Monday, May 24, 2010

New Toy: Canon 5d Mark II

Few things excite me: bare-knuckle boxing with a bear; the tight-rope walk of drinking milk days past its expiration. Llama Wars.

But today I'm VERY excited. I just received my squeaky, brand-shining-new Canon 5D Mark II, along with 24-70mm L 2.8, 70-200mm L 2.8 IS II, and 85mm 1.8 lenses. This is obviously a significant upgrade from my fixed lens, Sony Cybershot DSLR (circa 2004).

While a better camera/lens won't make a better photographer, it WILL make better photos!... if you know what you're doing. Some may question that last part, especially myself... but I am confident the learning curve of these new toys will be fast!

Why did I chose the Mark II over, say, Nikon’s D700 or Sony’s A900..... honestly, I have no "good" answer. Cross-examining everything, I found myself getting more and more crossed-eyed; it was give and take with a lot of minute things... but in the end, I found myself polling some of the photographers I look-up to/respect... and nearly all of them had great things to say about the Mark II.

Best-price I found by FAR was from the website:www.photo4less.com. They shipped one day after my order was placed, and it arrived in three-days, no extra cost.

Still going to keep my old DSLR for back-up, but it goes without saying, from now on Canon will be my canon!

Shoots: Jason Scott

Jason Scott is a new clothing line targeting mainly men, though Scott has items tailored for women as well with the unofficial tag, "You'll want to steal your boyfriend's t-shirt"; this of course is making reference to the fact girls/girlfriends are often caught donning their boy's shirt after spending the night, as men's basics are far more comfy than the couture yet restricting and uncomfortable fashions of ladies.

While the concept of his clothes is very basic (vnecks, t's, hoodies, etc) , the quality of the material is INSANELY soft and comfortable; think of a much higher quality 'American Apparel'. Seriously, the cotton is like butter to the touch.


After an "auditioning" stage, Scott selected yours truly to shoot his inaugural campaign launch, that will premiere later this year. His themes were light, fun, and playful... not wanting to come off like he's trying too hard or the clothes are "beat-you-over-the-head sexy/contrived". I told him that it's ALL in the models for something like this and I'd do my part to best capture their energy.


Jeff and Marielle were selected from hundreds of submissions (thankfully I didn't have to go through that mess) and when the models showed up on set this past Saturday, I knew Scott had hit gold.


First off, Marielle was a ball of light-- high spirited, bubbly, funny, and my most favorite quality of all-- never complained once! Jeff was a shot of adrenaline that never wore off; a new story (mostly funny) between every break or set-up, he was a 6-hour one-man show. Needless to say, it was a great pleasure working with both of them.


Onto the shoot, like I had told Scott before, it's ALL about the models. Personally, I find nothing more contrived than a male and female model-couple, shoved together in a set-up, and directed to "look" a certain way. For some reason, it reads better on a single model... but as soon as your pluralize the subject, the shot begins to look like a bad diorama.

Thank God Scott was against anything overly constructed and simply encouraged the models to relax with each other and have fun. This made for some great candid shots, as well as (hopefully) what will be perceived as soft, tiny intimate moments between a boy and a girl.


I was completely exhausted by the end of the day, but that's only a sign of all the hard work that everyone put in. Look for JASON SCOTT clothing to hit high-end department stores and boutiques later in the year.

Shoots: Kristina

Kristina was one of those rare finds on Model Mayhem who actually had the credentials and assets that a real model should, yet is so sparsely found on said website. I can't say enough nice things about her: on-time, pleasant, and came ready to work. I snapped about 400+ shots of her and not once did she complain about getting tired or waiting around for the sun to be just right; truly a photographer's dream.Though originally from the East Coast, I found her look to be very Mid-Western; a soft fusion of Anthropologie and a "farmer's daughter" type-beauty goin' on; she has a very accessible look that I think will serve her well in her career.

We shot at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, a location which I had never been to, much less shot before. Anyone who knows me, knows I love shooting in natural locations; however, Southern California has a very arid, desert climate, which results in a lot of puny shrubs and dust/sand... and not much lush greenery. So, finding a picturesque woodsey setting is hard, to say the least.

However, Griffith Park offered a little more in terms of "green". You wouldn't know it by looking at the final pictures, but I had to keep a very tight crop, as I was framing out endless mounds of brown rock covered in dry underbrush and just a generally uninteresting "blah" landscape.

Hair and make-up started at 2pm, and we began snapping around 3pm, with full intention of warming up before hitting "magic hour", which this time of year in SoCal starts about 4:45pm. The results are posted within; for me, this turned out to be one of my more successful shoots yet!

Many thanks to Kristina, my lovely make-up artist, Summer, and my P.A. for the day, Rick.

Model Mayhem

ModelMayhem.com is both wonderful and horrendous; equal parts Facebook and Linkedin, "MM" (shorthand for us regulars) is ideally used as a networking tool to unite models, photographers, hair-stylists, make-up artists, clothing designers, and Photoshop wizards so that we may tap each other's perspective talents in order to collaborate with the intention of making pretty pictures...

