I have an idea – a messy “Closet” to represent disorganization, confusion, disarray, mess & disorder! Ha! – Now what to do, let’s see… I have a closet, I’ll use that. Mmmm, that carpet will never work, I’ll go to the big box hardware store & get some easy to install flooring I can remove later.  Now props, mmmm, I know the thrift store has lots of cheap items & a great selection of clothes, hats, old radio, old shoes, tennis racquet & the first Monday of each month is 50% off, I’ll do that instead of pulling my wife’s clothes from her closet, trust me, bad idea… Now how about a model, I need someone thin, young & can understand the concept of what I want, hey, how about that art student, she needs some extra cash & will have a understanding of what I’m trying to do. Cool.

OK – you get the idea, use what you have & adapt to it. Find cheap props from yard sales & thrift stores. Lighting, I choose tungsten for this shot, I can control tungsten much better than flash or strobes. Talent, I find students for some of my concepts, they can always use the extra money. Camera, use what you have, I shoot Canon 5D for some shots & my Hasselblad H4 for others. Total time for this shoot was about 10 hours with getting props, flooring retouching & metadata plus cleanup, the shooting was about an hour.

Video > Click Here > Tokyo, Japan Photoshoot – iStockalypse

I was recently invited to shoot with istockphoto in Tokyo, Japan for 12 days – shooting everything from kids playing in the park to board room meetings, what a fantastic trip!  A trip like this takes lots of planning, planning & then more planning. What to bring, should I shoot with my Hasselblad or Canon? Lights? Props? Talents? Locations?

Fortunately for me istockphoto had producers to take care of the models, lights & locations, all I had to do was come up with creative ideas. When planning a trip like this is just like any other shoot, but this time I can’t make mistakes. I’m 6,852 miles from Atlanta where my studio is so I need to plan carefully, my ideas, props to bring, props to get there etc… I brought as many props as I could carry with the extra luggage, a hammock for a family in the park setting, a birdhouse partally put together complete with an pre-sharpen carpenters pencil, good used hammer, a few nails & even some sawdust to sprinkle around, along with some other props.

Shooting with istockphoto on location was a great experience. Meeting lots of other istockphoto photographers as well as istockphoto creatives & staff was a tremendous value as well as making new friends that will last a lifetime. While shooting I would come up with ideas & then make request to production, hey, I need a birthday cake with eight candles, an orange bicycle, then a green water can for a garden shot… all delivered within 30 mins! Getting great photos takes lots of work, planning & support, it’s all a team!

The language was a bit of a problem, we did have language interpreters on hand but sometimes they would be busy helping other people. If I had to do it over again I would make small cards the models could read when I showed them, cards like:  ”go back & please do it again”, “smile”, “Look to the left”, “Look to the right”, “Get closer please”, etc…

Also after 12 days of shooting there are gig’s of  images. I had three backups before 10pm each night. There is a copy on my MacBook, the other two on 500 gigs lacie rugged hard drives. Also… just in case, call me paranoia, but one of the backups I stuck in the fedex box to be delivered to my studio later that week in case there was a loss luggage disaster or accident.