Jason Siegel + Michie Peachie

Artistic duo of photographer Jason Siegel and model Michie Peachie captured natural, sexy, provocative and simply beautiful shots at stage Art 1.

Few words about the photographer:

“Jason Siegel is an accomplished Denver based lifestyle photographer specializing in the music and apparel industries. In the last year, Jason’s creative mind and well connected presence has allowed him to expand from photography into comprehensive installation work and apparel/hard good design. Internationally recognized for his projects, Siegel has travelled to 40+ countries, continuing to provide him with inspiration found in the places he visits and people with whom he creates relationships. “

This session’s crew comprised of:

Photographer: Jason Siegel
Model: Michie Peachie

Stage Art 1, a long-time FD Photo Studio favorite, was used for this shoot. With the high-key white industrial design that FD is notorious for, Stage Art 1 is a clean setting that can be manipulated to fit all kinds of projects. This space has its windows facing South and West and gets beautiful direct light during the PM hours, and great open-shaded light in the morning.

Take a look at Stage Art 1 HERE to see what equipment is included in the hourly rate, as well as its availability and pricing.

Rain-room Photography by Sen Floyd

Following up on latest updates from our one-of-kind stage Hill 7, also known as rain-room, here are gorgeous shots of Joy Sunday, surrounded by rain drops and captured by Sen Floyd.

A short bio of the photographer:

Senetchut Men Ab Nehti, best known as Sen M. Floyd, is a Brooklyn-born photographer/ cinematographer. Senetchut transformed a hobby into a lifelong passion. Heavily influenced by New York City’s diverse culture, Sen’s raw approach towards his photography gives his work—motion and still —an organic characteristic.

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This session’s crew comprised of:

Photographer: Sen M. Floyd @sen.floyd

Model: Joy Sunday @_jsunday

Studio Hill 7 also known as a rain-room stage, offers unique experience for photographers to capture images in a wet environment”. Equipped with one of a kind shower system, now you can shoot models in the “rain” against white/black backdrops. For more information visit stage Hill 7 on our website.

Katlyn Marie’s Bridal Photography

A music inspired bridal session took place in stage Art 1, captured by amazing Katlyn Marie. Soft, warm colors dominate the bright photos, filled with ambient light.

Few words about the photographer:

“I feel so honored that I am invited to capture the love stories of my clients. Each couple has such a unique love.. How they laugh together, how they look at each other, and the way they both light up when they catch the others eye. It is my mission to capture the raw emotion and love that my couple’s share. And wow, it shows up so beautifully in photographs!

I am a wedding and portrait photographer located in Southern Oregon and available for travel worldwide. I am married to my dreamboat, Sam. And most importantly I am a child of God and live my life for Him!”

This Session’s crew comprised of:

Photographer: @katlynmariephotoart
Florist: @flourandflowerdesigns
Coto Valley Country Club: @cotovalleycountryclub
Calligrapher: @kelseymaliecalligraphy
Model: @thegoodman.life

Stage Art 1 was a choice of location for this session. Adorned with features like white grand piano and three step podium this stage is a tool of versatility, provider of great natural light, benchmark of industrial Downtown minimalistic design. This space has its windows facing South and West and gets beautiful direct light during the PM hours, and great open-shaded light in the morning. Using strobes? No worries, we include 3 strobe lights in the hourly rate along with black, white and grey background available. Take a look at Stage Art 1 HERE to see what equipment is included in the hourly rate, as well as its availability and pricing.

Become Better Photographer: First or Second Curtain with David Bergman

“Did you know that there are curtains in your camera that can affect your flash photography?” Photographer David Bergman in another awesome episode from Adorama TV explains:

In most modern DSLR cameras, there are two shutter curtains that move separately, to expose the digital sensor to light coming through your lens. You normally don’t have to think about it but when you use a flash, you can set it to fire at the beginning of the exposure right after the first curtain opens up, or at the end of the exposure, before the second curtain covers up the sensor.

With a fast shutter speed, you really won’t notice a difference because the shutter isn’t open for very long, but things get more interesting when you use a longer exposure time to demonstrate.

In this video we are shooting a picture of a dancer leaping through the air. Using LED strip lights on her, we can really see the movement better.

Here is the photo taken when using a long one second exposure, and no flash. You can see she’s just a big blur.

Now let’s add in some flash to freeze the dancer at some point during her leap.

The default is first curtain sync, so the flash fires at the beginning, and then the rest of the time she’s in the air is just a blur.

