ARLUND BLOG – The world of CHUCK ARLUND » Be a better photographer. Be Fearless and Behold Wonder

05.26.09

Photo shoot of Cody and Chance – Direction of light adds drama

Here is a photoshoot from a couple of great dudes that liken themselves to a young and edgy Brooks and Dunn. Meet Cody and Chance. They are working on their first CD right now.

I also want to use this post as an example of having to work quickly and adding drama to a photo by changing the direction of the light or in this case changing my position.

Let’s look at a couple of photos first. The first set were shot with one 580ex.

Under a tree with one 580 ex speedlight

Under a tree with one 580 ex speedlight

This is a great example of what a off camera flash can do for an image. By setting the lightmeter to produce a great looking sky and then matching the output of the flash to the setting. Here is what it would look like if the flash did not fire. I had the light of to my left. My settings were 1/200th of a sec (my top sync speed)at f-14

No Flash Fires

No Flash Fired

Here is another image. In this case, we were in an alley that was very shady. It had no real direction of light so the light was pretty blah. I put the flash of to camera left, where the sun was. By doing this and popping just a little bit of flash into Cody and Chance, I added some dimension to the image. You can tell the flash was at a good distance from the subject but the strong shadow.

cc1__mg_5475-edit

For these next images I switched over from the speedlight to the AB ringflash. By the way, if you want to see what equipment I use just go to my equipment list under pages.

cc2__mg_5577-editcc2__mg_5623-edit

By this time the sun was going down pretty fast and I wanted to get some different  looks. I left the light set up where it was and just moved myself around to create a different look.

I moved to the right of the light.

I moved to the right of the light.

Sometimes as photographers we get in the mode of just shooting. I try to get a couple of shots and then move on. With digital it is very easy to overshoot. I am very guilty of this and I am constantly trying to pretend I still shoot film. I got a couple of good shots and then try something different.

cc2__mg_5676-edit

Moving around again

Moving around again

One thing I also try to do with every shoot is try a strange perspective or angle. In this case I just had them laydown on the ground. It reminded me of a couple of Cowboys laying down in the old west or something. Well it seemed country.:)

Either way, I think it is a cool shot that is different than something you might typically see.

cc3__mg_5732-edit

Here are a couple of shots from my assistant, Kevin’s phone.

example1example2

Posted ininformation,Learn,MusiciansTags: ,,
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Terry NorrisJune 3, 2009 - 12:41 pm

Thanks for these behind the scenes shots, I am going to make myself shoot more OCF this year to bring my photography to the next level, like yours. Thanks

ChuckieJune 3, 2009 - 1:43 pm

Terry,
No problem. I have a bunch of videos also over at you tube. http://www.youtube.com/user/ChuckArlund Lot’s of behind the scenes footage.

Chris RudsdaleJune 8, 2009 - 4:04 am

Love the lying on the ground shot. And I think you successfully avoided looking like a recently famous cowboy movie ;) Seriously though, love it.

trishiaJune 9, 2009 - 6:20 pm

Chuck, love the behind the scenes look! Can I ask- what is that light you are using? I would love something to take out on Senior portrait sessions that won’t get blown away in this midwest wind.

ChuckieJune 9, 2009 - 6:49 pm

Trish,
That is an Alien Bee 800 Ringflash. I use the Vagabond2 powerpack to power it on location. Go to AB website. Not very expensive for what you get.

05.21.09

Attack of the Killer Twinkies

Attack of the Killer Twinkies

A couple of posts back I was asked a question about the concept of this shot and if it was a composite. It is a composite but it did not have to be.

First let’s talk about the concept. Goldylocks is a Nashville based rock band. Goldy  herself is also a very accomplished photographer.  She had this idea of being in front of a bulls eye. At her shows the band throws out Twinkies with the bands logo. She thought it would be funny to have Twinkies being thrown at her.

I love to collaborate ideas with people, I believe as a team you can come up with some really cool concepts. I thought about what she wanted and took it a bit further. As a teenager I read a lot of graphic novels and thought this idea would be really cool if we made it look like a frame from a graphic novel. I went and did some research at Barnes and Noble, found a frame in a comic that had an army of guys coming over a ridge. In the forefront were the leaders of the charge. I thought we could light the band members as the evil army attacking the heroine. Goldy loved the idea.

