BTS "Behind The Scenes"

Here is a view into my world when I am working guys. Any questions in regards to gear, locations, talent, etc.. please feel free to ask!!!! 

Shoot with Serius Jones 

​BenroS4

​BenroS4 Monopod, OptekaCXS-25 Rod System. Gini Rig Follow Focus. 

A little outdoor "BTS" on an engagement shoot. 

A little outdoor "BTS" on an engagement shoot. 

Here is one of the finalized images. 

A little outdoor Fall action!! 

A little outdoor Fall action!!

Here is one of the finalized images from the shoot. This shot was taken on the back porch in the models back yard.

On the set of a family shoot. 

Final Product, Model: Sallie.

BTS. "How to achieve amazing catch lights in the eyes PT3"

BTS. "How to achieve amazing catch lights in the eyes PT3"

BTS. "How to achieve amazing catch lights in the eyes PT3"

BTS. "How to achieve amazing catch lights in the eyes PT3"  Check me out people : )

Double Deuces!!!!

Portrait session with one of my best friends for his book cover. 

You may see my brother in a lot of my "BTS" material, hes my right hand lol. Setting up for the intro video of "How to achieve amazing catch lights in the eyes"

Thanks bro!!

My brother sitting in for me to adjust my lighting.

Doing some voice over for my video, I had to bring my little audio setup to work, too anxious to finish : )   I had my little note card ready to go along with my ZoomH4N, Rode Video Mic Pro, and some Apple headphones for monitoring. 

A little BTS and finished product, Shot in Hoboken, New Jersey.

A little BTS and finished product, Shot in Newark New Jersey.

Fun shoot with my girl Sofia, we go wayyyy back!! 

My babies.

Here they go again I love my Ootas, I am a sucker for circular catchlights.

On the set of a really big shoot : )

"The Hallway Shoot" video on my Youtube go check it out people. 

The "V" shape setup

Shooting with my man Jordan. 

A and I made some dope art this day.

This was a long but fun shoot : )

I build my sets piece by piece. 

Look at the cool set up we have going on!! 

Tas getting ready for some work. 

Final Product, Model: Tas Aleeah.

I love this print and it looks like she does too!! : )

Another portrait session with my friend Regina. 

Mola Setti VS the Beauty Dish

Photo courtesy of my good friend Noel Clark. 

Photo courtesy of my good friend Noel Clark. 

Photo courtesy of my good friend Noel Clark. 

Final Product, Model: Tas Aleeah.  

Getting ready for the shoot, using some A clamps to hold down the balloons. 

Promo images for singer and songwriter Queenella.

Final Product, Big Shout out to RnB artist Queenella!

This is a flower halo I designed. 

"Night Cap"

Created in March 2015, shooting with Kaylah Raquel was an absolutely pleasure. I have to say this shoot had the perfect chemistry for some super awesome imagery. Sometime ago my good friend and MUA Robert Porcelain suggested that we shoot with Kaylah, prior to this i have not heard of her, but he went on and on how gorgeous and spontaneous she was, when I saw her picture I thought she would make a great subject. Any who we all chatted via text to set a date and the rest was history. I was very fortunate, because another a really good friend of mine allowed me to use his luxury condo in Hoboken, N.J. to do the shoot in and I must say man oh man, I can not thank him enough. On the day of the shoot  I arrived a little early to set up and scale out where I wanted to shoot, Kaylah and Rob arrived 45min after. Upon formally meeting Kaylah she was a really sweet down to earth girl, after we exchanged some small convo it was time to get busy. As Rob was setting up  I casually made my way around the condo filming the "BTS" They pretty much had creative control over the shoot and I was completely fine with that, and because of the whole sexual ambiance of things hence the name "Night Cap"  When it was all said and done we were all blown away by the images.  As a disclaimer, please be advised this shoot is more on the sexual/provocative side and is not suitable for the younger eyes,  enjoy!!   

Sylights Diagrams

Description: "Great Catch Light For The Eyes"

Items:

Ring Light
Light: 500w 18"  Diva Ring Light Continuous. Positioned directly in front of the subject.  

Vertical Strip Bank
Light: (2) 4ft fluorescent lighting bank (4) "T8" bulb housing 128w. Positioned on each side of the subject. 

Backdrop
Green flower textured background

Woman
Subject is comfortably sitting on a stool.  Looking straight through the ring light directly at the camera.

DSLR
Camera: Canon 5DMarkII
Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/1250
F-Stop: 2.8
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 100mm

Check out my video on YouTube where I explain how I achieved this shot. 

Description: "Beauty Wrap" 

Items:

Lighting: 

(2) 400w Bowens strobes

22" Beauty Dish

60" Octabox  

Octabox:

60" Octabox  serves as the a white background set at half power, positioned  2" behind subject. You want the Octa close enough to where it is almost touching your subject.

Beauty dish with diffusion: 

22" Beauty Dish with diffusion on a boom  placed  approximately 5' in the air above the subjects face positioned camera center.

Woman
Subject is comfortably sitting on a stool, looking straight at the camera. Subject distance 1.8m

DSLR

Camera: Canon 5DMarkII
Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/125
F-Stop: 14
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 105mm

Description: "Color and Fog"

Items:

Black backdrop
No description for this item.

Red gel
No description for this item.

Woman
No description for this item.

