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Shoot: Glass and Fake Ice Part 2

So I'm gonna go back to the shining your card because that that just wasn't quite cut it for me. Give that a world. Okay, I'm having a hard time seeing everything because of all the studio lights. So we're just gonna play around a little bit and see what we get. Try that. Ooh. Nice. I tried that. I'm seeing a little bit more brown than your gold right now, but Okay, well, just just color. Just so long as the quality of light is there. Damn. Look at that. That's beautiful. So if you can see what's going on there, there's some really nice stuff happening with that ice. You can really see the shape of it. There's a lot of good stuff that's going on. Dig that. That's just something we could jump. Yeah, we're gonna have to clean out. That might be a lot of that. Might be the glass to that anti class is really weird. The bubbles. No, the bubbles are definitely in in there, but still, we can clean him up because they're not going. And I really like the shape of what's going on. You know what ...

I tend to? Sorry. I tend to drop my voice to. For some reason, when I'm shooting, I tend to make it really soft. And I think that's just part of one thing you can see here, Rob. Yeah, in the glass. Yeah, sure can. Okay, go back out. Let's just capture one. So is that something that could be fixed when you're compositing or what's that? The reflection of your hand. And can you use the color or anything that you got out of that you're gonna composite? So we're probably going to use something like, you know, See, you can see this a lot in there, The edges clean, I'm out. It's kind of dark and moody, and it's gonna it's gonna sit in that in that setting in the bar Really well. But we will composite it with this guy. So we'll pick up the ice that's on the interior there, and we'll plop it in with that guy right there. And I'm kind of digging. Um, just for fun, like Mark, those two as our heroes for the for the glass. OK, so that guy is going to be the glass edges. The one Reier or two prior is gonna be the hero ice, right to just just ask. Do we want to catch any without the bottle in it? They will wait. We should for safety. Good point. Probably want to keep it. Yeah, I will say that for last. So and I'm tack on that right? It's like right here. Might be tack the front of the I just a little soft. Good on you. Nice yourself. That's right. So I'm slightly back. No, that's crazy. I can see the images changing on the screen in the reflection on this glass. Since this is a non carbonated beverage, are the bubbles? No, no, they're not going to go away. So I actually have something like, but I'm gonna pull them out, get rid of them, and I'm gonna put ice back in because we definitely don't want that. Um, I could make Aaron clean it up, but she's only got a limited amount of time Saturday, so Yeah, I definitely I do not want those Which Let's try a couple of things. Sometimes this works, you can tap them out sometimes. I don't think it's gonna work. Does about Bayliss trying Wolf. No pick for that, right? That so do the bubbles come out of the ice over time? Or is it just something that happens from pouring the whiskey into the glass? Just happens. What? When it gets poured in? Really? I'm gonna I'm gonna do everything I can right now to get rid of Glenn. Pops do that. I tend to lose things all the time, even when they're right in front of me. How about you guys? But is one of my a different piece of ice. Okay, Another. This is not a great opportunity. Asked me questions as I sit here in fiddle with ice cubes. Anybody got one? What was would you ask? Were you asking a question? I'm asking the question. I'm asking if anybody else has questions right now. All right, this is a question earlier from AL etc. Who is it? I think it was Brett Shuman in the UK in regards to lights just starting out. This took you over 20 years to get all of these lights s. So for those of us just starting out in commercial photography, what is realistic? A realistic light set up investment for us. Look for something that gives you versatility and isn't too expensive first, like it that I bought on my own. I bought some visit texts, which is in pretty tight. Little Monta block lights. And then I went to pro photo acute andan proto few pro photo acute twos, which there nice little packs and heads together. And then I started moving in a new direction and going with brawn color on. I have a propensity to buy a lot of equipment, particular with student to studios, and I have both studios are completely outfitted, so there's only the cameras that we take. I think we have 20 you delight heads. I have two pair of to 2200. I've got a lot of equipment, but I like it and I use it all the time, so I don't feel the least bit guilty about having it. But start with something small and affordable and just work your way up. And as you start to work with us, those first like it's you're going to know what you love about him, and you're going to know what you want in something else, and then you'll start to seek it out. You know, Bronco is great for me. I think it's incredible stuff. That doesn't mean that it's right for everybody. So I'm not gonna sit in until you have got to get to the point where you've got to buy this their location. Photographers with this would just be too heavy. And something like a Dyna Lite is much more appropriate. There are a lot of different photo companies out there. Experiment with him. Rent them. Running is a great way to learn on. Also, if you make enough friends in the photo world, we are in the same boat. We tend to help each other out, loaning equipment back and forth. That's another great