Shoot Details:
The other day I had an amazing opportunity to work with Bel Motivo Designs to photograph some of her new jewelry pieces. We photographed in a beautiful barn/furniture consignment shop , and inside Karisma‘s shop. Karisma provided the clothing for the shoot and has a phenomenal shop. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use it as a location for the shoot. The inside of the furniture consignment store was equally fascinating, old rustic wooden floors, a beautiful antique piano, and all the hard wood furniture we could use! The barn is owned and rented out by Mark Skipper who also owns Mustard Seed, a landscaping & garden center on a neighboring property. Also a beautiful location I hope to use in future shoots!
Each location we used had its own stylized light setup, so I won’t go into detail on each and every one. Most of the setups were 75% lit by strobes and large soft boxes I brought and 15% ambient light, with the exception of one window location where I used the soft natural light from the sun and filled with a reflector. I wanted to experiment with some different lenses, so I rented a 60mm micro and a 45mm PC (tilt-shift) from Borrow Lenses. The micro was great for detail shots of the jewelry pieces Elizabeth put together. The PC was surprisingly great at close up detail shots! I had no idea its minimum focus distance was so close. We had fun with the crazy blur the PC lens gives you when you tilt it the opposite direction from your subject. Due to the tell tale effects a PC lens has on an image I decided not to use it very much because its becoming overused in the industry. It was fun playing with though. I doubt I will use one again, unless I’m going to be doing an architectural shoot where I would like the perspective control.
Brendan Elmore from WABA Productions joined us for a little bit at the barn to shoot some bts footage of us in action.
Gear Used:
* Some equipment I use is no longer available, so I linked the closest item available currently from B&H, where about half of my gear comes from. The other half I like to purchase at local stores like Jacks in Muncie, or Roberts in Carmel or Indy.
Leave a comment and let me know what you would like me to talk from my photo shoots!