Fun With Clouds

Thanks Stacey Barton for this image! — Thanks **Stacey Barton** for this image!

So the other day we had some wonderful clouds in the sky. I never seem to be in good position to take advantage of days like that. I’ve always got other things planned. I was so excited to be in the studio with some friends and have the clouds start to do some amazing things. I was fortunate to have Christine in studio that day prepping for an event as well as Stacey Barton for hair and Gene and Carl for assistance.

I grabbed an alien bee 1600ws light and a grid and went outside. Now one the of first things I learned in photography was the sunny 16 rule that states that at normal daylight the exposure is

f16
1/60
ISO 100

So I set my camera for

f16
1/160
ISO 100

I used 1/160 because I wanted the sky to be a little bit darker than it was. I then set my light for almost full power. I wasn’t far off on my first exposure. So I moved the light back until I got the exposure that I wanted.

I played with that set up for a few minutes and then switched to a long mirror as my light source. You must use this technique sparingly because it’s very difficult on the model, the reflection is very intense. The entire shoot only took about 10 minutes.

The final part was importing them into Aperture for some cleanup and black and white conversion in Silver Effects Pro. Then back to Aperture for some additional tone work.

I wish I had more days to work with clouds like that, but you have to take advantage of them when they’re there.

I originally was going to make these color, but after doing a test in black-and-white I thought they had a much more timeless kind of old Hollywood starlet feel to them.

Happy clicking!

The New HTC One - Pre Production

As I’m sure you noticed in the last post, the crew list was pretty extensive. This project was no small feat.

The pre-production process took about a month, and even if we had wanted more time, it would not have been possible to get it. The phone was shipped from Taiwan under lock and key and was on a very tight schedule to make all of its appearances as there where only 4 in existence at that time.

After reviewing the production notes, there were obviously 2 things I needed to do right away. I had to build my team and I had to start location scouting. The idea for the shoot was to follow 5 young people through their weekend in a metropolitan area, specifically San Francisco. I quickly realized the scenes that HTC wanted were also available here is Sacramento. There was also the issue that the original schedule had us shooting in December which meant most of San Francisco was decorated for Christmas.

Kody, Christine and I went out and shot location images of our city to send to HTC and they agreed Sacramento was the perfect backdrop for the project.

Upon the decision being made that we would be working in Sacramento I was able to confirm the rest of the team and get to work reaching out to local businesses and resources. From city agencies, to restaurants, to casting agencies we had everything we needed to start building the schedule and the storyboard.

Even though California was having a beautifully sunny winter, there was concern that some of the outdoor shots would be disrupted with bad weather, so we also had to put in place backup plans for all the outdoor shots that could be implemented the day of shooting.

The next step was to cast the models. We had the pleasure of working with Amber Collins of Cast Images. There were 5 characters we had to cast in this project. Amber built some galleries for HTC to look through based on their descriptions and we had our models selected in no time at all! Sacramento has some amazing talent!

Now that we had our models I could send the wardrobe details and measurements to Simone to start pulling wardrobe for the project. We were given very specific requests for each model based on the character that was created for each of them. We scheduled a fitting and sent some images to HTC for final approvals.

So that was it, I had my team, my locations, the models and wardrobe, I had the storyboard and shot list on repeat in my brain. It almost felt like planning a wedding, all the pieces were in place and the last few days were spent waiting in anticipation of putting it all to work.

Next up, a behind the scenes look of our week long photo shoot!

HTC Gluuv

I'm so excited to be able to announce some new technology that I received to play with recently. The amazing HTC Gluuv! With the trend toward wearable devices, this is a very interesting new direction. The prototype I played with has lots of features with still more to come. I'm definitely interested in getting one when it goes into production.

I've got to say, it's pretty cool to be able to try this technology before the world gets to see it.

The New HTC One (M8)

Some of you may have noticed that I have been missing in action the last few months. This is why http://www.htc.com/us I had the opportunity to work with HTC, one of the largest cell phone manufacturers in the world and their new cutting edge top secret phone. I was part of the team that created all the images and web video for the launch of the HTC New One (M8).

The project started in November of last year with planning and pre production. We shot for a full week in January and have spent the last 2 months editing and assembling the final products.

There is no way I could have accomplished such a huge project without a team that had my back, extremely talented models that worked hard during the consecutive days of shooting and a great client. The HTC team had great vision, they conveyed it to me clearly and allowed me to craft a plan that we executed and lead to a final product that everyone was happy with.