I told the concept to one of my favorite stylist, Shelly Tucker. She came to me with the trench coats for the guys and a yellow vinyl outfit for Goldy. My brother in Law is a graffiti artist. We found a Safe Wall that he knew about and I had him paint the bulls eye. The shot was set.

I found my angle and then started to light. While I was doing this, I had my assistants start spray paining the Twinkies. I wanted them really yellow.

getting Angle

Finding the angle and directing the guys on hand placement

Painting Twinkies

Spray Painting the Twinkies

sticking

Sticking the Twinkies to the wall

I decided to go with two ringflash’s. One would light the guys from underneath. The horror lighting to make them look evil. I used another ringflash to light Goldy against the wall. We put a black flag (a big piece of black foam board) in between the two lights so there would be no spill of light.

light-diagram.jpg

Light Direction

Once I had figured out the light and the angle to make it look like a comic book. I had my assistants, makeup artist Laddany and Shelly all grab handfuls of Twinkies and start throwing them at Goldy from behind me. I wanted to capture flying Twinkies.

After we had exhausted all of the Twinkies I felt like we had a bunch of great frames.  As I looked through them there were two that stood out. One frame, Goldy had this perfect look of distress on her face but there was a Twinkie right in front of my main guy figure. There was also a frame that had the guys perfect but Goldy looked pretty funny.  Since I had use a tripod for this shoot knowing that I might have to composite an image I was in the clear. I just combined the two.

Twinkie 1

Great shot of Goldy but bad Twinkie

Twinkie 2

Great shot of the Guys

A little split down the middle and the two images are combined.

Posted inArt,information,Learn,Locations,Musicians,Photographers,Rock BandsTags: ,,,,
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Bilogs » Blog Archive » Attack of the Killer TwinkiesMay 21, 2009 - 10:32 pm

[...] View original here:  Attack of the Killer Twinkies [...]

ElcojMay 23, 2009 - 1:19 am

Hi, Thanks for article. Everytime like to read you.
Thank you

Jim SchofieldMay 23, 2009 - 3:48 pm

Thanks for the info Chuck.

Love the depth and comic book feel.

It shows how important the fundamentals are, make a picture first, then take it !

Jim

05.16.09

Photographing Rock Bands 101

I am pretty opinionated on this. Bands are great. They usually have bizarre personalities are a bit extreme and are almost always a good time. I love rock musicians. Wait. I am one…

When I meet a new client, the first thing I do is want to hear their music. The photos and image HAVE to fit the music. This goes way back to 1986 when every Friday after work my first stop was Streetside Records on Rainbow Blvd in Kansas city. Yes, I had a death wish. (bad part of town). Anyway, this was before the days of being able to hear the music before you bought it, so I bought records almost solely on album covers and the way the band looked. I bought Poison, Cinderella the day they came out because they were as Glam as you could get and you know what, I knew EXACTLY what I was going to hear when I put that record on.

There were time though when I bought a record and then listened to it but it did not match at all the look of the band had already put in my head. Here is the problem, the band or musician in question might be great, but I have already been turned off because my mind has already made up a idea of what they should sound like. And it works the other way also. If I hear something and then see what the group looks like and it does not match what I saw in my head I am not digging it quite as much. A good 80′s reference would be the band Extreme. I heard them first on Bill and Ted’s movie. Nuno was awesome. He is the guitar player. So I went to the store and looked it up. Sure enough the drummer had short hair and they just seemed off as a group visually. Short hair on a rock band was terrible then.  I swear I did not buy the album because of that. I know, I’m weird, but I do believe that visuals have a lot to do with things. Hey I am from the Video generation.

Here is a modern example. the new Lee Ann Womack album Call Me Crazy. It looks like a Britney Spears album! She is country right? It is actually a very good CD but man the cover does not fit with the music. You decide dude.

Is this a country album?womack

So lets take a look at some images that I have shot and see if  you can tell me what kind of music they are? And yes there are some that crossover a bit. It is not a perfect science.

#1

#1

#2

#2

#3

#3

#4

#4

#5

#5

#6

#6

#7

#7

#8

#8

#9

#9

#10 Ok, this is strange

#10 Ok, this is strange

Posted ininformation,Learn,Musicians,Photographers,Rock Bands
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Jim SchofieldMay 18, 2009 - 2:51 am

Chuck,

Smashing blog. You have to tell us about the strange No. 10
Is it a composite or one shot.
Whatever it is, its a cracker.

