Last week we had the pleasure of being an exhibitor at PhotoshopWorld in Orlando, Florida. It was not the first time SlickforceStudio had a convention booth (our longtime Southern California fans may remember way back to ActorFest, Glamourcon, and the Sci-Fi Conventions at the Shrine), but it was certainly our largest public display to date, and our first convention foray on a national level. It was also an important convention because it marked the debut of the DVD box set of Mastering Retouching™.

It was a pleasure and an honor to meet so many masters of their craft, as well as the countless friends, customers, fans, and curious public that approached our booth. I, personally, got a chance to meet many people who I have known on-line for years but never met face-to-face.

I pulled together a power-team for this conference, including magazine covergirls Esther Hanuka and Erica Jackson, Mastering Retouching™ beta-tester Matt Timmons, and SlickforceStudio man-behind-the-curtain powerhouse Kevin Savarese.

I’m proud to say that Mastering Retouching was extremely well-received, so much so that we actually sold out our entire convention supply. Brand new Level 7 volume “Exotic Features” was also included in the series for the first time, and has now been added to all new orders.

We made many new friends, both professional an personal, including NAPP-founder Scott Kelby (photo 1), retouching-guru Dave Cuerdon, and best-selling author Matt Kloskowski (photo 2). We had a blast at PhotoshopWorld, and hope to see those of you we didn’t meet at PhotoshopWorld West in Vegas later this year!

 

It goes without saying that Kim Kardashian is one of my favorite clients. So when she contacted me to shoot not one, but both of her 2011 calendars, it didn’t take much convincing. Now, why would anyone need two calendars, you may ask? Good question.

Kim made waves on the gossip circuit when she went renegade last summer, tossing aside her classically perfect brunette hair and swapping it for a blonde look. When fans cried for the return of natural Kim, she called me. “I have to go back to brunette for the show,” she said, “but I want you to capture the blonde before I change it back!”

Deal. So two days after returning from a shoot in Italy, I got Kim in my studio and we shot her 2011 calendar. You can read her words on the shoot here. Later, when I sent her the final images, she had a brilliant idea: “Let’s do TWO calendars! One blonde, one brunette!” And that, my friends, is why the woman is a mogul. She can sell anything.

Shoot #2 was scheduled in late January. And finally, on our fifth shoot together, I successfully convinced her to let me bring in a behind-the-scenes crew (you gotta understand, this girl has cameras following her everywhere…) This shoot was incredibly relaxed, as her crew and I have now worked together several times. We’ve learned to play off each others strengths, as any good team does, and Kim really has fantastic people on her team. Mario Dedivanovic’s make-up is flawless, Frankie Payne nails my favorite windblown look every time, and Monica Rose’s styling is always mind-blowing.

Look for an upcoming post once the calendar previews are released!

Thanks to Slickforce’s own secret-weapon Joyce Park for these great production shots!

I said I'm watching Gossip Girl, b*tch!

 

 

Once in a blue moon, a project comes by that changes my style forever.  Mirage was one of those projects.

My good friend and writer/director Stephanie Jones approached me with an interesting concept. She had a feature-film script that she was about to pitch to a major studio, but as those in the entertainment industry know, the execs that greenlight films are rarely artists themselves, and as such, they often have a hard time visualizing how a script will translate to the screen. Stephanie was a USC Cinema alum, like myself, and I had worked with her as a cinematographer several times. She was hoping I could take what was in her head and capture it visually. It would be just like storyboarding, only far more realistic.

Logistically, this shoot was a beast. There were 8 full concept shots, each at different physical locations, and all containing multiple characters. The beauty of motion picture is that you can rack focus from one character to another. But in a still it meant I’d need an enormous depth of field to keep all characters in focus.

In what became the most memorable image of the series, known as the “Alley Fight” (pictured above), I had 12 characters in the shot, ranging from 2 feet to 70 feet from camera. It was also scripted as a night scene, which meant I’d need a ton of light to get a reasonable depth of field at 100 ISO. And I’m guessing Stephanie thought I didn’t have enough to worry about, because on top of all of that she told me 6 of the actors would be in fast motion (running and flying through the air!), so slow-shutters were impossible too. I love pressure!