In my next few blog pots I will go into greater detail about what it took to get this done. For now I am just excited to finally be able to share this great news with you! It’s been so difficult to keep it quite for the last 4 months!

I am so grateful to have such an amazing team! If not for them and their efforts none of this would have been possible! Thank you all!

Team -
Photographer - Tim Engle
Videographer - Kody Pickern
Production - Christine Alward
Makeup Artist - Jenifer Haupt
Hair Stylist - Mikel Sessions
Wardrobe Stylist - Simone Vianna
1st Assistant - Gene Wang
2nd Assistant - Dave Harlan
Video Assistant - Todd Beighley
Catering - Libby Carew
Security - Bill Thiry & Mike Claypool
Electrician - Wade Barton
Models - Cast Images

Tamarack

I had the opportunity to visit and photograph Tamarack Lodge (the former high security detention building of Preston School and PYA) in Ione, CA. As you drive up to the Preston Castle, if you continue straight towards the fence and look down the hill you will see this location down behind trees. It's a location that I have had on my "Photo Bucket List" for years! It did not disappoint! Visually it is quite stunning, it's like a movie set left in time, perfect but still very intimidating. I can only imagine how it must have felt like to have been in one of these cells day in and day out. It's remarkable that after only a few years of being abandoned, the deterioration is proceeding at such a rapid pace. I'm very fortunate that I was able to get in when I did to photograph it.

Making Of An Angel

I'm excited to have my 1st guest post! Christine always has such great insights. She brings a unique point of view as a wonderful photographer that picked up modeling to help understand the other side of the camera.

Tim

So, I'm writing this and I have not seen the image yet. Not to say that it's not important, but what's most important to me is what went into the making of this image.

I'll start at the beginning. I was approached to be apart of a project recognizing the "Top 10" models of Sacramento. At first I wanted to say no to the project, but my husband, Ryan, convinced me to get involved. He helped remind me it was an honor to have been chosen.

After agreeing to participate, an incredibly talented makeup artist, Cesar Rivera, offered to lend his services for the shoot. Hair stylist Renne Alejandro, was also on board. Cesar brought along another great talent, Florlinda Ayala for makeup as they were planning to make me glow from head to toe! These three are some of the most talented and kind people I know. I couldn't believe they had offered to help me.

I also asked fashion designer Nolan Kouri to help me out with the angel wings that I was requested to bring for the shoot (oh did I forget to mention the theme for the 10 models was angels?) Let me tell you, I should have know he would blow my mind, what I expected and what I got, I... Was... Stunned!

Kouri made a set of 4 foot tall wings that could don the Victoria's Secret Runway. Funny story, I was dressed as a ghost in full makeup at a haunted house when I saw the first picture of them, let's just say I was not able to stay in character because I was so excited!

After realizing how much support I had and how much talent was being brought together for this shoot, I knew I wanted to pull off something extra, something special. For this I asked for Tim's help ( oh yeah, backing up again, he wasn't the photographer for the Top 10 project)

I was more stressed for this shoot than any other one I had been involved in. Even though I know and had worked with all these artists before, this time it was different. They were all there because I asked them to be and the pressure to produce something that represented their talents was felt on a much stronger level.

So this is what we made. Thank you to my friends that worked so hard to make this image! I can't wait for everyone to see it!

Cheers

~ Christine

Designs by Nolan Kouri, www.nolankouristudio.com

Hair Stylist Renne Alejandro, www.facebook.com/renne.limon

Makeup by Cesar Rivera & Florlinda Ayala

www.facebook.com/zezarmua

www.facebook.com/florlinda.ayala.mua

Male Model: Matt Webber

Here's a short video of the making of..

It's Alive!

So after many months of work I'm excited to say the website is back up and functional. With the help my good friend Tony Yates I was able to get all the features I wanted in a very simple easy-to-use fashion. One of the things I've been trying to do for a long time now is have a blog. So here it is. My goal is to be able to post behind-the-scenes pictures and stories from different shoots as well as share some of the projects that I'm working on. Some very exciting things coming up and I'm very excited to show you.

Something else I'm really excited about is having guest bloggers. I'm very fortunate to have a great team around me. Their skills are world-class and without them my images wouldn't be what they are now. They offer a wealth of information in their respective fields and I'm excited to share that with you.

So to start with, I asked Christine to give me some notes about a recent shoot we did with designer Michael Kouri, so Keep an eye out for that next.