Jim

ChuckieMay 18, 2009 - 6:00 am

Jim, I might do a post about that shot. It is a pretty funny story. That image is a composite but not in the since you might think. The only reason it is a composite is I did not have one photo where the guys and the girl both looked good. She had the great expression in one photo and they had the great stuff in another so I had to combine. This was not intended to be a composite but it had to be done. Thanks for asking.

Jenny J / PhotoJJJune 5, 2009 - 10:52 am

That was fun. Do we get to find out the answers? :)

ChuckieJune 5, 2009 - 11:30 am

Jenny,
Sure. #1 November – Modern Rock, #2 JessAlicia – Country pop rock, #3, Cheetah Palomina – Rockabilly – old country, #4 Hootie and the Blowfish – College Rock, #5 TaVeren -Pop Country, #6 Verbs7 – Urban hip hop, #7 November LEad Singer – Modern Rock, #8 Rick Brantley – AOR Rock Americana, #9 Fact & Fiction – Southern Rock, #10 Goldylocks – Hard Rock

AprilJune 12, 2009 - 11:08 am

Chuckie – I got 80%. Totally knew # 4 was Hootie. Love Darius Rucker’s voice. Cool blog even for us non photographers. – April

05.15.09

Keely and Julianna

Since having kids,I love taking photos of them. I have 2. Lachlann is 3 1/2 and Olivia is 9 months now. I actually do not photo them enough.

Anyway, back to Keely and Julianna. Keely thought I was the real Chucky Cheese so she immediately “loved” me. Her words.

Julianna was a little shy. They are cousins.

I like to take photos of kids in the places they are most comfortable. I think this puts everyone at ease and plus I just like to play with them. So off to grandma’s house I went and she really has it set up for them.

Here are some photos, some of my favorite to date. One of Keely even made the cover of a Simply Canvas special.(the canvas company I use, and you should also)

Enjoy the images. So full of life.

Posted inFamily,Kids,Photographers
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Laura NatividadMay 17, 2009 - 10:12 am

These photos are just awesome! I love the soft lighting and range of emotions you captured.

Kathy MarcianteMay 17, 2009 - 1:14 pm

Beautiful photos of your daughters! Love the soft light.

ChuckieMay 17, 2009 - 2:12 pm

Kathy. thank you. They are not my daughters. They are The grandchildren of a wonderful client of mine.

Clara TetteyMay 25, 2009 - 3:30 am

Hi Chuck, Love your work! These are beautiful, they really capture the essence of these two little girls. I really like number 6 and 7, could you describe how you achieve these two effects? Did you shoot number 6 through a window? I really love the wrap around effect the light has in number 7.

Thanks for sharing!
Clara

ChuckieMay 25, 2009 - 6:12 am

Clara,
Thank you so much for stopping by and for your comment.
#6 was shot through a window and a screen door. That is what created the ghosting effect around her. That is one of my favorites. She was coming out of her kitchen that was pretty dark. They have a screened in porch that had a couple of shafts of light coming through. I closed the door and the screen door and shot Keely putting her hands up to push it open.

#7 is just a large splash of natural light coming in through a huge bay window.
Thanks again Clara for you questions.
Are there any “posts” you would like me to do?

Clara TetteyMay 25, 2009 - 10:06 am

Hi Chuck, thanks for explaining how you achieved those images!
I don’t have any post requests in particular but I’d just like to say that every post where you explain how you light a particular photograph or a shoot (like the Goldylocks post) is really very helpful in helping hobbyist photographers like myself to understand how to light well and to achieve a desired effect and that it is much appreciated and so keep them coming! I really enjoy reading your blog, I’ve already put it into my RSS reader!

Thanks for sharing!
Clara

David PurslowJune 26, 2009 - 1:02 am

Hey Chuck, I love these shots. Having two kids myself I fully understand what you say when you say you dont photograph them as much as you should. I think your kids are blessed to have their mothers looks :-) Great stuff, really nice blog and really nice post.

ciao

dp

ChuckieJune 26, 2009 - 6:32 am

Thanks,
Again, these are not my children though.