David states:

This isn’t really a natural look, so now I’m gonna switch to second curtain sync. If I time it just right, I can have the blur happen first, when the shutter opens, and then the flash fires right at the end of her jump, this makes the blurry part trail behind her, and gives a more realistic looking sense of motion.

If your subject is moving then it’s probably best to stay with first curtain sync, so you know that the flash will fire right when you push the button. But for those times when you want to shoot with a slow shutter speed, and especially if you want to have those trailing lines behind your subject, then switch to second curtain sync, and fire away.

Watch the full episode with David Bergman and Adorama TV:

4 WAYS PHOTOGRAPHY COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE

“We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.”

Ralph Hattersley

Many photographers claim that photography saved their life in one way or another. For some this profession was an escape ticket from 9-5 reality, for others it was a creative salvation. How could photography change your life? We asked 4 Professional Photographers about their story.

The full interview is available of YOUTUBE. For your convenience, here is the transcript of it as well.

Ron Khy @ronkhy : Photography definitely changed my life in a positive way. It gave me a creative outlet to go out and do things. And without photography, I definitely wouldn’t enjoy doing a lot of the things I’ve done, especially because I travel a lot. I travel a lot for work. I travel a lot personally. I’m not saying get into photography so you can go out on … Go on vacation, but I think you should get into photography if you think it’s fun, and it’s a passion, and you love documenting photos. And it’s definitely made life good for me.

Moisnomois @moisnomois: Photography changed my life in terms of meeting people. So, I’ve met a lot of cool people doing photography. A lot of cool makeup artists, just regular artists. I get to work with a lot of DJs and popular artists, singers, whatever. So, that’s basically how it did change my life. It gave me bigger opportunities, I guess.

Toma Kostygina @toma.kostygina : Photography changed my life because I got to know more people and it’s always fun to experiment with cameras, with styles, and with techniques as well.

Mila Zvereva @mila_zvereva : Photography is my favorite thing to do and I made a career out of it. It allows me to travel and see new places. I get to meet many different people. When I take camera in my hands, I forget about anything that can trouble me in that moment. Photography didn’t necessarily change my life, but it total defined it.

WANT TO LEARN PHOTOGRAPHY?

Check out our WORKSHOPS in Los Angeles that teach you hands-on how to make great photos!

One of our closest workshops – Hyperlapse Masterclass w/ Award Winning Videographer Vadim Tereshchenko: Shooting & Post-Production

will take place on October 27th, 4-8:30pm, in one of our Los Angeles studios !!!

Watch the full episode :

Zahra Jordan goes Yellow

23 year old model Zahra Jordan also known as Zahra Maia is a frequent client of ours and never ceases to amaze with great shots. Taken of course by one and only Demetreus Ward.

What is your mission (asking photographer Demetreus Ward):

“My mission is to deliver fashion/beauty artistically in portraits, while providing excellent personal attention and demonstrating a unique experience for each and every client. In addition, I am Originally from Milwaukee, WI and now located in Los Angeles California.”

This session’s crew comprised of:

Photographer: Demetrius Ward @meech213

Model: Zahra Jordan @zahramaia

The crew has chosen Stage A due to its size and affordability. Nevertheless, this Stage provides outstanding natural lighting conditions where there is a direct sunlight in the morning through north and east-facing windows, and beautifully soft indirect light as the day goes on. Equipped with all of the same great gear that’s included with all of our studios – strobes, light modifiers, radio trigger, and paper backdrops – it’s a wonderful place to be able to achieve different looks all in the same place. Visit Stage A on our website to learn more.

Quick vs Quality, Why Make-up Matters, with Gavin Hoey and AdoramaTV

In this video photographer Gavin Hoey and his show “Take and Make Great Photography” on AdoramaTV shows you how you can quickly improve your portraits by working with a makeup artist.

In a beauty portrait shoot Gavin makes use of good light, a talented model (Beth) and most importantly , for the topic of this video – a super talented makeup artist Sophie Daley.

Sophie would need to create two different looks – a quick makeup and a quality makeup.

Lighting setup

Gavin Hoey uses classic beauty light set up, – a beauty dish with an eVolv 200 as the light source from above.

And to fill in a shadow below Beth’s chin Gavin uses – Californian Sun bounce.

For the background we would use gray seamless paper lit by another eVolv 200 light for a little vignetted area. The light setup will stay the same for both makeup looks.

Quick MakeUp

MUA Sophie has done a great job and Beth now has a basic coverage makeup.

