So, its been a while since I updated my blog even though I’ve been involved in a few affairs. This particular project I am doing the photoshop work only with the images shot by a different photographer. The idea behind the calendar is to combine photographic images with painted scenes to create a modern pinup look. The backgrounds were painted by my good friend Debi Tounge, These are not finished quite yet, but pretty close to the final product. The photographer used a green screen and I just combined the images in PS. It turned out to be a lot of work to make the final image look believable and not like a cardboard cut out. I have a few more to go, but that will be after I get back from India.

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So a few weeks ago I got a referral from Kid Loose’s buddy Bishop. Thanks Ian. Bishop is an aspiring rap artist, who is coming out with an album, “Passion before glory”. His schedule is not as flexible as mine, so we ended up doing the shoot at 10pm at a studio named “The Grill”, in Emeriville. Apparently all the big rappers go through there, so I kind of felt like a cool kid for a few hours after the shoot. Bishop wanted shots in black and white with red coming through. Although, I have shots like that on my site, I am not a big fan of these colorized images, since they are a bit cheesy in my opinion. I decided to go with a more subtle approach. It was actually one of the first times I used my alien bee flash units outside of the studio, but as always it turned into a great learning experience. I had 2 hours to do the entire shoot, in 4 different locations. In the end I was not excited at all about the photos, and rescheduled another shoot with hot hoes and pimp rides. However, after making love to photoshop this evening I really like the results of the shoot, and for what it was I am very pleased. I did promise a make up session with hot girls in hot cars, so its on!

The first shoot was on the red couch in the TV room of the studio:

For this shot I put a red gelled light behind the sofa, with a brolly box light as a main and another light with a 30 degree grid to ad aditional light. Actualy the grid was a result of forgetting a second umbrella, and some of the later creative uses of it were out of necessity. In the post processing I bumped up the red in the back, and created a nice contrasting skin tone.

In the next 3 shots, I use the light with a grid behind Bishop to camera left, and I use the brolly box to the right of me. There was a glass facing the sound engineer’s room, so I had to be careful about the reflections from the lights.

The last shot had a bit of flaring from the light in the back, so it kind of looked like smoke. I liked that look, and added some more smoke. Some more…

At this point I got tired of dealing with the bees, and went back to what I know best, my trusty on-camera 550 strobe…..and this is without the flash all together.

With the 55o. Does Bishop like red or what?

That’s it for now, until the hot chick photoshoot.

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1. DJ Dimitrius Mikonos @ Crash, SF

2. DJ Solomon @ Fahrenheit

3. Trevor Simpson on the Groove Cruise

4. Donald Glaude

5. Jason Knight

6. Scotty Boy

7. DJ Splyce

8. Dirty Hertz

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I met Ian at an Armani Exchange party where he was spinning. I offered him a free studio session, if he played at my studio opening party, he agreed. We both got a great deal, since I had a somewhat famous DJs spin at my event, and he got a great photoshoot. In addition to the DJing I also got exposure on the Energy 92.7 website, myspace, and other sites. I ended up giving him my deluxe package, 4 hours in studio and outside

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These shots are from a shoot with a good buddy, Jason Knight. Jason is a brilliant producer/DJ in the vibrant San Francisco DJ scene. His site is djjasonknight.com We took 4 hours, driving around SF taking 20 usable shots, here are a few.

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