Jewelry Photography

I don’t wear any jewelry myself, except for my wedding ring, but I do appreciate the beauty of it. A good friend of mine is a jeweler, and I love photographing his work. I’m always amazed that he can start with a lump of metal, a hammer, torch, files, and some other tools and the result is a piece of art. It’s challenging shooting jewelry, with all the shiny surfaces and stones, but I enjoy shooting highly reflective objects. It helps if they are pretty, but shiny industrial parts are fun too. Richard’s hands are a little worse for wear. He uses his thumbnail to check the sharpness of files, and polishing compound gets into all the nooks and crannies on his fingers. It’s a perfect contrast to the brilliant perfection of his jewelry. As always, I am interested in hearing your comments.

Photography for Digital Illustration

;This image for Goodyear was created in the studio and with stock photography from Medioimages/Photodisc. The process of shooting for strip or input photography as I heard a colleague call it, can be quite involved. For this illustration, we carefully matched the angle and perspective. To do this, you must first decide where you are going to place the image within the background. If it’s up close, you need to be closer to the product with a wider lens. In other words, you need to match the actual distance that it would have been had it been there when the background was shot. Moving the camera right or left just a few inches can make a huge difference. Camera height is crucial as well.Next there is the lighting. In this case, I tried to keep the contrast a little lower than normal to match the relatively low contrast scene. We added artificial snow and ice too! On the windshield, after scattering the snow and ice, we ran the wipers to create the clear area on the windshield. We even captured the wipers in a few different positions, but they were not used because it got in the way of the people inside. We put snow and ice on the grill, bumper, hood and roof of the car. We also shot with the headlights on and off so that decision could be made later. Then Dave took a turn, and lit then shot the models. No easy feat with that many people in such a tiny space. The retoucher, hired by the agency, put it all together with a few touches of his own. As always, let me know what you think.

Plumber Photography

It’s not often that I find myself lying on the floor in a public restroom. Well, not really public, but not private either. I suppose it doesn’t matter, any bathroom floor really. Anyway, I recently did a shoot for BrassCraft through Group 55 Marketing. Michael was a great model and the shoot went well. It’s funny, I sometimes mention plumbers when clients are surprised by our prices - “When was the last time you hired a plumber?”As always, I’m interested to hear your comments.

Automotive Wheel Photography

One of the really great things about living in the Detroit area, is the automotive industry. It’s not just the car companies, but all of their suppliers and the aftermarket companies too. Customizing our cars for style, speed or utility is an American tradition. I can remember looking through JC Whitney catalogs before I could drive. Wheels, tires, bed liners, roof racks, sun roofs, towing packages, the list goes on and on.

An entrepreneur has a passion for racing wheels, and I get to help promote them. These are racing wheels, not ordinary cast aluminum, but three individual pieces bolted together. Photographing shiny products is always fun and challenging.  As always, let me know what you think.

Plumbing Parts Photography

Plumbing is one of my least favorite jobs around the house. It invariably means at least two trips to the hardware store, probably more.  Photographing plumbing parts is another matter. I did this shot while getting ready before my clients arrived. Anything shiny is fun and challenging to shoot. It did require a little clean up. Plumbing parts, like most things, are not made for photography. I love making ordinary objects look like  something special. As always, I am interested in your thoughts. 

Teamwork Photography

This is the result of the teamwork of a bunch of people. Client, gotta have a client or you can’t get started. Art director(s), cause you gotta have something to say, visually speaking, and the creative team comes up with concept. Photographers, that’s me and Dave. I lit and shot the exterior of the vehicle, then with the camera locked down, Dave lit and shot the models. There was lots of pre-production too - finding vehicles and models - yes, models and the agency too - and stylists. Granted, you can’t see a lot of clothing. Nonetheless, a lot of work went into finding the right coat, shirt and props. Make-up stylist - yup, gotta make sure that the models are looking their best. And, there was a really great dog named Huckleberry and another photographer, Mariusz Niedzwiedzki (based on the metadata), who shot the stock photography. Finally, the retoucher, who put all of the elements together. This was very much a team effort! As always, let me know what you think!

