Jon Moe Photography

I’m excited about the use of ipads and iphones on the set.  For the last year we have been relying on setting up virtual networks and screen sharing but now both of the programs we use have their own ipad/iphone networks built in.  Hasselblad’s Phocus and Capture One from Phase One.   Two great uses of the new tech are, first, the hair stylist can set it up in front of him, especially if he is working the fan, and he can see what I am seeing.  The problem in the past was that he can’t see what I am seeing.  The second use is that now our clients can screen grab from their own ipads and email the shots for approval at the office.  This frees up my computer.  The color isn’t quite the same but close enough to get the idea.  It is great to be working in a time when things are always changing.  Quality is always getting better and computers are getting faster.  The down side is that you need to keep up.  And some things don’t make the changes.  When I was just starting to work commercially  I was shooting for Fuji helping them test their film.  It was great because they would pay me in film.  I remember one time a delivery guy showed up with a dolly loaded to the top with boxes of film.  But anyway, they discontinued my favorite film.  I knew that film so well.  What it looked like when you pushed it two stops.  How the colors would look.  My mind could picture the final image.  It was terrible but digital was already taking its toll on the film industry.  Another huge loss was 4×5 positive negative polaroid.  It is so beautiful and there just isn’t anything like it.  And change keeps coming.  I found that CS5 changed the stamp tool and healing brush.  Their “improvements” make certain things harder to retouch.  Photoshop is an art form and there are many ways to do things.  In fact some of my favorite things to do are not from the strength of the tools but their weaknesses.  You can use tools to get results that aren’t meant to work that way but they just do.  But as they improve things I have to adapt.

There really is so much out there that you have to pick and choose what you need to know.  And remember when talking about strictly photography, its all about the final image.  Don’t get caught up in all of the tech or how you got it.  Just get it.

On Monday we shot for Cutler.  It is great to work with Rodney Cutler.  He is a non stop bundle of energy.  The guy runs marathons and triathlons almost every weekend.  One day he showed up with road rash over half of his body.  He told me he had to lay the bike down; there was a big pile up at one of his races.

Anyway, the hair stylists are seriously talented and fun to work with.  We were shooting four looks to make posters for the Salons.  Here are a few snaps of the day.  We will post some of the finished work once I get them done.  After the shoot we did a spec editorial with a couple of magazines in mind.  It was a very long day but we got some great stuff.

It was a busy week and we finally got the new website up!  We still have a lot of things to add and fix but I wanted to get it up before leaving to CA.  Still working out the kinks with the different email settings etc.  Friday we shot for Lemon.  Slade (a creative genius who works on everything from web/branding to video–check out cultureadvertising.com) and I spent most of the time working on a good video.  This shoot was different from most of what I’ve done because we approached it as a film and took stills from it.  Because we only had one day, and we had to get both video and stills we decided to come up with a basic story, draw up a storyboard and then block in the locations, etc.  So we lit the interior shots with china balls and fixed the set for video.  Then once we captured what we needed we took some stills.  Usually we shoot the stills first and then have the model do video before changing.  But we knew that we had little time to get it all done so we followed the story.  The basic idea was that we wanted to show a woman in her multifaceted world.  We needed to show her running errands, in her profession, and going out on the town.  That way we could show different needs for different styles and still keep it interesting.  Lemon leg wear is a new company started with two great people,  Barry Tartarkin and Maria Garibaldi.  They stand out because they have a vision of what they want to create.  They have been in the hosiery business for a long time.  I used to shoot Givenchy with them.  And now they created a line for women who want to look fashionable and fun.  But, they did it with good quality and comfort.  It seems that before them you had to choose cool, funky, fun, but cheap (h&m etc) or high end and boring (I won’t name names–it could come back to bite me).

The battery on my laptop is running out–I will post some photos of the shoot later.