(D)SLR
Camera: Canon 5DmarkII
Lense: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/160
F-Stop: F9.0
Iso:100
Focal Length: 70mm

Monobloc
400w Fotodiox strobe with purple gel set at 1/4 of it's power. The blue gel is represented as the purple fog.

Octobox with grid
50" Octa  with grid set at 1/2 power, positioned  left of camera, right side of subjects. The Octa Serves as the main light.

Blue gel
No description for this item.

Monobloc
400w Fotodiox strobe with red gel set at 1/4 of it's power

Description: "Face Forward"

Items:

22" Beauty dish with diffuser
On boom raised approximately  6' feet in the air facing the model.

Black backdrop
10x20'  Back Drop

Woman
Subject distance 1.4m

Elinchrome D-lite RX4
Set at half power.

(D)SLR
Camera: Canon 5D MarkII
Lens: Canon 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/125sec
F-stop: F13
ISO:100
Focal Length: 200mm

Description: "Shooting Outdoor with a Strobe"

This shot was taking in the outside waiting area of the train station in Orange New Jersey!  It was a bright sunny day so I wanted to place the model in some shade,  placing her in the shade resulted in losing a lot of light . This is where my little one light setup came in handy. I have a 580exII mounted to at 32x48in softbox using a T- Bracket.
I positioned the SB in a horizontal orientation, angled  at 45 degrees, and raised about 4ft in the air. I would normally raise this set up higher but being that the subject was about 2ft below ground level I didn't have to bring it up too high. After getting  the model in the desired pose, I had her to look sightly into the direction of the light then let it rip.

Items:

Woman
No description for this item.

Speedlight
Canon 580EXII
Settings: Half Power

Softbox
Fotodiox 32x40, locked in a horizontal position.

DSLR
Camera: Canon 5D MarkII
Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/160 sec
F-Stop f/4
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm

Description: "Colorize Your Subject"
 

Achieving this shot was not at all an easy task, but like everything thing else that requires work it reaped it's rewards. Shooting with gels can add some creative flavor to your images, besides that they are just fun to work with. When implementing other elements such as gels, ambient light, and slow shutter it adds a great deal of drama making your work more appealing. I now want to dive in on how I actually achieved this shot. After adjusting the power settings on each strobe. I then set my Canon 580EXII up as a master flash placed it to rear curtain sync and dialed the power all the way up, (please refer to the video below on how to put your flash in rear curtain sync) Doing this gave me the ability to fire off the strobes when the 580EX commanded them to. Without setting up the speedlite as a commander the strobes would fire as soon as the shutter release defeating the purpose of rear curtain sync. Now that that's all said and done, it was time to adjust my camera settings. This took a bit of experimenting along with trail and error, ultimately it all depends upon your personal preference. The key is to drag your shutter to capture movement before the flash freezes it. After I found my sweet spot there was nothing else left to do but shoot. When the shutter released I had 2.5 second to capture the movement. I direct the talent to hold still as I slowly pivoted the camera from left to right. With the slow shutter in conjunction with the rear curtain sync I was able to capture some of that blurred movement you see in the photos. Here are the exact camera settings I used to nail this shot.

(D)SLR

Camera: Canon 5DMarkII

Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 2.5sec (This gave me the best results in terms of exposure and movement]
F-Stop: 14 [Shooting at F.14 gave me a very sharp and focused picture]
ISO: 100 [When shooting strobe you want your (ISO) at its lowest for a clean image]
Focal Length: 200mm [I wanted to zoom all the way in for a nice tight shot]
Subject Distance: 1.4

Items
Backdrop
10 x 20 Deep Grey Savage backdrop. 

Deep Blue gel
8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet

22" Beauty Dish with diffuser
The Beauty Dish is located camera center 5' away from the talent,
raised approximately 5'5"  in height attached to an Avenger C stand on a boom.

Circular silver reflector
43" Silver reflector clamped to a light strand acting as a fill.

Monobloc
600w Fotodiox Strobe with a orange gel set to 1/2 power. Because this gel is much lighter in color it requires less light in comparison to the blue gelled strobe positioned camera right.

Reddish Orange gel
8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet

Monobloc
600w Fotodiox Strobe with a red gel representing purple. Power setting 3/4. This strobe is positioned camera left aiming directly at the right side of the talent's face.

Woman
The Talent is comfortably sitting on a stool looking directly into the lens of the camera.

Monobloc on boom
400w Elinchrome D-Lite4 RX set at  roughly 1/4. The light from the Beauty Dish acted as a main fill light. I intently kept the power of the "BD" really low to preserve the richness and vibrancy of the colors from the gels. 
 

Speedlight with grid                                                                                                                                                               Canon 580EX II with a purple Rosco gel and grid  set at full power 1/1. I wanted to get as much punch as I possibly could from this little guy. The flash is on a boom positioned camera left also aiming at the left side of the talent's face.

Blue gel
 8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet

Monobloc
600w Fotodiox Strobe with a blue gel power set at 3/4. Typically when shooting with darker gels, it requires much more light to effectively project through. This strobe is positioned camera right acting as a rim light on the talent.

This is a red gel represents purple
8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet

These awesome Cello Sheets can be found on Amazon for $8, it's a great value. http://www.amazon.com/Pack-8-1-Transparent-Cello-Sheets/dp/B000K78HUI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387516387&sr=8-1&keywords=cello+sheets

YouTube user FStopArmy shows how to put your Canon Flash in "Rear Curtain Sync"