Commercial Photography

Cushease commercial product photography Clearwater on a boat

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Model: Lindsay; Cushease product shot on location in Clearwater; f/11 ISO 200 1/250th with 42" reflectorA commercial product photography shoot with models for Cushease in Clearwater was my first experience shooting on a boat.  As soon as I came aboard I instantly realized that doing photography on a boat will be an all new challenge, with not the least challenge being not slipping overboard strafing back and forth to the bow.  I also learned that you will definitely need assistants while working on a boat.  I had already confirmed that the models when not in front of the lens would be willing assistants to hold either the 42" reflector or a speedlight.  On dry land you can setup a light stand to hold speedlights and reflectors, on a rocking boat, that is not possible.  

University of Florida Gator embroidered products by Cushease - Clearwater commercial photographyThe client was actually Karin, one of my new, dedicated DSLR Photography Lesson students.  Her company, Cushease, has a large product catalogue featuring weatherproof chairs, cushions and pillows.  The images from this shoot will be used to update her new website, print catalogue and in various advertising mediums.  That is Karin's dog on the Gator pillow above.  He was very well behaved and a willing model.

Cushease weatherproof chairs for boat & outdoor use - Commercial Photography in ClearwaterI made many of the shots from the upper deck of the boat, which required climbing up a very narrow ladder with my Nikon D300 dangling precariously from its strap.  I was pretty nervous at first but by the end of the 2-hour shoot had gotten pretty good sea legs.  I spent a lot of time on boats in my childhood and this commercial shoot started to make me miss the unique feeling one has when spending time on a boat.   

Safety Harbor Spa Florida Commercial Model Shoot

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Safety Harbor Spa - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 to frame right SB-600 to frame leftSafety Harbor Spa provided the backdrop for a commercial photography fashion shoot for a magazine featuring several models.  All the models were fun to work with and helpful, even offering to assist me in carrying some of my strobist gear around.  Much obliged.  Nancy is featured in the above shot, which turned out to be my favorite shot of the day, and I later found out it was the magazine editor's favorite too.  This shot was made in the "History Room" of the spa.  The dog statue was moved into the shot purposefully.  The spa staff later told me that many consider the statue to be haunted.  People claim it moves by itself and some even have said it tried to bite them!  It did have a mean stare if looked at from a certain angle, but I touched it and it only felt like cold bronze to me.

Safety Harbor Spa model shoot - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/200th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightAlthough we shot at many different spots both inside and on the grounds of Safety Harbor Spa, the History Room was by far my favorite.  Young model (just 15!) Julie poses in front of an oil painting at the far end of the long and well furnitured History Room.  The length of the room allowed me to use my preferred Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens for this shot.

Safety Harbor Pier - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightThe first shooting of the morning though was of the gentlemen out on Safety Harbor Pier.  The sun was already fast rising in the sky and with minimal space to place my speedlights, it was a bit of a logistics as well as photographic challenge to produce the above shot featuring Luke.  I wanted to incorporate leading lines and a bit of a vanishing point in the shot.

Safety Harbor Spa - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/9 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightJulie again in this shot showing very good balance and flexibility allowing for what I feel is a bit of an Aloha State themed image.  If you have never photographed professional models before, I recommend hiring one for a shoot of your own and experiencing just how much easier it is to produce photographs when the subject already knows how to pose well.  Another option is to do a free TF (trade-for) shoot with a model where each exchanges time in order to build their respective portfolios.

Safety Harbor Spa - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightThere was a makeup artist, hair stylist and fashion director that all worked together with the models helping me be able to photograph six models in total at eight different locations all in under four hours.  Thanks a lot everyone, it was challenging fun.

St Petersburg Florida Commercial Photography - Suncoast Electric Vehicles Richard Nimphie

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Suncoast Electric Vehicles Personal EV electric car - St. Petersburg Florida commercial photographyI was excited this week to get a commercial photography job photographing Suncoast Electric Vehicles and its personal EV car and green van, as well as to meet the dealership owner, Richard Nimphie.  My supercar passion is well known, but for my about town car I would definitely also have an EV car of some kind.  I am surprised with all the people of means that live in my neighborhood, I have only seen one Chevy Volt driving around and no totally EVs at all.  I guess EVs are still pretty rare and hard to get no matter what car budget one has.

