A Wild Rainbow Explosion!

Check this out - I am blown away and by the concept and execution of this photo I just saw on Flickr by Ilko Allexandroff!

Rachel Schmid

via Portfolio: BoyVsGirlPhotography http://photos.boyvsgirlphotography.com/p356653574/e36308CBC

Spring = Fashion

The last weekend in March/first weekend in April, BvG did photo sessions for two designers' spring lines. It was a little bit of madness coordinating all of the moving parts, but a lot of fun. We had unseasonably warm, sunny weather for that time of year and so got to do some of the first shoot outdoors near Studio 314. The second shoot was completely outside, at Oak Knoll park in Clayton.
Four beautiful models, two talented designers, great locations and weather - what more could you ask?

From Mekiela Bush's spring line shoot

Behind the scenes shooting CWCouture

Color/BW Combo

I got inspired recently by a photo I saw on a fashion blog that I follow - the photo originally appeared on the Sportmax:Code site.
Here's my image:

(Model: Savannah Maria, MUA: Kristina McGaughey)
Trevis asked me how I did it - it's pretty straightforward. Savannah was tossing the fabric of her skirt into the air and this uses two photos taken at different points of that motion - each is a separate layer in the same Photoshop document. I converted one of the layers to black and white, enlarged it, and lowered the opacity to about 40%. Both layers have the background masked out. I created a third layer behind these two and filled it with a radial gradient - white to a light gray. That's it. I think it turned out pretty cool!

Here's the picture I that gave me the idea:

Diversified Lab Photo of the Day

Div Lab made this photo of Natalie, picture of the day! How cool is that?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150742382770152&set=a.10150428542055152.418300.338758710151&type=3&theater

First Shoot at Studio 314

Well, not exactly but this was the first time that we've shot there as members.  Jaclyn was the lucky model / victim of the shoot last night.  It's going to take some time to get used to shooting in a new space.  The building has a different energy.  Everything seems to have a different look.  All in all i think that the shoot went well.  I think that we've got some good shots.

Lighting the cyc wall for the first time was new and interesting.  It didn't take light the way that I expected it to.  We shot on the bright white one and I more than half expected it to throw back light like a mirror but it didn't.  It absorbed a lot more of it than I thought it might.

I had hopped to step outside and grab some shots using the natural environment as a backdrop but we just didn't have the time.  Her dad did show me a couple of cool spots outside while she was having a makeup change so it will happen before too long.

Oh, Christie Runswithsisors did hair and makeup last night and she made Chrissy and I ghasp when we saw how amazingly accurately she recreated the look from an image.  Thanks Christie!

Oh, back to editing.

Lightroom 4 Chromatic Aberration

Ok, so the new Chromatic Aberration tool in Lightroom 4 is totally hands off.  Just check the check box and it figures it out.  Sigh.  My immediate reaction is, FAIL.

I just imported some high key shots and it's not getting it done.  Before I went off on a righteous tirade i brought the file in question into Photoshop CS5 and brought up the lens correction tool there to see what it could do and... well, i couldn't fix it there either.  For this particular image i think that i'm going to have to do something custom if i really want to fix the CA issues.

Still not loving the idea of loosing controls but of late I have rarely encountered much CA.  I guess i'll just check the damned check box for now.

Living the College Life

Whitney, one of the people who does makeup for us, recently asked for our help with a project she's undertaking to help promote a new website and magazine for college students- Living the College Life. She's always great to work with and has everything together, so we said, "Sure!"
(See some of Whitney's fabulous work here.)
So last weekend we did a shoot with three college-age women. There were a lot of people moving around - models, hair stylists, makeup artists, creative director and even a videographer. Things went together pretty smoothly and the pictures came out great.They're planning to use the photos on their website and in some promotional flyers. I'm looking forward to seeing them in use!

Nightime photography storytelling

Oh, some people are so full of ideas! This series of photos from Laurant Lavender made me smile.

Engaged

Looking around Flickr for ideas for a couple's shoot:

Peas and carrots

They say couples grow more and more alike as time goes by (I think they also say that about people and their dogs...). This photo caught a peek into one couple's similarities - might be a good pose idea for a couples shoot.

Love by Oksanna Korogodin

Lighting a group

So, how to light up a group of people so that everyone is well lit and nobody is hidden in another person's shadow, but the lighting isn't all flat? Surely it's been done, right? I went looking for some encouragement...

Metropolitan by Joel Bedford

Boombox by Olga Babych

Pretty young girls celebrating with champagne by Charles Knox Photo

Gels and Drapes

Last week we played with using gels in a low key lighting arrangement
to put color onto some white drapes. I was pretty impressed by how
rich the hue's turned out.

We're going to do it again this weekend with a color pallet that was
inspired by the windows vista login splash screen :-)

Get moving

Note to self: don't neglect to suggest moving poses in full-body shots. The shots from Sportmax catalog are fun.

Kissy-kissy

Here's an unusual idea for an engagement photo:

Kev + Christy Engagement by Nicki & Chrissy Vitalic Photo

Time to make a change

Well since Chrissy and I got serious about beauty photography we've been shooting at the wonderful Studio Altius in Maplewood.  Soon, all of that will change.  We've made the decision to switch to Studio 314.  This was a tough choice but we wanted to try something different.  The guys at 314 have been amazingly supportive of us and we've enjoyed knowing them.  I think that by March we will begin scheduling shoots at the new 314 location.

I'm anxious and excited Lets see what the next six months bring!

Feeling Fit

Last weekend we attended a fitness shoot with the St Louis Strobist group at an empty warehouse in Earth City. It was every bit as glamorous as you would imagine an empty warehouse to be, but all the models and photographers made it a really great event. I've never seen so many ripped abs in my life! It really gives you something to aspire to!

Here's a sample photo from the afternoon:

Rotating the clone source.  Hm. I didn't know that you could do this until very recently.


http://www.tipsquirrel.com/index.php/2011/05/rotating-the-clone-stamp-in-photoshop/

Still motion

We're planning on photographing a ballet dancer so I was trolling for inspiration and found this on 500px. I like how she appears so still. Only the fabric gives her away.

Minor tweaks to the site.  Changed the portfolio page a bit to show the thumbnails by default.  Also, the images are no longer in random order.  That causes the thumbnails not to work quite right.

Pinkity Pink

Another one that would look great on fair skin.

cherryblossom

cherryblossom, a photo by JessieDeexx on Flickr.

Love how this makeup look works with the model's fair complexion.

http://www.boyvsgirlphotography.com/ is live!

So. very. close.

So very close to going live.  So. very. close.