way to try equipment and see what your friends have and use their stuff, you know? So that's my two cents on that. I was put a couple new cubes in there and see if we get something better. Hit that, please. Second, it's kind of interesting. What does that look like on another monitor and other bubbles? Bam! They're gone. So pulling those pulling the ice cubes out, wiping them off completely, getting getting rid of the little tiny bubbles that stuck on there. Um, that's him. Didn't move. Okay, try that we move the magnifier. That's pretty hot, isn't it? Okay, try that. Oh, my God. A little movement and make a whole different. So I'm just changing the way I'm holding the card, The curvature I'm giving it. Oh, blow that up. It's pretty good over here. What's that? Looks pretty good over here. Yeah, I'm digging that. Go down on the on the left. I like what's going on? Top left side. I'm getting a little green. There you go. There's a rain going from the acrylic. Right? Okay, Gary, I like that. I'm gonna pull the bottle and we'll still a couple more shots in just a glass. OK, go ahead and pop that. Yeah, try that, please. That's right between that, Okay? I promise I'm not shaken. I'm not shaking a ton. It's that when you're holding a card like that, it a little bit of balance goes a long way. That might be good. Try that. Okay, A little hot. Try that, please. Try that. That's what that actually is really pretty. No, go back to because I like I like the one that's back to images and go ahead and pop one for me. for just a glass. I am still seeing you on the right. Right? This is the loan for without me because we want those dark edges of the glass anyway. And that other image that we're gonna overlay into the ice we probably won't even bring that in 100% will probably tone it down a little bit Or paint some of it out. So that's gonna be for my hero. Glass for the edges and the exterior. That's gonna be my hero. Last for the interior. Did you like this one or this one? Mm. Go back. That would. I think that's really pretty. So my hero that that step means keeper. Yeah. Okay. So heroes keeps. So let's see. Care what numbers are. So one of the nice things, all the information is up here. So this is image number 1 87 So Gerry's writing that down 1 87 and 1 89 for the round ice. Okay, so we know that those two images are what we need to composite the hero glass. When Aaron gets this or whoever the retouch or is on my stuff, we send this document to them, and it tells them what absolutely everything is, and I do it as I go because like I said before, if I try to shoot all this stuff, get all these components and at the end of it, I try to figure it out. I'm sunk. It's gonna take me hours. And I did that a couple of times like, Oh, my God. Why Didn't know. Mark, this is I I'm going along now. I can't even figure it out. So this was fairly simplistic Shoot. But we shot almost 200 shots right here, Right. And we have not spent a ton of time out here. We've a shop for three hours, something like that. So the images add a pretty quickly. So if you're if in three hours, we've shot, you know, 200 images by the end of a four day shoot, you can imagine that we're gonna have 12 1400 images. It's a lot of stuff to manage. So, um, we tried a number him and make sure we know doing cool. So I think that's it. I feel very comfortable with what I've captured. I know I've got stuff that I really like, and I can now turn it over to Aaron and really put together a hero image. The hero image is gonna look so different from all these components, particularly with the background. It's it'll be very interesting to see where we wind up. So, Rob, that is how you make an image correct. I was paying attention, and then everybody online is wondering, You know, all the whiskey fans out there are wondering if it is now Suntory time reference to be right now it smells pretty damn good. I gotta tell you, if you know, it's like, you know, I always wipe off my jeans. I know I come home smelling like booze every day. Thank God my wife knows what I do for a living. I might be in trouble. All right, So this question also came in earlier. And this from Anna, who said, I'm curious. Do you, as the photographer, ever just get a vague concept and you have the freedom to create an image you want? Yeah, of course, if a client likes the idea, or is it always as rigid as they send you a sketch or computer drawing beforehand? And you have to create that exactly more often than not, it's rigid. It's tight because they have to get the client to sign off. So the brand has gotta sign off on something. And they usually in this day in age, don't just sign off on an idea. We have had a few really do see jobs. A few years ago, I was given a job for Starbucks for Tazo Tea, one of my all time favorite projects. I don't have any of the images here. If you go to my website, you'll see some images of like high biscuits, flowers and lemon with vanilla. And all we were doing was shooting flavor cues for the different teas. And they let the food stylist and I have free rein. We just We knew what the ingredients were, but they let us kind of go in terms of what we were doing and just kind of create little pieces of art. It was a great project. Projects like that don't happen very often. It's not often that you're saying OK, here, your parameters now just go. Every once in a while it does happen, and it's a pretty juicy, yummy job, so I love it. But for the most part, we've got pretty rigid layouts that we're shooting two and again that speaks to the approval process that clients have to know what they're gonna get. Well, I know we talked about that at the beginning of the day, but I just wanted to bring it full circle