Archive for the ‘Awesome Shooting Locations’ Category

When I first moved to Los Angeles for film school, and began exploring nearby locations while working as a cinematographer, I immediately fell in love with the California desert. As a lifelong East-coaster, I had only seen these seemingly endless stretches of raw land in the movies.

Years later as a magazine photographer, I found myself shooting in the Mojave desert month after month, and so it was only a matter of time before SlickforceStudio opened its own artists’ playground—Ultimate Graveyard. The property stretches more than 300 acres, and features panoramic horizon views of breathtaking mountainscapes, picturesque Joshua trees, sprawling railroad tracks, and even the stunning Milky Way at night. By popular request, we also added several “apocalyptic” features, such as abandoned vintage vehicles, sun-worn furniture, and a gutted plane shell.

This year, Ultimate Graveyard celebrates its 10th anniversary. Visit the new UltimateGraveyard.com for frequently asked questions, a blog of recent shoots, and full galleries of the various features. It’s a dream shoot location that was built for artists, by artists, and it’s available for your next production.

Drone photography by NICK SAGLIMBENI, RAFFAEL DICKRUETER & SERGEY ASTAKHOV
Time-lapse astral photography by NICK SAGLIMBENI

Video footage courtesy of these amazing productions:
ROCKET JUMP / LOOT CRATE
THE DANCE – Cheers
FRENCHIE DAVIS – Love’s Got a Hold on Me
ADAM TYLER – Friction
QUEST PISTOLS – Different
JER MASTER
DUKE INDIA – California Summer

Train to nowhere	Gutted plane shell
Plane shell at night	Abandoned Packard car

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One of our favorite international clients recently flew to LA to create a 50th anniversary campaign for Duke India‘s fashion brand. SlickforceStudio produced the “California Dreamin'” campaign, which was shot over two days.

Day One took place at our favorite playground in the Mojave desert, Ultimate Graveyard, where the models posed on vintage vehicles, climbed plane shells, and danced along the railroad tracks.

On Day Two, we set up shop at Point Dume in Malibu, making use of the sprawling horizon views, steep cliffs, and sandy beaches.

See the 60-second commercial above, and behind-the-scenes images below. Congrats to Duke India on 50 years of success!

MODELS: Celine Farach, Maryam Zolghadr, Federico Pedroni, Austin Moreno
PHOTOGRAPHY: Nick Saglimbeni
WARDROBE STYLIST: Katie Qian
MAKEUP & HAIR: Sherri Celis, Sunny An
VIDEOGRAPHY: Derrick Cohan
BTS IMAGES: Joyce Park for SlickforceStudio

Sunset at Weligama Bay © Nick Saglimbeni / Slickforce Inc.

Shibani Dandekar by Nick Saglimbeni for Maxim © Slickforce Inc.

I spent the majority of March overseas, shooting multiple features for Maxim India, and then visiting one of the places I’ve dreamed of exploring since I was a child—mystical Sri Lanka.

Working in India with the Maxim team was an unforgettable experience. 24 hours after I landed in Mumbai, I photographed Indian film superstar Rana Daggubati, of the Bollywood blockbuster Bahubali. The mega-shoot took place at Film City Goregaon (think Universal Studios in India, a massive backlot with every environment imaginable), where we shot the cover and fashion feature in a huge soundstage. Then we headed outdoors to capture a promotional Jeep Wrangler off-road adventure in the woods. A few days later, I photographed TV host and model Shibani Dandekar in a hypercolor editorial that had the Indian entertainment blogs buzzing over her beauty.

After our Maxim shoots, I ventured south to enchanting Sri Lanka. I traveled from Colombo to Galle via train, and then continued to the southern end of the island via tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw, photo below) to visit the legendary beaches and do some whale-watching. The sunsets were among the best and most colorful I’ve ever seen, and the people incredibly friendly. The beautiful country exceeded my expectations, and I look forward to going back.

The April issue of Maxim India is on stands now. My thanks to publisher Vivek Pareek and his amazing team for hosting me on my Indian adventures. Behind-the-scenes photos and travelogue images below.

CREDITS:
Cover shoot – Rana Daggubati, with models Riya Ray and Carolina Nalerio
Stylist: Nikita Jaisinghani
Rana’s Groomer: Aalim Hakim
Hair & Makeup: Rashmi Shastri
Photographed by Nick Saglimbeni

Shibani Dandekar Shoot
Stylist: Chandni Bahri
Makeup: Amelia
Hair: Ayesha Mulla
Photographed at the JW Marriott Mumbai by Nick Saglimbeni

Film City BTS by Sana Chhabra
All other images © Nick Saglimbeni / Slickforce Inc.