Given the technical demands, I decided that capturing the shot in one take was impossible. I would have needed to shoot at F32 at 100 ISO…yeah you try that, lemme know how it works out! So I had to get creative. I locked down the camera and broke up the scene into four stages: foreground, middleground, background, environment. The environment shot was key because I wanted to avoid the fake look of green-screen photography. I needed to know where my lights and shadows would fall if you actually saw this fight on the street. At dusk, I shot the alley at a 30 second exposure. Then I had all 12 actors stand in, and we blocked the shot just like an actual film scene. I needed to make sure all the action would be seen and that actors wouldn’t be blocking each other. Once we marked the characters’ spots we then pulled them out and shot them in groups. The foreground was the most important, because it featured the leads, so I shot that first. Then the middle ground, which was perhaps the most fun, because it was a full-on stunt scene, coordinated by my friend and action-director Alex Wen (The Matrix, Lethal Weapon 4).  Take a look at the raw capture and you’ll see that we really threw that guy in the air—full invert! Then finally we shot the background stage, as well as various exposure plates, such as smoke from the truck and wetdowns on the street. It’s also important to note that we ultimately color-timed the final image to match the environment plate, rather than the other way around—yet another reason why it’s so important to shoot scenics first whenever possible.

This was relatively early in my photography career, before I started bringing in a behind-the-scenes photo/video crew, but the uncomposited images tell almost as descriptive a story.  In the end, only two of the shots were done in-studio on green-screen; the rest were all shot as location composites, in similar form as described above.

The alley shot went on to win the Grand Prize GURU Award at PhotoshopWorld for Best Compositing. I’m really proud of the fact that it’s a location composite versus an afterthought shot in studio, which I think adds to the visceral nature of the final image.

Vida gets smokin' hot for our 100th Cover!

 

 

I’ve always like shooting with Vida. She’s as pro as they come, so much so that some days don’t even feel like we’re working. She does her thing, I do mine, and we’ve each done it 1000 times. So when the publisher of Vida’s mag (yes, she now commands her own entire title) contacted me with the “after dark” concept, I thought “Well, here’s something new.”

For one, I’ve always shot not only Vida, but nearly every other model either in a studio or outdoors in sunlight. Suddenly with an issue that would predominantly feature outdoor night shots, I had to get creative—especially technically. I decided to reach into my old cinematography bag of tricks and pull out all the “night shot” classics: fog machine, silhouettes, out of focus cityscapes—the works.

We shut down the Highlands club in Los Angeles for day one (it was pouring down rain and my poor photo assistant Ashley slipped and fell down the escalator.), and the shoot went relatively smoothly until an hour before wrap. We were shooting the cover shot (cabaret on stage with smoke) and our fog machine tripped the smoke detectors on the entire complex. Though I apologized profusely to the LAFD, one wonders how in fact the club didn’t set it off nightly. Sensitive little buggers.

On day 2 we secured a house high atop Studio City, with a killer view. The owner was, let’s say, eccentric. Naturally, in freezing October temperatures I forced Vida to get in the unheated pool (I’m horrible, I know).  But my favorite setup was the lingerie look on dry land. I had my assistants smoke up the background, but the wind was strong so it kept blowing away. I had them put it on full-blast, but then suddenly the wind stopped, and then the fog was so thick I couldn’t see Vida. So for haha’s I took a test shot—and fell in love with the look. I could barely make out her silhouette, and she was surrounded by an ethereal glow. Magic!

Though I didn’t know it at the time, we were shooting what would become my 100th magazine cover. Though I hardly feel my career has been long enough to look back, moments like these offer a great opportunity to stop, reflect, and realign yourself with your new goals.

The cats are out of the bag.

You asked for it…you got it. I’m finally revealing my top-secret industry retouching techniques! Pre-orders are now available for my new long-awaited 6-volume super-tutorial Mastering Retouching™!

The series will be available for instant-download on January 30, 2010, and as a ridiculously beautiful DVD Box Set on or before March 30 (may be earlier depending on shipping). Pre-order customers ONLY will get both for the heavily discounted price of one.