Richard Nimphie of Suncoast Electric Vehicles St. Petersburg Florida inside the Personal EVI have unknowingly driven by the Suncoast Electric Dealership on 4th Street North I estimate at least 180 times since it opened earlier this year and never noticed it, and I am a very observant person, especially for cars!  The signage is small and low and the building is surrounded by trees.  I might suggest to them to somehow making the dealership much more visible to passing cars.

Personal EV plug with body graphic leaving no doubt where to put it!Mr. Nimphie and his staff were very friendly answering my questions about their EVs and helping me setup photographs highlighting the features of EV cars, which of course are their lack of a need for gas and electrical outlet for a gas cap.  Thinking now I guess in the future there will be something like sold laptop docking station built into the walls of garages that everyone will just connect to when they return home in order to recharge.  Maybe that will not even be necessary as some sudden, burst recharging technology could be invented along just a few seconds of plugin time to be back on the road.

The GREENVAN EVC1000 at Suncoast Electric Vehicles at 2401 4th Street North St. Petersburg FloridaIf you drive less than 40 miles a day and stay on roads with speed limits 40mph and under, which would be nearly all roads in St. Petersburg, then the Personal EV would make a great way to start the future in your garage today.

SUNCOAST ELECTRIC VEHICLES official site

2401 4th Street North St. Petersburg, FL 33704

Parkshore Grill Tyson Grant Commercial Photography St. Petersburg

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Chef Tyson Grant of Parkshore Grill - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/5.6 ISO 400 1/250th Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/4 power on light stand to frame right & SB-600 @ 1/8 power behind subjectThis afternoon I met Chef Tyson Grant of Parkshore Grill on 300 Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg for a commercial photography shoot.  As he was changing into a clean white chef's coat I scouted the restaurant for the best spot to make his portrait.  I thought the area behind the bar was the most distinctive background, but I ended up blurring most of it anyway as you can see in the final shot which was tighter than I first envisioned as well.  

Parkshore Grill at 300 Beach Drive St. Petersburg Florida - outdoor cafe style dining is available all along Beach DriveBeach Drive has many restaurants running along its wide sidewalks, most all of which offer outside eating options.  On a pleasant sunny March afternoon like this one, most of the umbrella covered tables were occupied.  The area in front of the Parkshore Grill was very busy and I could not frame a shot to my liking, so I had to cross the street and include some of the surroundings to get a shot I liked of the exterior of the restaurant.

Chef Tyson Grant of Parkshore Grill 300 Beach Drive St. PetersburgAnother central feature of the interior of Parkshore Grill was a winding staircase leading to a raised dining area in front of the kitchen.  Chef Grant said he liked this staircase so I setup the above shot having to carefully position both of my strobes so that they were close enough to him to light him up, but not so close that they got into the shot.  Using portrait orientation solved most of that dilemma and allowed the staircase to flow nicely into the foreground.

Thank you to Chef Tyson Grant for his time this afternoon.  It was a fast, but fun and interesting commercial photography shoot for me.  Visit the Parkshore Grill website.

Greater Woodlawn St. Petersburg Real Estate Photography

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St. Petersburg Florida Commercial Real Estate Photography - single exposure f/11 ISO 200 1/125th

I have made a new contact in the real estate business and thus will be potentially doing more real estate photography work in St. Petersburg and the surrounding areas.  A few weeks ago I photographed a large, furnished house (photos) for this client.  This time was a smaller, unfurnished home.  It is definitely more a challenge to photograph an unfurnished home, as many rooms devoid of decoration look just like empty cubes.  