Shibani Dandekar for Maxim © Slickforce Inc.	Carolina Nalerio for Maxim © Slickforce Inc.
Rana Daggubati for Maxim / Jeep © Slickforce Inc.	Reviewing photos w/ Rana & Maxim publisher Vivek Pareek
Maxim India April Cover (color variant) by Nick Saglimbeni	Team Maxim India with Rana Daggubati

Shooting the Maxim cover at Film City Goregaon, Mumbai

My star model in Sri Lanka, two year-old Iruki	Sunset in Weligama, Sri Lanka
Colorful tuk-tuk in Colombo, Sri Lanka	Polwatta River in Weligama, Sri Lanka

Crystal coast at Midigama, Sri Lanka © Nick Saglimbeni / Slickforce Inc.

WHERE MODERN LIFESTYLE MEETS PERFORMANCE

Colosseum. Designed for Motion.

The weather was perfect for our Spring 2016 campaign shoot in Malibu, with models Liz Turner and Dani Herrington turning on the magic to create our dynamic duo. My thanks to the incredible SlickforceStudio team for their support, and here are a few behind-the-scenes from the shoot.

Be sure to visit ColosseumBrand.com for the latest Spring styles. Enjoy!

CREDITS:
Models ELIZABETH TURNER & DANIELLE HERRINGTON
Photography by NICK SAGLIMBENI
Hair & Makeup by COOPER

Majestic white rhinoceros emerges at sunset to eat.

I had planned to post a larger travelogue later this summer, but amidst the recent attention surrounding the sport killing of some of our world’s most cherished creatures, as well as the news that we’re now down to 4 northern white rhinos in existence, I’m bumping up the wildlife gallery from our most recent company trip to Kenya.

I always say, if you can take one trip in your life, it should be to East Africa. Make it your study abroad, your honeymoon, or your retirement gift to yourself. Nowhere in the world have I met friendlier people and seen more natural beauty—or happier animals. And I don’t mean happy in the way your dog pretends to be when he’s manipulating you for a treat. I’m talking about wild animals—that most of us only see caged in a zoo—living in their natural habitats, loving, playing and relaxing, raised and surrounded by their families. It’s one of the few things I’ve seen in life that I would call perfect.

My hope is that these images will serve as a reminder of how beautiful and precious wildlife on our planet is, as we are nearing a critical turning point that may result in the extinction of several species within our lifetime.

My thanks to our amazing safari guide, Ali Khan of Vumbi Jeep Safaris, who I am proud to call a friend. There is no better guide for seeing the wildlife of Kenya, and you are in for the adventure of a lifetime.

For a deeper look, see our previous Kenya travelogues here.

Photos by Nick Saglimbeni and Joyce Park
Large images above and below: Descriptions in captions
Thumb Gallery: Click to enlarge, descriptions on full-size

Hippopotami pod watches and waits.

Young Thomson’s Gazelles grazing on the plains.

Baby baboon hitches a ride on mother’s back

This is an excerpt from a recent interview I did with Rebecca Britt for Fstoppers. Read the full interview here.

Fstoppers/Rebecca Britt: I’m always fascinated when a photographer uses their talents for a greater cause than themselves. SlickforceGirl is a commercial and creative pinup brand that helps raise awareness for women’s causes and breast cancer. I recently had the opportunity to review creator Nick Saglimbeni’s Mastering Lighting series, and I wanted to sit with Nick to discuss his SlickforceGirl campaign and how he uses the techniques taught in Mastering Lighting within the campaign.

FS: I’ve been a fan of your SlickforceGirl brand for a couple of years now. Can you explain to our readers what started the idea of a SlickforceGirl?

Nick Saglimbeni: I originally created SlickforceGirl because I found myself at a crossroads in my art. My career first gained traction in the urban glamour market, an arena which boasts huge fan followings but very little recognition outside of that world. The models are gorgeous and every bit as talented as — and in some cases, more hard-working than — their “mainstream” counterparts, but because they are curvy, or ethnic, or short, they are historically limited to roles such as “music video girls”.

I’ve always seen color, curves and shape as assets rather than hindrances, and I think I instinctively knew how to photograph these women in a way that was different from what had been done before in that world. I wanted to create a diverse universe full of strong female characters for a new generation that isn’t used to every character just being tall, skinny and white.

FS: The scale of your Astronaut Vanessa character looks massive, it looks more like a movie. How did you choose your location and why?

NS: Visually speaking, Vanessa’s story was the most logistically difficult to shoot, but it’s also the most excited I’ve ever been on set. It felt like we were making a feature film, and we all turned into producers trying to find ways to get feature-film production value into a photo shoot budget. I’ll never understand this new era of just compositing everything onto a stock photo background. Being on location is at least half of the fun, and it changes the energy of the shoot dramatically.

We found a huge spaceship set that was built on a sound stage for a sci-fi movie, and they hadn’t broken it down yet. It was architecturally perfect, but aesthetically very gray and drab. I wanted a very stylized color palette for our pop version of deep space, similar to the bioluminescent scenes in James Cameron’s Avatar.