Order before January 30 and get $200 off your order. You’ll get the download, the DVD Box Set, AND our upcoming bonus lesson Exotic Features (available March 30) FREE with your purchase. You will also get access to The Matrix, a members-only section of the Slickforce forum for customers who have purchased Mastering Retouching™. There you can post your pics for feedback, get coaching on your techniques, and discuss upcoming volumes to the SlickforceSystem library.

I will be personally monitoring the forum to answer any questions anyone has about the product while it’s still in the pre-order phase. This series has been designed using all of your forum input, countless e-mails from the last 5 years, past students, fan requests, and customer wishlists. I’ve been beta-testing this bad boy with students who have taken my retouching classes AND complete newbs, and I’m convinced you’re going to love the final version.

The Lessons:
Volume 1: Tools & Basics
Volume 2: The Slickforce Technique™
Volume 3: Complete Workflow
Volume 4: Light Complexions
Volume 5: Dark Complexions
Volume 6: The Stuff No One Else Will Teach You!
Volume 7: Exotic Features BONUS (available FREE with purchase!)

We’ve also got testimonials from users and a heavily detailed FAQs on the site itself as well as a video sample. Visit MasteringRetouching.com for more info!

Thanks in advance for all of your input in helping my build the mother of all retouching mastery tools. Here’s looking forward to arming you all with lethal skills!

Scorchers in the desert

 

Production shots:

 

SHOWCase #2 was the 4th full magazine issue I produced in its entirety. I think I had gotten the publisher of SHOW hooked on desert shoots just like I was, so we shot the “sequel” to SHOWCase #1 within 60 days of shooting its predecessor.

For those of you who know my background as a cinematographer, it’s no surprise why I get so excited shooting on location. I mean, no photographer LOVES being inside the studio every day…it’s like letting a dog out of the house to run free. So as SHOW became more successful (which is 100% shot on seamless), I found myself pushing to shoot the special issues as far away from SlickforceStudio as possible.

I had just bought my property in the desert (which would become Ultimate Graveyard), but I hadn’t been able to put any real time into it, so I felt it wasn’t yet camera-ready. Instead, I chose Club Ed, one of my favorite desert locations as a DP. They’ve shot a billion movies here, most notably Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects,” and “Nothing to Lose” starring Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins.

One of the reasons I like shooting in the desert so much is that it forces you to be on your A-game. You’ve got no water, no power and no restaurants for miles, so you have to run a really tight production. We brought in RVs, generators, and of course I had my crack team of super-assistants making runs around the Antelope Valley all day (my assistant Cherry got a speeding ticket that day too…sorry, Cherry!) I sometimes get a lot of flack for my super-sized productions, but I’ve never been a minimalist—it’s just not my style. My inspirations have always been larger-than-life directors and photographers, like Michael Bay, James Cameron, Antoine Verglas, and Herb Ritts.

The models for SHOWCase #2 were soon-to-be-Playmate Jessica Burciaga and urban-superstar-model Jesikah Maximus. I labeled my Capture folder “Jes².” I had worked with them both on countless issues before and I knew they were both great models (J-Max and I were in Puerto Rico shooting her “SHOW: In Paradise” issue exactly one year earlier) so I already had their trust. And that’s very important, because when the models trust you, you can push them very, very far.

These girls both had crazy bodies, and when J-Max showed up with her fire-engine-red hair, I decided was going to photograph them as if I were shooting a comic-book. I had them kneel on scorching-hot gas pumps, pour buckets of water on themselves, crawl on trucks, and roll around in the dirt. But man, did this issue kill. I have to say that this is probably the first issue I’ve shot that turned out exactly like I saw it in my head. And that’s not easy for 100+ pages of content. And although the day was long (15+ hours) and everyone was beat to sh*t, it was some of the most fun I’ve ever head on set. I think it was probably in my top 3 days of 2008. It’s one of those rare moments where you stop to reflect, take a look around, and realize you’re doing exactly what you dreamed of doing when you were a kid.

