The Steve Z Photography Blog

John Albers is the Executive Director of the American Animal Hospital Association here in Colorado. He contacted me for some professional business portraits that were a little more interesting photographically than your standard studio headshot. We chose the urban landscape of Downtown Denver and the inside of the Colorado Convention Center as the backdrops. I brought along some studio lighting so that everyone on the street knew that I was serious. Well, not really. I brought the location off camera lighting setup so that I was assured to have great light no matter what background I chose. But the first reason sounds funnier to me right now. A blend of serious and silly: Steve Z Photography. There you have my marketing slogan for the day!

Before the fashion show, I once again took some portraits of the models after they were finished getting done up at Twig Salon.  The last time I did this I got some pretty cool lighting effects from a chainlink fence in the alley.  Once again I was in the alley behind the salon, but this time I decided to put everyone in a different spot.  The sun was blazing, so we were forced into the shade amongst the dumpsters.  But I really like the results, and fully expect to see some dumpster yoga on the cover of prAna’s next catalog!  Full gallery can be found on my Facebook gallery.  Here are some of my favorites.

I shot another beer lifestyle magazine cover for my friends at The Brewers Association.  This shot was for the July/August edition of New Brewer magazine.  We needed a shot of a bustling brewery with multiple locations, so the natural local Boulder selection was fan favorite the Mountain Sun. This long exposure shot was taken at their Southern Sun location.

Recently I’ve been getting a lot of calls for business or promotional portraits to be used for advertising and websites. I prefer to do these types of shots in outdoor locations over the studio. I feel that an environmental head shot is a more modern and casual take on the traditional realtor type of shot.  I bring my studio lighting with me, so that your portrait will be perfectly lit and flattering.

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. :>)

Well I’m not on the cover, but my photograph is! The American Homebrewers Association is locted here in Boulder, and I was contracted to shoot the cover for the March/April 2009 edition of the magazine. The issue is about brewing ‘green’ beer, and I don’t think they are talking about St. Patricks Day green-food-coloring-in-the-beer beer. It was a pretty fun shoot, although deceptively difficult. It isn’t easy to find any grass or sprouting plants in Colorado in the middle of January!