The Horse. On Camera Flash.

I was day hiking on the Appennini mountains last September, when I met this small horse who was quietly grazing on the ridge I was walking on. The early morning light was beautiful and still low on the horizon, and I decided to take an image. I had my trusty canon G10, but that was it...how to get something better than just a happy snap? Think Fabio, think. Not that the horse was in any hurry but... I decided to go for a simple crosslight scheme with the sun, similar to what a lot of sport magazines do for their covers. The photographer often uses an on camera ring flash and one or two rim lights from behind the subject, depending on where the sun is. It gives that 3D feel to the image.

So I had the Sun behind the horse to camera right, underexposed until I got the sky and the landscape right (ISO 80, f4.0, 1/500th/sec) and bumped up the on camera flash (which I almost never use) until I got a good fill. I did not have an extra light to the left but I noticed that from one angle some direct sunlight hit the back of the horse..on my side. Bingo!

Not quite rim light, but it frames the horse's body quite well and it makes the image work.

Try covering it with your thumb and see how the image loses impact?

I did the color post processing at home, plus some trickery with contrast.

Sometimes you need to work with what you got.

Stranded!

Models: Ian, Chelsey, Chloe.

Stylist: Tiffany Parente Connors & Elizabeth Lodowski

MUA & Hair: Tiffany Parente Connors

Props: PJ Hummel and Sabine Foster.

"Stranded", a nod to "Paper Moon" and perhaps to some old Fellini movies took a couple of months of planning (props, vintage clothing, a few items from Anthropologie) but only 45 minutes to shoot. We were on our way to Odessa, WA when I stumbled onto the perfect location. It was getting dark and we "got the image" just before a rain shower poured on the set. A quick affair. Thanks to Laurie Clark and Danny Connors for assisting! Usual lighting scheme: large diffused softbox, next to camera, smaller strobe on Softlighter at camera left.

Space Queens of Skull Mountain

This the first image from the desert shoot. Inspired by B sci-fi movies of the 60ies we laid our scene in a dried lake bed, overshadowed by huge rock formations. Why are the queens battling on a strange planet? Who's winning? The weather set the mood as it was blustery and it drizzled all day. I forgot how much tulle we used but there was a lot. Make up and hair was complex and it took more than an hour. The inside of the truck was covered in mud, the sand (salt? radioactive waste? We did not ask) was covered in bullet cases of different (large) calibers and broken bottles of beer. Ah Eastern Washington. Having said that it was really a lot of fun to shoot "Space" and a great example of team work.

The light set up is a bit different from my usual. The 7' silver softbox (powered by an Einstein unit from Alien Bees) is next to camera, but there are two handheld speedlites behind our hero to the left and to the right, lighting the white cloud and adding some nice highlights. f7.1 1/200sec to darken the cloudy sky. Lens: a Tamron 16-35 f2.8, which turned out to be surprisingly sharp and it is becoming my lens of choice.

Fiona Pepe (of the Castaways and awesome photographer herself) styled the models costumes (some are from the UW theatre archive). Tiffany Parente Connors did hair and MUA and styled the models (C & C and I) on set. Laurie Clark assisted. Danny, sorry I had to erase you, you were awesome.

Done for the day? Not. We jumped on our spaceships and we headed further east....

East bound and down...(the trailer, courtesy of Ian Obermuller and Jerry Reed))

Central Washington from Ian Obermüller on Vimeo.

"Governato drives, Obermuller shoots" is the other title of this fun video taken with a handheld, window open, wind slapped, rain soaked Canon G10. A little more than a week ago a small group of photographers, including the world famous Laurie Clark, Chloe Scheffe and myself headed to Eastern Washington with a posse of artists & models, friends, assistants, stylists and a (diesel) truck full of props, costumes, equipment and food. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. There were dry lake beds, mud, tree stumps, swarms of mosquitoes, gale force winds, a pink flamingo on stilts, large fire extinguishers, tumble weed, old country songs on the radio and several shoots a day over a long week end and 670 miles of dusty roads.

Stay tuned for the images!

Of Wabi Sabi, film and The Five Obstructions.

Sunny Facer, my gloriously talented photo friend and I have challenged
each other to a photo duel. We are not as crazy as Lars Von Trier (a movie director who likes to inflict crazy projects on his willing subjects)..but close.

We had to take each other portrait in our own favorite style. The
subject got to choose the location. Sunny picked her almost empty
apartment (she is moving). I shot these two portraits with a very
simple set up: window light, a bit of fill from a speedlite mounted
inside a large softliter and some white sheets. The fun part was in
the editing where I get to play with Lightroom and Photoshop to get
that "old look" that I like.

Which comes to the second part of this post. Film? No thanks. Why?
It might seem contradictory as my photography often has a vintage/film/old camera/cheap lens look.

Mostly because I find film never gives me the amount of control on how
exactly 'imperfect' my images should look. Let's call it Wabi Sabi, which is an old concept in art. Yes often a bit of softness, vignetting, is exactly what the doctor ordered for an image,
but it should not be an excuse for sloppy images or for being passive in the creative process. Oh there I said it.

However, these days I have been playing a lot with my iPhone and some cool apps as "Camera Bag" (which simulates a number of specific film
looks) and "Plastic Bullet" (which adds some crazy artificial light leaks and coloring to your images). I would argue that it is art with creative control.

But that is for my next post.

The Mad Scientist and the Automata

This image continues my series of editorial 'fairy tales' images. What is a mad scientist doing in the wilderness at sunset? Why is he holding a steel heart? Why is she split in three pieces? Is that a leather skull cap? (yes).

Dr Calamari and Achropelia are a fixture of the Seattle art scene. They worked for many years with Circus Contraption and often perform at Moisture Festival and the Triple Door. I was very excited to shoot an image of their current act (named Automata). As usual recently the process involved some marsh walking, although no snakes were spotted. Jason and Evelyn are old friends and super professional. They loaded their Contraption on a car, drove to the location, got their make up on and performed for the camera. There is no major Photoshop trick in the image apart from some playing with the color palette. So yes, Acrophelia was really split in three pieces. Or so I was told.

You can contact them here: drcalamari.acrophelia@gmail.com

I ended liking the shots with the simplest set up, an handheld Canon Speedlite shot through a diffuser high on camera left. This made the scene crosslit, as the sun was setting to camera right. I shot wide angle and had a small window of time when speedlite (at 1/2 power) and sun light evenly matched.

What would a mermaid do?

What do you do when it is raining cats and dogs, there is no way to do the shoot you had planned and you have a team of 10 people huddled in a small log cabin? Enter the awesome Lara Paxton, who often swings from a trapeze/anchor in a fantastic mermaid costume. What to do? Better...what would a mermaid do? After some brainstorming and a run to the nearest grocery store we came out with this concept. The framed
seashell is a nice touch. I think Melissa came up with it. Shot with a simple speedlite and a diffuser hold by the assistant high at camera left. MUA and hair Amanda Johnson. I call it my 'unwanted child', but I learned to like this image and it is now part of my portfolio to show to the creative types. The second image is just for fun and it shows our fairy tales trio while relaxing..hi Chance and Kristin!