You guys, you guys, you guys! I'm so excited, can you tell?! We just got in three new hand-painted canvas backdrops. What does that mean? Vanity Fair/Annie Leibovitz styled pet portraits!The colors are brown, blue and green and they are completely awesome. No, these are not your daddy's Old World Masters backdrops. These are very contemporary and make for extremely dramatic portraits. They really fit well in a styled shoot or a formal portrait. They are made by Gravity Backdrops and they came all the way from Serbia.Now, for this kind of look, I have photographed on gray or dark blue seamless paper and added on a texture and it kind of mimics it. But the seamless doesn't have the depth the ...
Monday, February 20, 2017
I was browsing through my favorite cat hat maker's site a few months ago and it finally struck me. I'd seen the Jesse Pinkman beanie before... and the Heisenberg hat. But I hadn't thought of creating something with the two of them together. And since I have two cats...I got the ball rolling with Amelie of ToScarboroughFair on Etsy. We first learned of this shop when we did the cat calendar for Sophos and our prop coordinator ordered quite a few chapeaus for the shoot from there. This is the shop Kiwi's aviator cap came from and how handsome was he?So I took measurements of Kiwi and Mango, ordered the hats, then looked for more "Breaking Bad" props. In all honesty, they're pretty easy to ...
You know the Birth of Venus, right? That gorgeous Botticelli masterpiece depicting Venus emerging from the sea to ride to the shore on a shell, blown by the zephyrs and clothed in finery? I was lucky enough to see it in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence quite a few years ago and it left a lasting impression. Botticelli, you have a future in art, I think! Don't let them tell you otherwise!Well, I'm between pet shoots right now, just working on some corporate and acting headshots, and I got to missing my animals. I thought of lovely Luna, the border collie mix I adore and who has been the subject of so many of my practice composites. Now I won an award for the photo I was thinking of so Luna had ...
Thursday, January 05, 2017
You read winter and if you're not from one of the temperate states, maybe you think snow. Well, my friends, this pet photography photo shoot does not have any snowy elements. In fact, on the day we photographed these four dogs and two cats on an estate overlooking the Pacific Ocean at the end of December, it was pretty darn toasty outside, right around 80 degrees. Some would actually call it hot, at least I know I was sweating when we were shooting outside the bright, brilliant sunlight of mid-day Los Angeles.But anyway, I got a chance to photograph Cooper, Kitty, Scooter, Ink, Spotty and Titan. All with very distinct personalities.I loved this shoot. Yes, it took a long time, what with six ...
Thursday, December 29, 2016
My previous post of my composite image Phoebe at Sea met with a little flack, to tell you the truth. I know, some of it had to have been in jest, but I had a few people concerned that Phoebe wasn't going to make it out alive. That her kind of dog sort of sinks, not swims. She was too far from shore. She needed a rescue boat or a piece of the shore in view. She was from the Titanic. (Huh?)She was rescued, I tell you, rescued! Rescue dogs are rescued and Phoebe is a rescue dog!!! Originally from a bad breeder, she's now living the dream!Plus, it's a make believe image, I don't have to tell you that.So shortly on the heels of Phoebe at Sea, I created one with my cat Kiwi. Now I'm not playing ...