One of the ways we achieved this was through costume and glam. We originally planned on putting model Vanessa Veasley in an actual NASA Mercury suit, but quickly discovered they were so bulky that it was impossible to shoot anything even remotely sexy. So we had her space suit custom-made, and used fabrics with a reflective sheen to capture the “monitor glow” around the spaceship.

FS: How did you approach the lighting for this concept?

NS: For the cockpit scene, we had two lighting motivators — the interior glow from the monitors and bridge controls, and the exterior glow from the stars. There’s really no manual on lighting for outer space, so I looked at old American Cinematographer articles on Armageddon and Terminator 2 for inspiration.

I didn’t want to deal with the spill from green-screen, so we built two 12×12 white griffolyns outside the cockpit window and fired 4 heads on two 2400w/s packs into them. Compositing is much easier in stills than in motion-picture, so you can use whatever color you want to end up with. We then created “nebula hits” by pointing a couple of strips and softboxes with pink and purple gels directly at Vanessa. The trick with making outer space ambience look believable is to let some of the scene fall completely to black, so we were very careful not to overlight the cramped space. For the interior cockpit glow, we placed small double-silked strip lights with steel blue party gels around the ship and behind camera.

This scene was shot at ISO 100 on a 50mm lens (medium format). Even though we were wide, the biggest challenge is carrying the depth of field at that speed because theoretically both Vanessa and “the stars” needed to be in focus. Ultimately, we were able to get the light barely to an F4/5.6 split, and then I set the lens to F8 and let it underexpose a stop-and-a-half, except for a few highlights on her suit. It would have taken too much power to get our ambience higher, and if there were really stars outside that window, the light that reached the ship would be perfectly believable a few stops under key. Also, blues and purples saturate better at a darker luminance than warm colors so it ended up working in our favor.

(Read the complete interview on Fstoppers here.)

— My thanks to Rebecca and the Fstoppers team for a great interview!

With the upcoming release of her new film, “Dirty Politics,” we are reminded of the time we dragged Bollywood’s Mallika Sherawat out to the desert for the second issue of WMB 3D: World’s Most Beautiful. If you missed it the first time, here’s a flashback with never-before-released behind-the-scenes images (and video below) of our scorching starlet in 100+ degree heat.

WMB 3D: Mallika Sherawat scorches the desert from Nick Saglimbeni on Vimeo.

Pisa, Italy is one of those places that just feels familiar whether you’ve been there or not. Iconic images of its’ leaning tower burned in our minds since childhood, it is truly a wonder to experience live and up close.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Pisa and marveled at the dramatic nature of its architecture (leaning aside). The Piazza del Miracoli (Square of Miracles) is a walled city containing several spectacular examples of Medieval European architecture—all built between 1064 and 1319—including the Duomo (Cathedral), the Baptistery and the Leaning Tower.

Climbing the tower is an adventure unto itself. A narrow stone spiral staircase ascends roughly eight stories to the top, and the tight passage is barely wide enough for one person—certainly not for the claustrophobic. Atop the tower is an incredible view of the Square and the surrounding city.

Storm clouds must have sensed me coming and positioned themselves gloomily above the landscape just as I started shooting. Special thanks to the weather for lending the mood. Enjoy!

Photography by Nick Saglimbeni. © Slickforce Inc. All rights reserved.

This week, Carnival is being celebrated all over the world. In nearly every case, the annual five-day event ushers in a party of historic proportions. And while celebrations in Brazil and New Orleans typically involve record levels of infamous wild partying, Venice, Italy instead transforms itself into the ultimate masquerade ball.

I recently had the pleasure of experiencing Venice Carnival, and it is truly a magical experience. A feast for the eyes in every way—from giant marionette spiders in St. Mark’s Square to cobblestone alleys lined with sorcerers, enchanters, and mystics—the Venetian gala champions art and artists from the arcane to the downright creepy.

Perhaps most fascinating is that none of the celebartions’ colorful players ever break character. If costume balls are your cup of tea, mark my words, this is one you want to experience. Eyes Wide Shut has nothing on Venice.

At the end of January, I had the pleasure of visiting someplace I’ve wanted to go for years—the Indian province of Goa. The once-Portuguese colony has a vibe unlike any other in India, drawing visitors from all over the world for its trance music, beach parties and hippie culture.

Nightlife aside, I found the Goan experience to be serene, particularly in the south in Palolem and Agonda. I spent most of my time wandering the tropical beach villages, and kayaking along the coast. I even accidentally crashed an Indian wedding that I mistook for a rave. Perhaps my favorite experience was sitting on beach with the wild cows, watching the sunset in peace. It was a welcome pace adjustment from the hustle of Los Angeles—one that I will keep with me for as long as I can.