fmilder wrote:
John --
You're work is great, and the illustrations are spectacular. Having hunted for books on setting up a studio, and found some of the not bad, but ancient works (like the Lighting Cookbook), you could certainly produce a best-selling book out of a collection of your "here's the setup - here's the result" pairings.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the nice compliment and the encouragement Forrest. Kortney and I would love to produce a book someday. We have been talking about doing one on the recreated pinup works of Alberto Vargas (but that's just a dream.)
Hi John,
I too found your before and after photos amazing. There is a site where you could put together a calendar and sell it very reasonable. http://www.cafepress.com . I know I would be one of the first in line to purchase it as I am relatively new to studio lighting and your set up photos really help me to grasp the ideas. It would be very easy to setup the before and after on the photo side of the calendar.
Thanks for the info, I had not heard that. I will keep that in mind if I try one of their products in the future. I had heard about them on a pbase site from a photographer whos work I admire. I guess I will have to try them on a one piece item before doing big business with them.
wow, this is a great thread. I've always appreciated so many of you guys' pics here and it's nice to see how they are created. I used to have my little set up in my warehouse loft apartment. It was nice to have the 15 ft. ceilings but I rarely used the height as I mainly do product shots. I just started using plexiglass and frosted glass for shoots. I'll try to get some pics of my current set up in a bit but here is one from a product shot a couple of months ago. The clients were the "stylists" here setting up the product. I look forward to when I can upgrade my lighting to some alien bees as well. They look like great lights and from what I've seen of your stuff here at FM, they work great too! Keep up the good work everybody! http://www.proxycreative.com/clients/proxy/studio1.jpg http://www.proxycreative.com/clients/proxy/studio2.jpg http://www.proxycreative.com/clients/proxy/product.jpg
Chris Samples wrote:
Hi John,
I too found your before and after photos amazing. There is a site where you could put together a calendar and sell it very reasonable. http://www.cafepress.com . I know I would be one of the first in line to purchase it as I am relatively new to studio lighting and your set up photos really help me to grasp the ideas. It would be very easy to setup the before and after on the photo side of the calendar.
Chris http://www.graphic-images.net
Thanks for the tip Chris. Rolley really inspired me to shoot more of the behind the scenes stuff (man he does great work!) So now I'm pretty much shooting a setup shot for each wardrobe or lighting change on all of my shoots. If I post anything in the future, I'll be sure to include a behind the scenes shot.
how do you tell when to use softboxes vs. translucent umbrellas, to brollys? It is all so confusing..
I would like to be able to do portraits.. and also the stuff JohnE shoots.. full body like that.. very nice.. is there anywhere I can learn about each and what function they give?
Thanks JohnE, product shots pay the bills and I get better each time I do a session. Learning how to keep the glare down on those bright white packages these days by diffusion! I hope someday to get to the level of what you and your daughter are doing with your "vargas girls" photos. Love the polish that you put on each photograph. That's what makes it art!
Let's see more studios people!! We all learn from each other.
ibJames, I mainly use softboxes. Never have really used umbrellas but I'm from the advertising photography side of the business and we just always used softboxes. I use barn doors with gels and raw lights without any diffusion for background and effects from time to time.
I think JohnE and others will agree with me, the best way to learn is just get in the studio and start moving things around and see what works best for you.
For those of you looking for the curtain track as shown in John E's setup....I just found it at Ikea today. They have the track pieces, even the curves, and the clips to attach to your cutains. I plan on getting some when the second half of my studio is finished.
Any additional setup shots? I'm adding equipment to my collection so need ideas of anything else I need to buy. Amazing how you can spend $1k in a week just to overhall your setup. Like someone else said, it's hard to explain that you have to shell out $900 for a new carpet just because you have a camera.
I was thinking about buying some continuous lighting for lighting the backdrop (no need to have expensive strobes for that), but someone stopped me before and said don't ever mix lighting. So that's to you slruser if you're trying to figure out what things to buy. If you go for strobes, go all the way. If you go for continuous (and don't mind the air conditioning bills), then do all them that way.
