Archive for June, 2009

Vampire in Grand Central

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

First opened in 1871, Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal is a New York icon. And it is gor­geous. This was the first time I had been inside the ter­mi­nal. When I was younger, Penn Sta­tion was my usual route to NY when I didn’t drive. We did some scout­ing before the shoot­ing day and got a chance to soak in the place. Unfor­tu­nately, we didn’t have our tripods for the pre­lim­i­nary visit so our shoot­ing was a bit limited.

GCTeagle

Grand Cen­tral Eagle by Candice

the terminal

Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal by Candice

Thanks to Can­dice, and after many com­mu­ni­ca­tions, we were armed with per­mits and off to shoot in the space. Our plan was to shoot busi­ness, a mod­ern day vam­pire, and the archi­tec­ture itself. That turned out to be quite an ambi­tious plan and unfor­tu­nately we did not fit it all in.

But we couldn’t have asked for bet­ter peo­ple to work with that day. First, the folks at CSI rentals were a true plea­sure to meet. I got a great vibe from them on the phone when I first called in the rentals and in per­son they were just as help­ful. Chance von Spiess­bach, our fab­u­lous model, was a blast to work with and turned out to be quite the celebrity at GCT. ;) Mia Bau­man, our makeup artist, was a last minute con­nec­tion that proved to be the per­fect choice.

Here are some behind the scene shots of every­one at work. Left to right: Can­dice in zen mode. ;) Chance work­ing on his teeth fit­tings. Mia doing her artistry.

_MG_7106 _MG_7119 _MG_7122

Here are some shots from the day.

vamp02

Mod­ern Day Vam­pire by Marilyn

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lights

vamp portraits

Main Terminal by Marilyn

Main Ter­mi­nal by Marilyn

Model: Chance von Spiess­bach
Makeup Artist: Mia Bau­man, 646 – 872-8098

Images avail­able with a RF license: Grand Cen­tral Eagle, Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal, Mod­ern Day Vam­pire, vam­pire, Van­der­bilt Hall, Vam­pire Por­trait, Bloody Teeth, Hunter, Main Ter­mi­nal

My Partner in Print

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Mar­i­lyn is a mod­est woman. It’s one of the many qual­i­ties I like about her. So when we learned that she would be a fea­tured pho­tog­ra­pher in the July/August edi­tion of Pho­to­shop User Mag­a­zine, I quickly claimed the job of writ­ing the blog announce­ment. Too bad, I said, you’re just gonna have to deal with a lit­tle bit of crow­ing from your part­ner cos this is a very cool thing. And then it got even bet­ter: She made the cover, too. So here it is, friends — a pre­view of what will be hit­ting news stands this week. And con­grat­u­la­tions, Mari! It’s a thrill to see your won­der­ful work acknowl­edged in print!

PSU JulyAug09Cover

PSmag_inside spreadP1

PSmag_inside spreadP2

PSmag_inside spreadP3

1 per­son likes this post.

Times Square’s “Spectaculars”

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Iconic world land­mark and sym­bol of New York. What do you visu­al­ize when you hear the name Times Square? The ani­mated dig­i­tal bill­boards, of course! They’re called spec­tac­u­lars and what a per­fect name! Mil­lions and mil­lions of LED lights. It’s one thing to see pic­tures, and another to stand there and look around and soak in the entire experience.

Mar­i­lyn and I were excited about vis­it­ing Times Square at night. She wanted to exper­i­ment with her tilt/shift lens and see whether Copy­right Hell could be brought to its knees with some cre­ative blur. Hav­ing been to Times Square a few times before, I wanted to dis­tract my claus­tro­pho­bic mind from the fact that thou­sands of peo­ple would be milling around me — and, yes, all of us sit­u­ated within just a few city blocks — by con­cen­trat­ing on zoom­ing. Alright, so maybe we BOTH wanted to do the impos­si­ble and erad­i­cate the names and logos while pre­serv­ing the lights and col­ors. We didn’t bring TS to its knees, but we sure had a great time shooting!

I’ve included my favorite zoom shot and Marilyn’s bril­liant com­pos­ite (orig­i­nal shot on the right, Mari cre­ation on the left). In the end, the woman is just more stub­born than I am about achiev­ing a goal. And she pos­sesses killer Pho­to­shop skills to make it happen. ;)

Candice's Zoom Fave

Candice’s Zoom Fave

Marilyn's Before and After Composite

Marilyn’s Before and After Composite

Images avail­able with a RF license: Busy Streets

Urban Reflections

Monday, June 22nd, 2009
reflections play

self por­traits… uuuh yeah… another reflection

Our NY trip was heav­ily influ­enced by the weather, and unfor­tu­nately we had to can­cel an ath­letic shoot at a cool site due to rain. We’ll just have to save it for next time!

On the pos­i­tive side, fog and rain intro­duced the oppor­tu­nity for a big nat­ural soft­box and great reflec­tions. It was fun to play in the rain.

traffic lights

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shiny city

Images avail­able with a RF license: Foggy Man­hat­tan Morn­ing, Taxis On The Move, Shin­ing City.

The Big Apple

Friday, June 19th, 2009

PosterFence

Last week we spent a few days shoot­ing in NYC. Urban grunge, a vam­pire in Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal, the Top of the Rock, and more. So many plans, so lit­tle time. We barely scratched the sur­face of this vast play­ground! Next time, at least two weeks!

The above photo was shot by Can­dice. I sim­ply love it. Very high graphic appeal: bal­ance of color, tex­ture, geom­e­try … a favorite for me.

We have many more pho­tos to process and share soon!