However, just as Agent Smith described to Neo how the first Matrixwas designed to be a Utopia, but was rejected by mankind due his innate need to suffer or cause suffering.... ModelMayhem's mission statement has been diluted and overrun by two nefarious miscreants:

1) The delusional girl who ranks a solid "5 or 6" on the attractiveness scale, yet advertises herself as a "model" because someone, somewhere, at some time, tried to roofie her drink, therefore she has confirmed in her mind that she is found "attractive" by other people and fancies herself now amongst the ranks of the beautiful elite and Elite.

These girls' "portfolios" on their MM profile consist mainly of iPhone snapped self-portraits (usually taken in their native bathroom-mirror environment) or clearly taken by a sub-amatuer (see #2 below) featuring a flat composition, generic setting (red brick wall of an alley, anyone?), and a mish-mash of whatever they could find in their closet.

Don't peg me an asshole... a lot of these girls are attractive in their own right, I suppose... but there is a grand canyon between your average girl-next-door-cutie and a true professional model. My favorite quote pulled from a profile by a fellow frustrated MM photog reads:

"If you are not of the caliber of the girls in my portfolio, don't bother contacting me. I don't want to shoot you. An average photograph of a stunning model does far more for a photographer's career, than a stunning photograph of an average model."

...I can't think of any better way to convey the reality of the modeling world to these girls. However, in this internet age of self-publication, MM allows anyone to claim the moniker "model", without so much as a Randy Jackson to offer a kind, but sobering screening.

...And this sucks, because none of these poor delusional girls will ever be "discovered" on this website, because if you're 5'4" and 130lb, I don't care how much side-boob or implied nudity you show,you're not going to ever make it in the legit modeling world!!

Being featured in a shitty internet ad for a boutique store on Melrose does not make you a real model. Doing yoga poses in the nude for an arty black&white self-proclaimed "world renowned" 50 y.o. photographer does not make you a real model. Doing runway for a local charity fashion-show does not make you a real model...

All these flocks of chicks with day-dreams of being suddenly discovered, signed to an agency, and flown around the world to have pictures taken of them donned in designer dresses and being featured in W and Vogue, are all just desperately seeking validation of their attractiveness and doing nothing but cluttering, diluting, or worse-- scaring away any real promising talent who might want to get their start on MM.

Which leads us directly into the second worst thing about MM... all these self-made 'models' attract:

2) The creepy Guy With a Camera, aka, "G.W.C." who poses as a professional photographer and preys on girls who fall into the aforementioned, trying to convince them (and often succeeding) into doing nude shoots at their creepy house out in Oxnard.

I'm serious, my 13 year old cousin with her crappy 3 megapixel point-n-shoot could take better pictures than these guys; at least hers would be of pretty butterflies or cute puppies. These GWC jaggoffs usually utilize the backdrop of either their basement (complete with pool table and neon beer sign in the background),unkempt back-yard, bedroom with animal-print sheets (soooo many of these), or in/around some kind of motorcycle/muscle-car. And the worst part of it is, they get SO many girls who shoot with them. It's fucking baffling.

These two assholes have brought droves of their brethren to Model Mayhem with them, causing legitimate talent (mainly models) to flee screaming. This leaves photographers like myself scouring countless combinations of keyword searches, trying to find just onnnnnnne girl taller than 5'9" who is prettier than myself. It's hard... it really is.

Yes, there are diamonds in the rough; girls who either should be signed to an agency but haven't quite caught on to that yet or are using MM to test the waters... or signed models who use MM as another marketing tool to get them "out there". Either one are rare finds, or they make you go through their agency anyway, which kind of pisses me off, but that's for another entry.

You may say, 'if I have so many complaints, why don't I just go through a real agency?' Well, your typical working model usually does not do test shoots unless they are literally JUST starting out and need their first set of pictures. If signed models DO test, they book by half-day and full-day rates (rarely just hourly); my friend Amy, a legit model repped by a big Los Angeles agency, has a $1500 day-rate. She loves me, so she tests for me for free and I love her back for it... but my entire port can't be of just her. My point is, in this economy-- which seems like it's here to stay for the most part unless China is suddenly swallowed up by the Earth-- no photographer can afford to book an agency-repped model for solely for port testing.

Of course, the back-door to this is to get on any agency's short-list of stock-photographers, so when new girls are signed, they send them to you for their first comp-card pics. And yes, I'm currently trying to weasel my way onto some of those short-lists...but it's competitive as shit out there, and I like to keep honing in the interim...

...Which is why Model Mayhem CAN be good. For there ARE gems you can find and who are willing (or wanting) to work with you as well. In fact, I just shot with one of these diamonds last Sunday (she will have her own entry shortly)... and I got some great selects from our shoot.

The MM forums is probably the best part of Model Mayhem. Divided up into several categories, I've found myself using the 'Digital Re-toucher's" sub-forum the most. I can basically go on, post any kind of question pertaining to how to achieve a certain look in Photoshop, and within an hour I'll have two dozen answers or suggestions. A bad/lazy habit I've gotten into is just simply posting a picture that has a particular look or color-tone/scheme and I'll just write, 'How do I replicate this'. Yes, I know I should be breaking it down myself, but honestly, sometimes I don't have the time... and I always get an answer.

So, what I said in the beginning is what I'll maintain at the end: Model Mayhem is a love/hate photographer's website that offers much in opportunity and content, but nearly cancels the benefits out in volumes of annoyance and unprofessionalism.