It’s a nice matte finish so it’s going to cut out flare and hot spots from these lights that should make the whole post-processing much quicker and simpler.

This makeup has a very clean simple look, a sort of level you can expect from a model who’s really good at doing their own makeup.

At first glance this all looks great but look a little closer, you’ll notice how Beth’s neck and shoulders are a different tone to her face.

Hands are often overlooked especially when you’re short of time and in this case Beth’s hands are clearly not the same tone as her face.

Now let’s give our MUA a bit more time and freedom to approach the model’s look more creatively.

While the model is being prepared for the second look, Gavin shares with us few tips of working with makeup artist.

1. Always provide a mood board. – You can’t just expect the makeup artist to read your mind. Web sites like Pinterest are really good to gather your ideas together and then share them with your makeup artist.

2. On the day of your shoot expect your makeup artist to need some space to work in so make sure you’ve planned and prepared for that.

3. Make sure MUA got great light at the MU station.

4. Be aware – you hire a makeup artist, not hair stylist. Now if you also need a hairstylist that could be somebody else. Not all makeup artists do hair and makeup. Sophie however she’s trained in hair as well.

5. Make sure you check with your makeup artist and explain what you need and that they can actually do it.

6. Great makeup takes time so expect that to be part of your day.

7. Finally makeup artists don’t work for free. Like everybody else they should be paid as part of your team.

Quality MakeUp

Our model Beth now has a wet look hair and much more intense makeup. This should make for a very different set of pictures

using exactly the same lighting.

Gavin also reminds:

Now the makeup artist job doesn’t actually stop there. A really good makeup artist will be on set with you and they’ll keep an eye on the makeup any stray hairs and they can help you out enormously, so it’s always worth talking to makeup artist and explaining what you need.

Beth has got some makeup on her neck, her shoulders and even her hands so their color is a much closer match to her face.

If you zoom in on a picture, you can see the sharpness of the lip line, the detail around the eyes and just how smooth and even the skin tones are, all of those things really add up and save a ton of time in post-production.

Watch the full episode with Gavin Hoey and Adorama TV:

!MASTER CLASS! Shooting and Editing Hyperlapse w/ Award Winning Videographer Vadim Tereshchenko

Vadim Tereshchenko is a leading expert in the hyper-lapse videography who in a short number of years has enriched his portfolio with such names and brands as Paul McCartney, ABC, Insomniac, NBC, CBS, and more giants of the industry.

His hyper lapses standout with its luminous energy, dynamic movement, yet smooth transition between slides.

On October 27th, Vadim will host a unique masterclass showcasing both shooting and editing,

What is this about?

This course is about a very interesting filming technique called Hyperlapse or Hyper-lapse.

These days with videography becoming more and more competitive, it’s more important than ever to stand out from the many others. And hyperlapse is one awesome way to help you distinguish yourself from the crowd!

No matter what field of videography you specialize in, Hyperlapse will enhance your video productions!

Where and when?

The event will take place at stage Art 4, at 1048 Santee St, Los Angeles, CA. It will happen on October 27th, 2018, 4-8:30pm so mark your calendars.

How much?

$150. Only 20 seats left. Have a look what you can learn.

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!

Want to learn more about photography?

Check out our other workshops we currently offer:

Artistic Burlesque Photography by “Rawl Of The Dead”

The model Marie Devilreux surely knows how to capture viewer’s attention and project the character, even in one shot. In this session, every single shot that is.

How was your experience at FD:

“We had a great shoot at FD studio. I had a model from London visiting LA. Marie Devilreux who is an amazing model and burlesque dancer. She also designs her own clothes. FD studio art2 was the perfect room to get the shots we wanted.”

This session’s crew comprised of:

Photographer: Rawl of the Dead @rawlofthedead

Model: Marie Devilreux @dressedtokillyou

Assistant April Misloski @apryldeadly

Art 2, is one of the busiest stages we currently offer. Equipped with everything you need for a perfect intimate, romantic or empowering style of photoshoot, this stage always leaves our clients excited and hungry for more time. Featuring a dark wood floor platform across the stage and a sexy dark leather lounge chair creates welcoming and relaxed atmosphere. A wall section with the brick veneer adds a flavor of downtown loft New York style. Among these unique features, the stage comes with great equipment – three strobe lights, three backdrops of white, grey and black color, sound system, makeup station and changing station. Take a look at Art 2 on our website for availability as well as rates.