Photography and the like

Fri - June 27, 2003

Sing Ho! Sing Ho! A new Toy! er...um...I mean Tool!

A 360 degree panoramic view of Brooks ' Mason Street Studios

Okay, QTVR (aka Quick Time Virtual Reality) has been around for a while. I was really into it when it first came out. It was cool but rather cumbersome. You shot a series of 12-18 images in a circle around you trying to overlap each image 30-50%. You the got the film developed, scanned onto CD, and then stitched them together produced a movie in which you could "look around" the scene by dragging you mouse back and forth. Cool, right? Pain in the ass and expensive? Yep.

Digital cameras eliminated most of the expense but didn't do much to eliminate the "pain-in-the-ass" factor and I quit doing them.

That gentle reader has now changed. Enter the Eye-See 360 . This cool little gadget is a concave mirror on bracket that you attach to a digital camera. Since the mirror sees the entire scene, you get everything in one shot. You then open the image on your computer and the software unwarps it and makes the movie in a couple of clicks of the mouse. Brilliant!

Now I can make QTVRs fairly quickly and shoot scenes containing moving objects. Something that was difficult or impossible in the past. Granted they don't give the mirror rig away but my first job with it paid for it. I was assigned to shoot VRs of the Brooks campus for their new website that is under construction. One of the first VRs I made was of the Mason Street Studios.

You can look forward to (or dread) seeing more in the coming weeks.

Posted: 02:15 PM Read More

Sun - May 25, 2003

More Body Painting

After the first body painting shoot, we sat around and discussed ideas for other shoots. One idea was to shoot a series of Disney heroines: Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, etc. The first victim was to be Snow White. Inge accompanied down to Blayne's house on Fairfax in LA to shoot. The make-up was great but we shot on a plain black background so it was Snow White in limbo. Kinda' boring.

Limbo not withstanding, Snow White was in a racy, two-piece based on here dress from the movie. Not a bad afternoon.

Posted: 09:59 PM Read More

Thu - May 22, 2003

Blustery Beaches and Bikinis

©Tracy Kahn

Although I'm a big advocate of assisting professionals while someone's in school at Brooks, I feel that by the time you graduate you should have already developed enough skills to start working on your own. However, I do make an exception in some cases. My favorite exception is in assisting Tracy Kahn . She is a Santa Barbara photographer who shoots fashion, beachwear, tanning products, etc. She also shoots underwater (in a pool) which is how I originally started working for her. Her shoots are always fun and usually involve scantily clad models. This afternoon she shot some summer fashion for The Santa Barbara Independent and hired me to assist. It was a beautiful sunny day down at the beach, unfortunately there was also a cold wind blowing off the ocean. The models had to pretend to be having fun while trying keep there shivering to a minimum. The Independent had a fairly small budget for the shoot and most of the models were volunteer. This being the case, they all had to leave earlier than expected for other jobs, class, etc. The last model left just as the wind stopped blowing and the light got beautiful.

Posted: 05:15 PM Read More

Thu - May 15, 2003

It just keeps getting better

I spent over 4 hours last night shooting a friend who was wearing nothing but painted-on lingerie. Blayne happens to also be the owner of the house with beautiful that Inge and I shot in. Blayne is a wonderful digital artist. For while she has been manipulating images of herself in various costumes and turnining them into some beautiful works of art. Recently she met a make-up artist in LA named Nelly. Together they have been creating some incredible stuff. I have been wanting to photograph her for some time and I finally had the opportunity. We set up in the studio at her house and began to play. Between the lighting, wigs, and make-up, the whole thing had 40s feel to it. We progress to some Betty Page time shots and finished with a weird king of Punk Raggedy-Ann thing. It felt so incredible to be creative. I spend too much damn time on the computer.

Posted: 10:54 PM Read More

Sun - May 11, 2003

Beauty Below

One of my favorite shots from the shoot

When we arrived at the pool, the water was a comfortable 80 degrees. We shot for about hours, mainly playing with reflections. The digital camera give me so much more flexibility to experiment. You got love being able to see the images, seconds after making the exposure, while underwater.

Posted: 07:46 PM Read More

Sat - May 10, 2003

Pre-test-test

We went over to the pool to test the conditions before the test. I rigging up the housing, slip on my shortie wetsuit, and slipped into the water. It was not unlike the Pacific Ocean this time of year, a bracing 58 degrees (that's 14.5 degrees Celsius). My model and lovely wife made it quite clear that she would not be getting in that water unless it were 20 degrees warmer. Fortunately there was time to turn on the heater and let it run all night. Even though I was shivering uncontrollably, the housing worked and we are all ready for tomorrow.

Posted: 07:03 PM Read More

Thu - May 8, 2003

Alas...there's hope.

Well it seems all I had to do was whine out loud and things changed. I've planned a little camera test/photo shoot for this weekend. I recently bought (for an arm and a leg - even with a discount) a new Subal underwater housing for my Nikon D100 digital SLR. My friend and underwater photo gear pusher, James Forte at Cameras Below , hooked me up with the Cadillac of cameras housings. I've had this beautiful piece of Austrian engineering for over a month and I've done no more than play with it on the living room floor. NO LONGER, I say! Inge and I are shooting in a friend's pool this Sunday. Talk about killing a flock of birds with one stone: I'm testing my gear, getting out of a rut, shooting 2 assignments for school, hanging out with my wife, and playing in the pool. Glorious.

Check back later for the results.

Posted: 06:40 PM Read More

Anything for Art