05.15.09

It’s a GLAM Thing – Enter the Blog

Well hello there. My name is Chuckie or Chuck or Anton. I usually go by Chuckie but Chuck is fine also. Anton just sounds like your mad at me and I’m a pretty easygoing type of guy. Well, this is my blog. I’m a photographer here in the great city of Kansas City, but I frequent Nashville a lot and we are getting a place in NYC soon, but keeping the family in KC.  What will you expect to find here? Photos of the things I take pictures of and some lessons as well. They tell me I have something to share, and I really do love to teach, so…I also hope to learn some more myself from you all. I want this to be an interactive blog so please leave comments. Ask questions in the comments and I will do my best to answer. So this is a place for me to Tell the World ( A Ratt Song) whatever. Yeah, time to enter the 21st century and tell everyone what I am doing because somehow or some reason humans now care about that kind of thing. LOL What is the deal with the whole Glam stuff? I am and will always be a Glam Rock kind of guy. Half of my life was spent playing guitar in rock bands. Hair Metal Rulez. Plus it kind of goes with my personality – fashion, glam, eyeliner, nail-polish, you’ll get it. Have fun exploring. Read the about me in themenu to get just a little bit more info.

Posted ininformation
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Kristen HeatleyMay 15, 2009 - 3:06 pm

Well, i know you know it already, but CHUCKIE IS MY HERO!!
I love all your work, but most of all your style & personality.
You are zesty. I love zest. Keep up the cool work buddy. I love learning from you and laughing at your funnyness :)

nick dantonaMay 16, 2009 - 8:34 am

Chuck is my hero too! As a fellow photographer I’m always looking to Chuck to see what I can “borrow.” I know him well enough to realize that beneath that zany personality is a keen technician and a kick-butt artist. Chuckie rulez, but I wish he would bring back the BIG HAIR.

ChuckieMay 16, 2009 - 8:36 am

If it was not so HOTT in Tennessee I would bring back the hair. Also I need to loose about 50lbs or I like like Jeff Daniels from Dumb and Dumber. Not a great look.

Lynn@CHRIS+LYNNMay 16, 2009 - 6:34 pm

LOVE the new look to the blog – glam it up, baby!
peace+happiness
C+L

Dave CrossMay 18, 2009 - 5:57 am

Hello! I was very glad to come across your blog via Neil van Niekerk…. you have some awesome photos and I always love to see some good Photoshop stuff thrown in!
Cheers

ChuckieMay 18, 2009 - 6:01 am

Dave, Thanks for stopping by. I love you guys. Wow. :)

mjMay 19, 2009 - 5:43 pm

You ROCK Chuckie!

Gary SMay 22, 2009 - 12:11 pm

Just stopped by to see what Neil was talking about. That’s a great shot I’m assuming by Neil. Oh and the twinkies series made me chuckle. Nice…

Lisa TorresJuly 10, 2009 - 6:21 pm

We have two things in common: I LOVE your photos and enchilladas are my FAVORITE food also!!!

Beautiful work!

Lisa Torres

Dana BarrettMay 3, 2010 - 8:54 pm

I think Chuckie rocks too!!! I have learned so much from you, a little thank you!

Best wishes,
Dana

Brent RowlettNovember 29, 2011 - 11:16 am

Chuck–

Enjoyed your session at the recent Inferno in Nashville. You were describing lighting, and you made the comment that Speedotron lights were awesome.

I would be interested to know why you think so. I still have my Speedotron (Blackline) lights from years back in pristine condition. With 3 heads and a recently purchased used Altman Spot/Gobo, I am looking to create more images.

Thanks,
Brent

ChuckieNovember 29, 2011 - 12:05 pm

Thanks Brent. The reason I like SpeedO’s is that that have long ambient flash duration and that makes it easy to do High Speed Sync with them. Here is a post about that. http://arlundphoto.com/blog/2010/10/22/high-speed-sync-using-studio-strobes/

Tammy GillespieJune 29, 2012 - 10:22 am

Hi Chuck! Thanks for a great workshop in Connecticut! Fun, inspiring, enlightening. I am getting some new equipment and need to know what the little “square” battery (?) was that was attached to the speedlight. Thanks!!

ChuckieJuly 3, 2012 - 5:49 am

Hey, Its a Radiopopper Cube. Thank you for coming. :)