 

When Maxim en Espanol editor Juan Rotulo called me to photograph Roselyn Sanchez for the Feb 08 cover, I was thrilled. I mean, Roselyn is easily one of the most beautiful women in the world, and from what I’d heard, she was also a total sweetheart. It also seemed unlikely that I could take a bad picture of her.

The trick, it seemed, was actually going to be figuring a way to deliver the publishers a smoking-hot newsstand cover they could sell, while simultaneously keeping the spread classy, so as not to insult the Without a Trace actress (or her publicist. *shaking head*) After all, Maxim en Espanol had always pushed the envelope much further than US Maxim.

I booked the Mayan Theater in downtown LA, now a popular night club, for the shoot. It featured Mayan architecture influences that would make fantastic backdrops, but remained super-convenient for Ms. Sanchez’s travel purposes.

Roselyn was a total superstar on camera, extremely comfortable with herself, and not an ounce of diva in her—very down to earth. She did request her own glam squad (working with new people always adds an extra variable, because I know what my team can deliver,) but I was able to pull in Jenny Ricker from the Wall Group for wardrobe—who had styled my Kim Kardashian shoot a few months earlier.

I was really tight with the guys at Maxim, not only with Juan but with Oscar Saavedra, the Art Director (I always seem to get along with Art Directors). They gave me a lot of input on choosing selects to run in the mag, and happily all of my top choices ran in the spread, including the cover. That said, I still had to get Roselyn’s approval, so I (probably naively) requested that she sit with me to go over the shots. I was stunned when she said yes.

Sitting in my industrial LA studio office, Roselyn Sanchez and I went through each pic, and she even signed off on the near-naked cover shot. Then we sat for an additional 2 hours and talked about the industry and her upcoming engagement. I don’t think I can name a client who was more grounded.

Alas, it looked like I was gonna make both camps happy after all. The cover ran exactly as I envisioned, and I was ready for a year of home-run celebrity covers. Sadly, though that issue was one of their highest-selling issues ever, Maxim en Espanol went under two issues later. (They were dissolved into Maxim Mexico and they now put Espanol covers on the Mexico magazine so it appears to still run as a unique title.)

Roselyn Sanchez was my favorite cover during my 2-year run with Maxim en Espanol.

Kardashian Clone Wars

 

I was recently hired to shoot the campaign for QuickTrim weight-loss supplement, featuring Kim & Khloe Kardashian.  This was my first time meeting Khloe. She was not only a pro like her sister, but she has a sarcastic edge to her which is hilarious. Kim and I seem to always be in sync, so the shoot flowed really smoothly.

The TV crew from Keeping up with the Kardashians was at Slickforce that day, taping the drama that accompanied the photo shoot. Rumor has it we’ll be in one of the first few episodes of Season 4 which airs this December.  I’ll keep you posted on all that jazz.

The land that time forgot.

 

So my boy Clint Davis, famed Art Director of Import Tuner, woke my ass up Friday morning to show me a location he’s in love with. And MAN, lemme tell ya, he wasn’t bluffing. The Salton Sea is photographer’s wet dream. A forgotten shit-hole in the middle of nowhere. F*cking beautiful.

Here’s a few pics I snapped, and thanks to Mr. Davis for the tip (and for driving 400 miles. You are a beast, my friend.)

Pic #1: Destroyed trailer home.

Pic #3: A construction crane left to corrode and rot near the sea. Never seen anything like it, and it’s even more amazing up close.

Pic #7: They shoot fish, don’t they? Well no, not really, but the coast of the Salton Sea is quite literally a fish graveyard, littered with miles of fish skeletons.

Pic #9-10: Abandoned shop south of Bombay Beach. Looks more like Guantanamo Bay from Bad Boys 2.

Pic #13-14: Pier to nowhere. Awesome.

Three's company

 

Thursday we celebrated LowRider GIRLS’ Editor Tanisha Brown’s birthday at Lucky Strike in downtown LA.

As one would expect with the editor of one of the biggest men’s mags on the planet, there was no shortage of beautiful women at the party. Feb 2009 Playboy Playmate Jessica Burciaga and multiple covergirl Kim Lee, both of whom I’ve known for many years, were just a few of the headliners that helped Tanisha celebrate in style! Happy Birthday, T!