back to that very cold. All right. Another question from the interwebs from Yoichi as asking, Do you photograph in your free time on their days off like we're the holidays. What other subjects do you shoot? Just for yourself? My donors are very well documented. Are they your personal project? Yeah, I do photograph my kids a lot. Um, and I will tell you this. I have several art projects in mind that I haven't gotten to in a while. I have concentrated very hard, no, after years, just on doing commercial work and particularly as I've been moving into another city and having to studios, there's been a lot of bouncing back and forth in the business is really shifted. So I have not done as much personal work as I would like to. Um but there are some times where I think it's really good to put the camera down and be free from it. At the end of the day, I'm a commercial photographer. I am being hired to make images four people that are very specific to them, not specific to me, their their images. I think in some ways it's good to kind of put the camera down and enjoy the weekend and just play with my kids or do something and not be shooting all the time. I think it helps free my mind so that I can come back to the camera and do good stuff. But I would love to do some some more personal projects. I just haven't found the time, which is I hate to say it, but it's the truth kind of way back to pre production on this. Did the client picked the location, or did you scout it? Send them some options. They took it back to the ultimate client, which is a BK didn't prove that this was a little bit more. Loosen that with this, with this shoot and the one that we're having tomorrow. This is really driven by the creative director from fusion marketing and myself. This is a much more free flowing than what's typically coming out from the client. Because we approach the clients on this saying, Hey, we're gonna be doing this. We love to shoot some stuff for you. They said, Cool. Go ahead, do it. But since it was something that was kind of created, it didn't come from their traditional brand strategies. So we had We had more freedom. We knew about blood and sand. We we belong there. Actually, we go down there quite a bit, and it's just a great venue. We also do some videos with blood and sand. We've done a few of them kind of making their cocktails and putting that stuff together. So we know that space really well, and it just seemed like the right place to do it. So, um and it kind of saved us money, too, since we're, you know, putting us together. It saved us a bit of time in a bit of running around to go to that place that we knew. Um oh, gosh, I forgot it that quick, um, about the agency's Oh, I know what it is like for your commercial work, Are you? Is it all coming in through agencies or do Okay, I know almost all of it. Not everything. Ideo comes from agencies, some of its corporate direct. Um, there are some of my brands, like Southern Comfort that I've been working with long enough that they have a library of stuff and it seems like they're always adding to their their brand. I know exactly how to shoot it. They just kind of call me up and say, Hey, this is coming your way The same with Wild Turkey. It does go through. It goes through fusion, but a lot of it, we just know what to do. So they just kind of send it to us. So in that sense, I do have a good amount of repeat business where we're not sitting there with the art director and you know, the client every single day, we know what we need to execute its based on prior stuff. We're adding to that family. So some of that that goes corporate direct, and actually, I do still shoot some editorial stuff. I do a lot of editorial interiors. It's just a lot of fun. It's a different way for me to think, and I actually like getting out of studio in doing that. Um and that's for magazines directly. So that's very different from doing ad agency work. And I think it's good to get out of that realm, you know, every minute of every day. Alright, how about one last question before we wrap it up for the day? Okay, cool. This one is coming from Kobe. 12345 Who asked, Rob, how do you stay creative after creating all day? Where do you get your inspiration from? Um, yeah, that's a good question. Where do I get my inspiration from one. I absolutely love this business. I love what I do. I can't imagine doing anything else. I mean, if I if I had to see the desk called all day and, like, do numbers or I don't know, I'd be miserable. I absolutely love this. You know, the tools are fun. The cameras air, fun lights or fun. Um, the business just still has me enthralled. So I think a lot of my inspiration comes from there. I think the fact that I'm I'm not constantly taking images in that I don't have 15 personal projects going on all the time. You know I go home. I love to cook. That's an extremely creative venue, and it keeps me creating in another way. I like hanging out with my kids and running around and doing stuff, and it's nice to come back in the studio. It's, I don't know, studios kind of sanctuary, and I think I'm really lucky and that I've got to studios. That's that's quite unusual, but I'm very fortunate, and I've got these places that are work but their sanctuaries and they just, I don't know. It hasn't become a grind after all. This time, it hasn't a couple grand. So, um, something about this business just fits me. I guess that's the deal. You know, it hasn't become a grand after nearly 25 years, and it's the right place for me. Well, I'm watching you work. We can tell that you're in the right place. I like it. It's really I mean, it's fun. It's ridiculously fun. Be a photographer, don't don't compete with me, but it's