Industrial Lift Truck Photography

I used to drive a Hi-lo; now I’m shooting them. While driving them wasn’t bad, shooting them is way better. Fortunately, the industrial design at Raymond is very strong. It certainly makes my job easier. I think it improves the lives every one that it touches. If your tools are pleasant to look at, easy to use, comfortable, and safe, life is better. It almost makes me want to drive them again.

As always, I am interested in your thoughts.

Automotive Photographer

I just finished retouching another car from the Goodyear shoot. Red is a great color for a car. The I hope to hear from the art director soon about the main shots from the shoot. They are handling the retouching on those shots. For the main shots, I lit the exterior of the vehicle, and afterward, Dave shot the people inside. Very much the tag team approach, that we use on many projects. Please let me know what you think.

Automotive Photography

Automotive Photography in the studio is a blast. We completed a project for Goodyear recently that went quite well. Part of the project was photography for their library. This F150 is a big vehicle, but it easily fit in our 4000 square foot. studio. We used the teamwork/tag team approach on this project too. It’s all about delivering the best image possible with the least friction. After we completed the main shot for each car, I did the additional shots. I am always interested in your thoughts.

Automotive Photography

I love shooting cars. We recently did a shoot for Goodyear, and in addition to the main shots I did a few full car shots for their library. Automotive photography is always a challenge, but that's what makes it fun. The shoot went well; it helps to have great clients and art directors. As always, I’m interested in your comments.

Jack of All Trades, Master of One

Commercial Photographers need to know a little about lots of things. It is one of the things I like about being a photographer. It helps when you are shooting to understand how the product works, or why it’s better. It helps because you can better illustrate the product, so you can tell the story. The story behind this product is that it helps protect soldiers. It absorbs energy that would otherwise be absorbed by the feet, ankles and legs of soldiers unlucky enough to be driving over an IED. As ever, let me know what you think.

Automotive Detail Photography

I love beautiful details. A well designed car has loads of great details, like badges, tail lights, door handles, side moulding, headlights or air scoops. Lighting and design become key to making a good image. Red helps too! As always, let me know what you think.

Mixed Drinks Photography

I’m not much of a drinker - couple of beers or glasses of wine and I’m done. But I did have a smashing great time shooting some vodka drinks. Designers & Partners’ Jim Tocco art directed and did much of the styling. We did 13 shots so it was a busy and productive day.

Industrial Parts Photography

I recently had the opportunity to work with Designers & Partners again. This time shooting industrial parts for large prints to be displayed on office walls. As ever, it was a pleasure to work with such a talented designer. Enjoy!

Jewelry Photography

One of my best friends is a jeweler. I have been shooting his jewelry for years. He was in fact, one of my first clients. He is producing a brochure for wedding / engagement rings. The graphic designer on this project, Jim Tocco, is amazing! I have been working with Jim for decades. I have high expectations for the final piece.

Working with Richard has always been a blast. Collaborating  with someone to create unique imagery is always exciting; Richard has a finely tuned aesthetic that is just different enough from mine to create a synergy larger than either one of us singly. I like the contrast between his fingers - the fingers of a craftsman, and artist, working fingers, dirty with polishing compound, and the perfection and brilliant beauty of the rings. There  is a literal contrast as well, of the dark hands and the shiny, sparkling jewelry. Richard will also use the images on the wall of his Birmingham shop, Grinstein Jewelry and design.

As always I am interested in your comments or thoughts.

Your Hard Drive Will Fail, Back-Up your Photography!

In the digital age, there is a truism that warrants our attention; it is not if your hard drive will fail, it’s when. I have had several hard drives fail; I know that it is true. It is crazy expensive to get Drive Savers, or some other company to rescue your data. So, back-ups are important. A back-up strategy that fully protects you must have several components.

