phottix indra 500
Last week I had an opportunity to photograph Mike Vance. Mike is a cinematographer based out of Louisville. You can check out his work here. We did three different looks. My setup was pretty simple:
One Phottix Indra500 through a Photek 47in Softlighter v2 (camera right) with a reflector on the left.
Camera Gear:
All retouching and color grading for this shoot was done in Capture One. Here were my favorite photos from the session.
Today, I had the pleasure of photographing Neema. She is one of my wife's friends and a refugee from the Congo here in Louisville, Ky. In 2004, after the Second Congo War (also known as the Great African War), violence was still rampant throughout Africa. Neema and her family were directly affected by this and she lost both her parents that year. After walking back from collecting water with her sister, she witness both her parents get murdered. Neema's aunt moved their family from the war-infested Congo to Tanzania to survive. They traveled by truck and lived with her father's friends for three years until they moved to Kenya in 2009.
Life was not easy for Neema and her family in the refugee camp where they lived. It was hard to get food, water, or places to sleep. Neema grew up with Christian parents, however, there was severe discrimination against non-Muslims in the refugee camp.
In Kenya, Neema, applied to move to America. She had to go through classes to learn about America and go through interviews and medical tests. She was assigned to Louisville. Once she came to Louisville the most shocking thing about her move was that the trees were different colors in the fall and the weather was significantly colder here versus Africa.
This past week I did a test shoot at Derby City Cross Fit with a friend who coaches there. I was looking to expand my portfolio a little and add some fitness/sports photos into it. I like to do test shoots to add some more work to my portfolio without the pressure of delivering photos to a paying client. I walked away with a few good photos to add. I had never shot anything like this and went it hoping for a least one solid photo to add to my portfolio.
I feel like I can get tunnel vision one photoshoots and focus only on one look or one setup; test shoots help to relax me and help me master different lighting setups.
Equipment Used:
Today I shot probably one of my favorite shoots so far this month. I had the opportunity to photograph in a tiny little studio on St Catherine Street in downtown Louisville. Most of the photos were taken in the vocal recording studio. I had my strobe positioned just outside the little window (Check out the photo to the left), pointed down to not be so harsh. All the images were shot a Nikon D600 and color graded through the new Capture One Pro 10. I absolutely love all the new updates to Capture One, it makes my editing more intuitive and powerful.
Gear:
Monday was my fastest shoot from brainstorming the shoot to delivering the final images. I got a call that morning to shoot a feature the same day and have all the final images delivered before the final deadline Tuesday morning. The concept for our shoot was fun stuff to do around Louisville that was either inexpensive or free. Of course some of the cheapest and most fun things to do have to do with our awesome parks or the Big Four Bridge, however, the sky decided to open up and poor all day. After scrambling around thinking of something we decided on a shoot at 21C Hotel's museum of modern art. I made some more calls and finally found a couple I'm friends with who were free and willing to be photographed last minute for the cover. After a few more calls we got permission last minute to shoot at 5 that day. Here are a couple of my favorite images.
Gear Used:
