Cheese & Crackers has it been an exciting week

*Update* Screw it, I'm linking to my Model Mayhem account, its just easier.

This is a purely personal post, I will throw up a backdrop post a little later in the week; and also update this post with images as soon as possible.

*Pasted from my journal on suicidegirls.com


Its been a long time since I've been so busy, and enjoyed it.

(I wrote all of these down out of chronological order so some later descriptions are lengthier than earlier ones)

7/10 (I think its was 7/14) Assisted Cesar Cuevas on an awesome shoot with 3 wonderful girls. Got such great insight into a different way to shoot, like, a real, non-ghetto fabulous (my) way. Alex La Marsh was MUA, and Linh did hair. Cesar Cuevas mentioned he'd work with either of them anytime, anywhere, I completely understand why. Dan and Mark were also in attendance.

7/14 Assisted Cesar again in LA on a shoot with Darenzia and Mother of London (she modeled and styled). The clothes were SO FREAKING AMAZING!! Alex La Marsh hosted in a free loft in her building, and was MUA. She's super cool, and such an awesome artist. Linh did hair at this one also. Met another really good photographer there too, one of Linh's friends also from DC, Josh.

7/20 Assisted Dan Santoso and Mark Sacro at James Hickey studio, totally awesome! The studio was sweet, James was a really cool guy (and stellar Photographer) all the models were really good, and so sweet (Models included Twigg Morris, Sara Loren, Sarah Townsend, and CoCo Foristel). The stylist's, self designed, wardrobe was breathtaking. AND, of course, there was the hair!! Linh is the best imo, no exaggeration. Aside from being so good, he's a machine, doing some 19 shoots in 9 days iinm.

7/21 Linh, being the amazing person he is, offered my assisting abilities up to Nadya Lev, and I got to be on set with her!! SO much fun, she's more awesome in real life than I could've imagined. Her workflow was more than inspiring. She was shooting some amazing couture gowns, so gorgeous!! The models were Zoetica, she's so cool, I did a double take when she walked in; and another girl Rachel who was such a sweetie. Met Amy Hollier, she was MUA, and found out that I think New Zealanders have one of the coolest accents. Her skills were l33t, also. (I'm running out of ways to express myself)

7/22 Best day yet, cause I got to take pictures myself, aside from meeting people. Linh (did I mention how much I love him? I do) invited em, again, to a shoot-out with Josh and another photog, who hosted, Jeff (unfortunately don't have his MM info, cause my dumbass left a pocket in my jacket open on the ride home, and it along with 1 or 2 other numbers fucking got blown out). I got to shoot Twigg Morris, Rachel from the day before, and Brittney Harrington. Met another MUA, Leisha who was so nice, really good, and very professional. Also got to see Amy again. Linh did hair again, such breadth in the styles on this day.

Jäll Macro Studio

Ok, I lied, unless you missed the last post, in which case, nevermind.

Anyway, this week I'll be showing you Flickr member Zepofan's awesome use o f a Jäll laundry hamper as cheap, portable, multipurpose macro studio.

If you're a Strobist aficionado like myself, you know all about David Hobby's $10 macro studio in a box. Well, other than being used as a macro studio, its not that useful for much else, however this can still be used as a laundry hamper when not giving great soft light for small to medium objects, and this lil' guy is only $3.99. Nice find Zepofan.

Its pretty straight forward, so I'll just show it to you.

Step 1. Tip Jäll on its side
Step 2. attach white paper to the top at the back, allow enough length for a nice sweep
Step 3. Setup lights. Ideally, for the seemless look, you'll want 3 lights o f equal intensity: 1 right, 1 left, 1 shooting down from the top. If you're a baller then throw a 4th light in shooting in through the back.

You can check out the excellent results on Zepofan's Flickr account.

Swamped

What can I say . . . Oh, wait I know, I'm swamped, that's what I can say.
Sorry, even the best sports teams take a by on occasion, I guess, I'm not much for sports actually.

This week will be a break from Ikea Lighting Modifiers, however, I promise to update before next Thursday. I'll tell you that -that update will be the first post of another photographer's own Ikea light mods. I can also tell you that next Thursday's post will be very cool. I'll give you a hint . . . it will be an awesome cheap solution for hanging backdrops in a studio, or home studio.

Alright, so that wasn't so much a hint as it was straight forward information. No matter, you won't want to miss it.

Now, at the request of particular super cool reader, I'll leave you with a quick image.
With a whole 15 minutes I had today I got to play around with some paint. But this was special paint, the non-comedogenic kind. Normally its referred to as 'makeup,' but I'm a man, and men don't wear makeup. . . kidding, I'm not even as metro as I'd like to be.

The real reason I was experimenting:

I've always felt that an individual should be well rounded, not only including all aspects of life, but also including specialty areas within specific aspects of life. I don't always have an MUA on hand, in fact I don't have one on hand most of the time unfortunately (that may change soon, fingers crossed). Not having much experience with the makeup thing, I decided to play it like a good haircut- make it look like you didn't get a haircut, make it look like I'm not wearing makeup.

Here you go, trite lighting, but effective, so nuts to you trash-talkers.