I've been desperately shopping for a new beauty dish (that comes with a better semi-opaque center) for a while now. You see, the beauty dish that I have been using for a while (made by Paul Buff = $120) has a opaque center that causes light to not pass through very well. So, the reflections from it looks like a donut. Ok, you must think I'm a madman to spend hundreds, just to show a non-donut shape light on the reflections of my models' eyes? Unfortunately, the laws of
diminishing returns has caught up to me.
Granted, I can spare my wallet a lot of money to construct a round center that is semi opaque and slap it onto my beauty dish. But I guess time is money and hence, I don't have the time to do that type of construction. Plus, I'm lazy. Go figure.
My final excuse is that I'm slowly converting my gears to Profoto, it's a good idea to start swapping out the previous products. Ok, also, you can get a nice grid to go with this one. Which is fantastic. Just what I need, really. ;-)
I was looking intently at the
33" Euro Mola. They are really, really nice but are ultra big, heavy and it costs a lot of moolas. Maybe when I have more moolahs, I'll buy that mola.
In the middle of the shoot, Jade stopped by to pick up my still_wonderful_beauty_dish and got a bit disgusted with how I sell a perfectly good equipment and got a new one that look just about the same. Damn you, Jade. I still got your extra $3!!! Buahahaha!
I invited the whole football team to my residence for this shoot. Since a beauty shoot doesn't take that much space, I had everyone occupy my dining and kitchen area and have the shoot done in the living room. it was heckavu fun.
The usual suspects arrived, Janice and Mikel. We even have Van from
Ocean Blue Videography of San Jose to help with with my idea of videotaping the shoot for a possible instructional video!
The gorgeous and amazing models are none other than Tiffany, Sharin, Brittany and Mary. Test my stamina, baby!
I used 5 lights for this shoot instead of my usual 1-2 lights. LOL. Some people think that more lights = better pictures. Is it true? No comment from me on this subject. So, let's move on.
Janice did makeup, Mikel did hair, I focused on the shoot. It was like a production line but we were just happily chatting along. It was casual, smooth and I had a blast.
I gotto tell ya. The models _really_ worked it. Tiffany got her hair in her eyes the whole time while Mikel had too much fun with the blower. Sharin's skin is omfg, flawless. Brittany pull amazing poses out of thin air while using a toothpick to keep her eyelids open due to the ultra heavy makeup. Mary, she shot with us more than we shot her! It's a complete teamwork that would not have worked if one of us are missing. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
For dinner, I got a large spinach artichoke, a large BBQ Chicken & a small sweet pig pizzas from
BJ's Brewery for dinner and we're at it again non-stop till midnight.
We managed to stay alert enough to capture this shot of Mary looking disgusted at us while we prop her. Hahaha! I love it!!! Love it!!!!
Labels: Beauty shoot, models, photography, shot
I had a fun time shooting the entire team of Whole Foods Market, the one just moved and opened in a huge new store in Cupertino. They have a total of over 350 employees. What a crowd! We had to do the shoot under the shadow of the building where the light is best and right under the rising sun. Lighting such a large group can be extremely challenging if the clients' schedule isn't very flexible. You are pretty much at the mercy of the location and the sun.
I then shot the team, each department staff in their area, seafood, produce, meats, senior staff, etc. etc. All 9 departments. It was fun, everyone collaborated well and the shots are marvellous. The group shot is now hanging within the store.
- Michael Soo
