Shoot what you like with a touch of ring flash.

The client that will give you the most creative freedom..is yourself. I often shoot
things that I have got for myself (even if sometimes it means waiting before I wear/use them).
Well, they obviously inspired me, so. You will be pleasantly surprised how a client will then like
what you have shot and ask you for a similar look.

This time I picked these shoes from Above and Below, a small company in London that make unique sneakers. They are made of reused fabric from the London Tube and recycled leather. Pretty neat uh? Their website even has a soundtrack that is rather spot on.

So the shot: the scheme was fairly standard: gridded spot behind/above, side speedlite behind the shoes and on camera left (made sure that it did hit the logo), ring +softbox as fill. The color scheme was a play on the dominant colors: green and blue. I added layers of magenta (shadows) and yellow (highlights) to highlight them. As a final touch I dialed down the contrast on the highlights to give the image a bit of a 'film' look.

Now excuse me while I go on a walk...

At the Mima Mounds, where we lay our scene.

Photographers like to complain that a fun photo gig is hard to find and that and a client fun to work with is rare. But, this last June I got proof that fun shoots and clients do exist and sometimes come together! Two clients actually, who needed a portait, were not afraid to experiment, came with good ideas and a budget to do things right. Awesomeness. I had met with them a couple of weeks before. The theme of the portrait was 'Life is a Journey'. So I suggested to shoot at a location that had a feeling of remoteness to it (but was just a couple of hours drive from a large city) and to bring objects that where meaningful to them to the shoot. You can see my clients looking cool in this image, a shot of the set taken with the final lights set up. It shows the position of the assistant, whom I had to take out in post for the final shoot. He has to stay close to the subjects to make sure the light on them is soft.

The location is the Mima mounds, a little park South of Olympia, WA. It is a vast natural area with an almost geometric pattern (the mounds!) surrounded by tall trees. They frame the scene nicely, and I am a sucker for tall prairy grass. Moreover a path goes through the grass and allows easy movement of props and equipment. The team included me and two assistants. I decided to shoot with the 7' PL umbrella as fill next to camera and the softlighter as key to camera right. I wanted enough power to underexpose the sky 1.5 stops, so for a scene this big speedlights would not cut it. I love them because they are so portable, but sometimes one has to use the big guns! I used two Einstein heads, which did the job without flinching. The large softbox is well, very large and does not like the wind. So we rigged it to the ground with some ropes and tent stakes. As we had everything pretty much planned the whole shoot took just a couple hours. I used a different palette for the final image, but this one is a bit more eery and it works well for my portfolio. The lighting striking from the Softlighter is not coming from the Einstein head, it's a break in the clouds from which the Sun shone through for a few seconds. Sometimes a photographer gotta be fast.

Backstage Video! Courtesy of BossnotBoss

BossotBoss is a cool blog designed and built by Christopher Martin, Hamilton Boyce and the (oh so) dangerous Selena Goodwin. BnB followed me on the 'Children's Songs' shoot and interviewed me on a desert island! It was great fun (especially going around on the paddling boats). Here is the video that they recently posted. 

Boss Not Boss Interview

Fabio Governato Interview from BossnotBoss on Vimeo.

Soft light on Jade for Veridis Clothier

I have been shooting for a male fashion client and for one of the shoots we hired a female model (who do you think is going to buy those shirts for him anyway? Right?). Enters Jade, who was super great to work with. My stylist Tiffany and I borrowed clothes from a local store, the excellent 'Veridis Clothier', an independent fashion store in Seattle. The location of this image is a great garage in Capitol Hill. Wood floors, large windows, completely empty but a free giant prop in the form of a vintage Ford truck? Perfect. Shot with a Canon speedlite mounted on a Softlighter at camera right. The image is a superposition of a colored layer and one closer to the original to preserve skin and clothes colors.

Iceland or Bust! A long walk on the Koljur Trail.

You can see a few more in this gallery.

I have been on a short trip to Iceland that included a few days backpacking in the Highlands.
It's pretty up there and I got a few pictures back.Reykjavik is small and lovely, although I got lucky with the weather me thinks....
I have been very impressed by the quality of the fashion/editorial photography there. The style
is a bit darker than in the US... I would love to work for small companies as Geysir, KronKron or 66North.

Children's Songs

Colin is finishing a collection of children songs and he asked me to shoot a few images of him together with his daughter Corinne. I had seen her wearing her giraffe PJ and I thought it would add a whimsical  touch. We shot on a blustery day using a softlighter and an Alien Bees' Einstein head. F5.0. 20mm, 1/320th. When they started singing one of their songs...(Corinne is an excellent singer!) The whole crew (2 assistants, two videographers, Corinne's mom, my friend Martin and his son Bruno), stopped in their tracks, only to sigh a collective 'awwww' at the end. I surely got a good image out of their performance! It reminds me of the old movie "Paper Moon". The effect of the flash is very subtle, but that is how I wanted it. You can see the rest of the set here, including another image of Martin and Bruno. This time the Softlighter is a lot closer and it overpowers the Sun. For an image of another man on pier shot with a Softlighter you may want to take a look at this backstage video. Speaking of which, "Bossnotboss" was on set and filmed a few takes of the shoot. Excited to see how their video will come out!

Ring Flash for fashion: Yokoo Scarves!

For this set I shot three scarves from Yokoo, a fancy knitter from Atlanta. Her great designs have been featured on the NYT. I wanted a look more sculpted than what is usually done for this kind of fashion (think Antrhopologie). The set up is the evolution from the one I had used recently for the Baby & Co. store: beauty dish high at camera left, strip behind model on camera right, gray background and flags.

This time I added a ring flash as fill. I did not need too much power (I was shooting at f5.6) and so I used the cheap ring flash modifier mounted on a 'on camera' Canon 580x II. The ring flash really defines the texture of the scarves.
The coloring was done in post and the shadow gradients in the background where enhanced in Lightroom using the gradient tool
(brightness and color, try it! It's at the top right, next to the brush in the 'develop' module). Models: Oralie, Jennifer and Amy. Make up and hair: Fiona Pepe

You can see the full set here