. So glad I tested, his version of saturation was WAY more than mine. These are the test that got us on the same page..

Gels by ROSCO

Light setup Phottix

Camera Nikon Z6

Lens Sigma 105

I am now shooting the assignment for the next two weeks.

Model: @trinwoodward

Tim Engle 6/26/18 Tim Engle 6/26/18

Making The Most Out Of Your Location

For the past few years, I’ve been working with Sacramento Magazine photographing the area's top attorneys. This is a yearly supplement, and on average I have about 25 firms I have to photograph in a 45-day span.

For the past few years, I’ve been working with Sacramento Magazine photographing the area's top attorneys. This is a yearly supplement, and on average I have about 25 firms I have to photograph in a 45-day span. I genuinely enjoy meeting the different attorneys, and visiting their offices. There are several challenges that come with this type of assignment. If it’s a group shot, it’s very difficult to get everybody to one place at the same time for very long. Often I only get about eight to ten minutes with the full group. And in some cases, I have to photograph the group missing someone and add that person in later. If I know this ahead of time it is definitely workable, and I can leave spaces in the group for the missing person.

Another challenge is to find the best location for my client. People are always looking to have a fresh image, and for years attorneys have used their libraries, and bookshelves as a background. This has been done time and time again. I try to steer them away from this, providing them with a background more suited for their personality.

When photographing individual attorneys I try to have two locations I can work with quickly. Again these individuals are extremely busy and I often only get between eight and fifteen minutes with them. You have to assess the environment, and lighting quickly to create your plan. A few years back I started having the images sent to my iPad as I shot. This has been a huge help in selecting the final image, ensuring my client is happy with the product that I’m producing.

This week presented all of these challenges. The attorney I was photographing wasn’t going to be available at first, but then found the time last minute, giving me only a short time to get over to the firm and determine my plan. It needed to be outside at twelve noon, which is difficult light to work with. After walking around the perimeter of their office I discovered a wonderful wall, that had aged black marks on it.

Using my scrim overhead I found it created a very nice light as my base layer. I then added in my Phottix Indra 500 light with the wide-angle diffuser and grid attached.

I got the exposure that I wanted on the wall first. Then I adjusted the output of the light to match the ambient exposure, giving me the illumination desired.

I was able to make 27 images in about five minutes. From an equipment standpoint, having my lights on my portable battery pack is tremendously useful. If I had tried to find plugs for my lights it would’ve taken me much longer, and I might’ve lost time photographing the attorney.

Here is the final image of Sacramento Attorney Eric Ratinoff

Tim Engle 9/18/17 Tim Engle 9/18/17

Top Attorneys

During the hottest part of the summer, I had an assignment to photograph 31 of the top attorneys in the Sacramento region for Sacramento magazine. This is my 4th year working on this project and it has become one of my favorites. This assignment is certainly not without some challenges.

Firstly, trying to schedule that many attorneys is no small task. They are extremely busy and when I do photography them, I often only have a few minutes. I think my shortest session was about 7 minutes long.

Another challenge I have is finding a good spot in the offices to make the images. Often the offices don’t have a lot of light, so I have to bring in lighting and try my best not to disrupt their normal operations. I was fortunate with a few locations to have some really big windows with lots of natural light. In those cases, I only needed a reflector or scrim to control the light.

The last big challenge is one I mentioned earlier and that is the crazy HIGH temperatures this summer! Trying not to show up a sweaty mess was always a struggle, especially when we had 110+ degrees on some days. I packed a few extra shirts to help with this task.

In the end, I was really happy with the style and execution of the year's section in the magazine. Most importantly, the clients were all very pleased with what I made, which is always my goal.

Tim Engle 2/5/14 Tim Engle 2/5/14

Sacramento Magazine "Cover Of The Year"

I just received word the cover I shot for Sacramento Magazine was voted the 2013 Cover of the Year. My team and I put together the photo shoot early last year for the lead story and cover of the April issue. I photographed many of our Sacramento news anchors, it was such a fun day! We had Bethany Crouch from FOX 40 (KTXL) and Lisa Gonzales from Ch 3 (KCRA) as our cover models and wow, are they amazing together! I have never seen such great chemistry! They should have there own TV show.

I am so pleased with the team I had on this shoot. That cover shot came out of a very funny situation. After the shoot was over, Lisa and Bethany were playing on an old Honda scooter that was in the studio. I started shooting them with my iPhone. After looking at the iPhone images I realized that was the energy I needed for the cover shot. We went back and reshot the cover with the same configuration and style. Although the iPhone shot was almost good enough to be the cover by itself.

And who says the iPhone is not a real camera!

Makeup: Jenifer Haupt
Hair: Renne Alejandro
Styling: Simone Vianna
Production: Christine Alward