1. Provide a means to continue working if your computer’s hard drive fails.
2. Keep a back-up of current projects.
3. Keep multiple archives of completed projects.
4. Must be automatic. (so you cannot forget to do it).
5. It must have an off site component (in case of fire or theft).
6. There must be multiple copies.
7. You’ve gotta check regularly to make sure it’s working.

The computer on my desk, backs-up to a local (firewire 800) hard drive using Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner. The Time Machine backup provides hourly back-ups while the Carbon Copy Cloner back-up provides a start-up disk should anything happen to the internal hard drive.I have divided our data into two separate parts, business data – QuickBooks, estimates, word processing files and the like, and job data – project folders, images and Capture One folders. We use a server, well..., it’s a computer with a boatload of drives hanging off of it where all of this data lives. The business data is backed-up with Time Machine hourly, and with CrashPlan, a cloud back-up service. Job data gets backed-up at the end of every day with a program cleverly called Data Backup. I like Data Backup because it does versioned back-ups, and keeps versions from the last 30 days. It uses standard compression utilities to compress files, and if it is the most recent version you are looking for, you can just go get it using the finder.When a project is completed, it is copied to an archive drive, and removed from the working drive. The archive drives are read only so nothing can be inadvertently changed or deleted.Once a month, I bring hard disks from home and copy all of the new data to them, again with Data Backup, then take them home.It sounds like a lot of work, but most of it happens with no supervision. It is, I believe just part of taking care of your clients and you livelihood.  As always, I am interested in what you think about all of this. Please leave a comment.

Industrial Photography

We recently completed a project for Raymond. I’m not sure I’d call what I was doing in the studio industrial photography. It feels more like large product photography. Dave shot the other half of the project in a warehouse, so I guess it’s actually a large product that’s industrial. Having a good-looking, well-designed product really helps when you’re trying to make photography that's dynamic. Red is a great color, and there is no question that it makes the lift trucks distinctive and attractive.

I like using lower angles on this product; it doesn’t deliver as much information, but it makes it look bigger and heavier, more substantial. I added the blue background. Our client put them on white, more appropriate for their purposes, but not as striking.As always, I am interested in any feedback or response you might have. Please let me know what you think.

Food Photographer on Location

I recently had the opportunity to do some food photography at Isabella’s, a restaurant in the Soaring Eagle Casino. I spent the day there shooting in a separate dinning room so we would not disturb the patrons.Working with an assistant, we brought in studio strobes, and set up at a couple of different tables. There was window light as well, so I used a mix of strobe and ambient light. I think it can be a little more interesting when there is a mix of light. The Chef was great, and we had lots of assistance and cooperation from everyone. We shot appetizers, entries and desserts. Food photography is always challenging and lot of fun. Unfortunately, there was not much time to do any gaming or see any shows. As always, I am interested in any feedback or response you might have. Please let me know what you think.

Product Photography

I completed a shoot for Letica not long ago. They make, among other things, plastic and paper cups, and plastic food containers. I shot the product in action. The photos were used for trade show banners – 84 inches high! Pour shots are challenging. It is necessary to do a fair number of pours to get exactly what you need. This shoot combined product and food as a prop. Ordinarily when I shoot food I like to work with a food stylist, but since the food in these shots was only a prop to help show off the containers, it was not essential to work with a stylist.

Automotive Studio Photography

I had the opportunity not long ago to shoot a FIAT 500 Lounge. Many thanks to James Houfley at Golling. I like shooting red cars and this one is no exception. It has nice badging and some excellent details.Automotive photography is challenging and rewarding. In some ways it’s like shooting a huge piece of jewelry, but it’s a lot bigger!. It’s all about what’s reflecting in the paint. You want it to look shiny, but still have color. My studio is ideally suited to automotive photography by design. There is a complete eggshell to help control reflections. Picture the inside of an eggshell, with a floor; that’s pretty much what I’ve got. A space that’s fifteen feet high with all of the corners coved. Let me know what you think!