St. Petersburg Florida Commercial Real Estate Photography - single exposure f/11 ISO 200 0.6 sec tripod mounted cable releaseSo for unfurnished homes I try to include more of the walls and outcroppings around the border of the frame in order to provide details and depth to the shots, like in the one above.  However, for example, if you have an empty bedroom that is just a perfect square, especially if it is a bit small, well, for that all you can really do is try and include the ceiling light fixture if there is one, and as much as possible get all the room's windows into the shot just to show its natural light potential. 

Lexus IS F - Tampa Commercial Car Photography

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2008 Lexus IS F in black - 7-bracket HDR in Ybor City, TampaWhen I was contacted by ISG (In Sixth Gear) to photograph a black 2008 Lexus IS F, my third favorite car in the world, it was rather easy to say yes to that job!  In fact it would be harder to have a more fun commercial car photography job in Tampa.  A few days earlier I went to Ybor City to scout locations (photos without car) and found the above brick road by rail road tracks spot, which was what the client had requested.  

2008 Lexus IS F black showing custom carbon fiber front spoiler - Ybor City, TampaThis was the client's own daily driver car.  He had a number of customizations added to it including a very low profile front carbon fiber spoiler, special 20" black wheels and perhaps most noticeable was the throaty prototype exhaust system.  The V8's could be heard rumbling loudly even at idle.  When revved you can hear it two blocks away.

2008 Lexus IS F black - 7-bracket HDR in Ybor City, TampaAll the locations I found in Ybor City were within a few blocks of each other in the same old brick warehouse district.  The client mainly wanted shots composed in a way so they could be used on his website, which meant leaving space on the left side for a vertical menu and space on the bottom of the image for text overlay, as can be seen in the above shot.

2008 Lexus IS F black - single exposure processed in Topaz Adjust 3 - Ybor City, TampaWhile waiting for the sun to go down a bit more, I took a few tight shots of the IS F for the client's own personal use, as well as to use as wallpaper on my own desktops!  The IS F has a unique, angled quad-exhaust system that is at an even sharper angle with this prototype exhaust system than the stock tailpipes.  

2008 Lexus IS F with custom carbon fiber front spoiler - Ybor City, TampaThe client's customized IS F looked especially menacing from the front.  The car overall was lowered with an even lower profile front carbon fiber spoiler.  Needless to say one has to be quite careful going over speedbumps!  

2008 Lexus IS F - 7-bracket HDR - Ybor City, Tampa warehouse districtThe client is actually selling this car and replacing it with a BMW M3.  I hope the photographs help him remember his time with his IS F.

Published in 2011 Metropolis Japan Calendar

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I became more serious about photography in August 2008.  I already had plans to leave Japan in February 2009.  In that six month period I had a goal of getting a photograph published in the "Photo of the Week" section of Metropolis, the #1 English magazine in Japan.  To my great surprise I reached that goal on October the 24th.  Though no money was involved, for a few minutes it felt like I had won the lottery.  

Then almost two years out of Japan, Metropolis contacted me for permission to have one of my photographs considered for their 2011 calendar.  I had originally submitted it in January 2009.  I said, "sure."  I was then told it was selected for the month of January and the copies they mailed to me across the sea arrived this afternoon.  I was also happy to find out I was sharing space with two other old Japan photographer friends, Vladimir and Alfie.  I was with Vladimir when I made the above photograph, and really only went out shooting that day because of his invitation.  So I guess I have him to thank most!  The photograph is in fact, one of my own top five all-time personal favorites, and a shot I am rather proud of.

Getting a photograph published in Metropolis I feel is still a sort of right of passage for a photographer in Japan, and perhaps Tokyo especially.  It results in a sort of Who's Who of photographers.  A small, but nice honor.

This got me to thinking this afternoon about where my photographer career would be if I had stayed in Japan.  Alfie is a true professional photographer with many connections and he was starting to appreciate my work.  Could I have gone on to be more of a photojournalist like he is?  Would I still have pursued lifestyle photography in Tokyo as well?  I can imagine wedding shots with Mt. Fuji as the background, or family portraits taken under the cherry blossom trees in full bloom.  Who knows . . .