stand-ins

You can't expect your talent to sit under the lights while you're framing the shot. Best to have some similarly-built stand-ins.

GraceNMichelle shoot: post production thoughts

The shoot with vlogger Geek Goddesses GraceNMichelle last week went great. We tweeted about the process as much as we could while staying on track with the limited amount of time that we had. Since we budgeted less than an hour of actual shooting time and two hours for set-up I decided to use set-up time to compose the shot and lock down on a tripod. This way I could composite two shots together, a good shot of Grace and a good shot of Michelle, into one final image.


I picked this one for Michelle's expression.












Then I added Grace from another frame













I did a little bit to soften the fly-away hairs and lines on the faces. I try to be gentle when I'm retouching because I want my subject to look like real people (for the most part).

The fun part is selectively adjusting the contrast and saturation for each part of the photo. Generally, I'm gentle with skin tones, so I can keep a good tonal range. I'm a little bit rougher with clothing, props, and anything else that I really want to pop. I then crop the photo and do a bit of burning around the edges for a vignette.

I may end up taking this photo a little bit further. I'm also considering using a different frame for Grace; which means I'll be starting over for the most part.

this friday - shoot with graceNmichelle

It's on! Shooting this Friday, March 5th with vloggers extraordinaire GraceNMichelle. They wanted to be part of the Geek Goddesses series and I was like, "OMG" and they were like, "LOL". I posted a little bit about the concept idea here along with some undecipherable rough sketches.

But here's why you should care:
We (Me, Grace, Michelle, my crew members, and you we hope) are going to be tweeting throughout the day about the shoot. There will probably be some behind-the-scenes twitpics of the set, me sweating, GraceNMichelle getting made up, etc.

To tune in, make sure you're following us on Twitter (@JeremyBales, @GraceNMichelle). And if you're tweeting about the project please include #geekgoddesses so we can quickly find your tweets.

GraceNMichelle #geekgoddesses rough sketches

I'm no illustrator. Sketching perspective concepts has always been a challenge for me.

I am pretty handy at drawing an overhead floor-plan on graph paper. And that is actually a great start for me in the pre-production phase of the shoot. I start with an easy overhead plan, pick a camera angle or two, and sketch away.

I got a few snapshots from GraceNMichelle of our Geek Goddesses photo shoot location. It will be a familiar one, because we're using one of the usual vlogging settings of GraceNMichelle and Daily Grace.

The concept, the geeky activity that we decided on for these two goddesses is (surprise) vlogging. We're going to be paying respectful homage to the Numa Numa, Chocolate Rain, and lonelygirl15's out there who open up their lives on the you tubes.

The humor in this one will come from the moment. We're going to be seeing them seconds before their taping as they feverishly prepare the room and themselves for the camera. We talked about in our concept meeting that there have been so many times that they are shoving trash or underwear out of the frame of the webcam before shooting to give the appearance of a clean, tidy room. We're going to catch this moment in a fun way. Maybe they'll be all dolled up from the waist up, and wearing PJs and fuzzy slippers from the waist down.

Right now Risa, our Artistic Director (that's her rough sketch above), and I are thinking of the composition and shape of the photo. It's still a little bit up in the air, so I may make a trip to the location for some more scouting shots. Next we'll be figuring out what props we want in the shot that GraceNMichelle would probably try to hide.

More Geek Goddess posts HERE

#geekgoddesses off to an incredible start

Electronic invitations went out yesterday in several forms. We sent emails to friends, clients and other creative people with an image of Geek Goddess Christine Miller (of teleyoga) playing a video game.

Tweets about the project were on in full force with the tag #geekgoddesses. Response has been overwhelmingly positive. We've got a few more models lined up for the project including the hilarious and georgeous youtube vloggers GraceNMichelle. I'm almost out-of-my-mind excited about this prospect.

We got a mention on supercreative after pitching the idea to shoot three of the Geek Goddesses shoots as part of their supercreativeten project in Miami this summer. I'm not holding my breath about this one since our shoot pitches aren't Miami-centric. BUT this idea has gotten me really psyched about road-tripping down south for a few shoots.


The video game shot was the first idea that I had for Geek Goddesses. I was playing Rainbow Six Vegas (one of those really great shooting/killing games). Some guests were coming over for dinner and I rushed to hide the headset that you use to talk to other players because it was so embarrassingly dorky. My thought was that if girls played these games, I wouldn't have to be embarrassed. Thus the idea that girls DO play them when no one is looking. Can you imagine such a world?

Geek Goddesses is a new series that I'm shooting. And I'm blogging and tweeting all the behind-the-scenes stuff -- concepts, sketches (stick figures included). Get updates on the entire production HERE and on twitter via #geekgoddesses. Jump in with comments and tweets on what you want to see more (or less) of.

shooting a series - the nuts and bolts

I had an idea to shoot a series of highly stylized photos. It's been one of those ideas that snowballs and picks up other ideas along the way. I'm thinking self-promotion, printing a photo 'zine, traveling to Georgia for some of the shoots. The ideas keep coming, and the spirit of collaboration is getting my creative friends excited about it.

I've decided that to me the creative and collaborative process of photography is as much (if not more) of a motivator as the final product.

AND I'm going to chronicle the process here and on twitter. I've already started, so there will be a little bit of back tracking.

The big idea is a series on Geek Goddesses. These will be stylized portraits of beautiful women doing geeky stuff. I have some notebook pages filled with ideas like Dungeons and Dragons, lab experiments and comic book collecting. I'm working with an Art Director/Stylist to really make the details look right. We wrapped just the other day on a shot of model Lauren Reeves pretending to read Cosmo, when she's really reading a science book.




Below is the sketch that my AD Risa Puno came up with for the edited image above. We have a few that really closely resemble the concept sketch, but we also wanted some variety and a few tight/vertical shots that could be used on a promotional piece.


I'm mostly shooting this project with what I have available to me. I'm getting friends to model and talent/location scout. I'm using my own apartment and borrowed locations for the sets. I'll probably end up renting props and costumes of some kind, but I'm hoping to find most of what I need.

Let me know if I've left something out. I want the whole process to be an open book.