The Steve Z Photography Blog

Welcome to Part 2 of the Historical Museum Model Shoot with Neil van Niekerk and Priscilla.  We may not have used any strobes in this shoot, but we did play with video lights, which was even more exciting to me because I don’t have any!

I really enjoyed using these lights. Neil had a two light setup so that a key and a hair light could be used by having one person hold the lights out at arm’s reach.

The lighting inspired me to do a full black and white set! I’m loving the Hollywood look. You may notice that as we get farther into the post we are descending deeper and deeper into some classic quirky compositions. It’s purely intentional!

OK this last image didn’t actually use the video lights. But the contrast of the spools make for a great black and white photo so I included it with this set instead of Part 1. It’s just a little black and white lie, don’t worry.

Recently I spent some time visiting family on the East Coast.  On my last day of the trip I met up with Neil van Niekerk from Planet Neil fame for a fun photo shoot. Neil was nice enough to coordinate the location and the model so that I could just show up and play with fancy camera toys. Neil has no shortage of them!  These first two shots were taken with the Nikon 200mm f2.  It’s a crazy big 7 pound lens that is totally impractical, but it has the ability to completely blur out your background into creamy goodness.

Originally we had hoped to do a shoot in Manhattan, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. Luckily Neil had an inside line on an indoor venue. Neil knows Joseph Costa, who is the curator at the Paterson Historical Museum. Joe is also a photographer (La Moda Studio)! Sweet!

So we showed up at the venue with a van full of lighting gear.  Once inside we found fluorescent lighting and were immediately afraid that the light was going to be terrible. Imagine our surprise when we realized that the light was actually pretty good!  The hypothesis is that the museum has some high quality fluorescent bulbs that out-perform your average office space type of lights.  We didn’t experience any white balance shifts, which can sometimes completely ruin your images.  I took some photos yesterday under different fluorescent lights at a church waiting room, and the photos were completely unusable.  Anyway, we really lucked out, and were able to shoot available light thanks to the high-ISO capabilities of our cameras.  The above shot and the two below were taken using ISO 6400 so that I could shoot at f5.6 and perform some extreme tilting with the Nikon 45mm PC-E Tilt Shift Lens.

OK, I know that this next shot is completely ridiculous.  Haha, filler up Priscilla!

I shot this next shot through some sort of historical artifact.  The interesting part is that you can see what shot Neil was getting at this time HERE.

Sometimes people ask me what my ‘favorite’ thing to shoot is. The answer is that I really don’t have one. I’m one of those people who loves variety in life. My favorite thing about photography is that I get to shoot different things all the time! So here we have a shoot that was quite different from most of my professional work. Instead of trying to make people look good, this time I worked at making beverage bottles look good!

Mix One is a local Boulder company that has a super great new product. It’s a great tasting and healthy drink with fruit, veggies, and protein that tastes great. I can personally vouch for this, since I was left with many cases of product since the shoot!

This shoot was quite a challenge because the shiny packaging reflects whatever light is shined directly on it. So I had to use some sneaky techniques and even build a light table in order to control the reflections that are easily visible on the product. In addition to the lighting there is a ton Photoshop time in these photos spent straightening and polishing the labels.

These photos will be used for packaging, and promotional use for the company. We have some plans in the future to do some more creative advertising shots for marketing campaigns. I’m looking forward to adding some of the Steve Z creativity to their brand! I was able to throw in a bit of creativity in the layout of the bottles on the light table. And for this last shot I was able to achieve the infinite depth of field with my handy tilt-shift lens. Maybe for the advertising campaign they’ll let me use the tilt shift to get all wonky. :>)

Kara and Jacob know how to party.  These are the raddest kinds of clients, the ones that become friends even after the job is done!  We started off the fun in January for with an epic-ly snowy engagement session.  Then we had a picture review and some margs at the Rio.  A week before the wedding the bridal party and friends hung out for a raucous Boulder bar night, and then a ski party at The Beach at Arapahoe Basin.  The night before the wedding was the rehearal dinner followed by drinks downtown.  And than, after all that, finally the day came for biggest party of all, their fantastic wedding at the Trinity Church and Grand Hyatt in Denver.

What what strobed 16 times in 15 seconds? Kara’s wedding dress photo.  Sorry, photo nerd joke.  Continue on, nothing to see here.

The ceiling of the limo was most excellent.  The yellow halo is the reflection of a taxi cab on the street behind us.

The happy couple met up before the ceremony so that we could get the formal photographs taken care of early.  We did a First Sight ceremony behind the front gates of the Trinity Church.  This series of photos is really, really wonderful, you need to see the full set!  Kara and Jacob are so excited to see each other for the first time, it’s pretty cool to see.

I haven’t been playing with the wonky lens too much lately.  I’m going to bring it back.  Right now.

Between the ceremony and the reception we stopped off at the Denver Art Museum for some arty photos.  Here is the bridal party looking dapper.  It was all downhill after this for this crew.  If you know them, you know what I mean.  :>)

It was pretty hard to get a photo of these guys NOT smiling.  They had the happiness meter pegged at 11.

Back at the Pinnacle Club at the Grand Hyatt, the cake was enjoying the view from the 38th floor! Don’t worry cake, we’ll meet again soon enough.

The reception features lot’s of laugh’s tears and touching family moments.  And after all that was done, DJ Cameron turned up the throttle and opened up a party that the Hyatt hasn’t seen in quite some time.  And the best part is that the party isn’t over yet!  We will be heading up to Arapahoe Basin for a fantastic fashion Sport The Dress shoot in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned for more epic good times!

Special thanks once again to all the amazing vendors who put their heart and soul to make this event the masterpiece that it was!

Venue .:. The Grand Hyatt Pinnacle Club

Makeup Artist .:. Carissa Beauty

DJ .:. Cameron Trainer .:. 5280 Mobile DJ

Musician .:. Rick Chinisci .:. Guitarist

Lara and Billy had been waiting all winter long for a snowy day to take their engagement photos.  Once it gets to March, it’s easy to give up hope that the day will come.  But I was pretty sure after such a dry winter that we were due for a big spring dump.  Sure enough, Boulder got 16 inches of snow followed by a bluebird morning. The perfect day for some cool snowy shots!

We started off the shoots with some ‘family’ portraits with today’s star of the show, Bogart.  Young Bogart really liked playing in the snow!

Bogart is a Goldendoodle. He is pretty much as silly as his name. I don’t think I’ve ever captures so many pictures of a dog with his tongue out!

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about trying to find new locations that are conveniently close to my office. You don’t always have to travel long and far to find epic scenery. This shot was 1 block from my office door!

It doesn’t get much more ‘Boulder’ than a couple in matching Go-lite jackets. Yes, Lara, the gloves definitely work in this shot! :>)

We are at the end of another awesome engagement photography session, join me next time when we will hopefully be seeing the return of spring!