A Cutlery Above
Here's a spread I photographed for the February issue of Dwell magazine. You can find it on newsstands or read the article on Dwell's website. http://www.dwell.com/articles/a-cutlery-above.html
Here's a spread I photographed for the February issue of Dwell magazine.
You can find it on newsstands or read the article on Dwell's website.
Which Mac? Macworld Feature
The cover of the new Macworld magazine features a photo I took of the new MacBook Air.Inside the magazine there is also an article featuring photos that I took at various location around Potrero Hill. It was fun to be able to do something a little...
The cover of the new Macworld magazine features a photo I took of the new MacBook Air.Inside the magazine there is also an article featuring photos that I took at various location around Potrero Hill. It was fun to be able to do something a little different.You can find the magazine on newstands now or read the feature article online.
Music for Video
For me, the soundtrack is one of the most important things to consider when making short films. There are tons of great songs that I'd love to use. Unfortunately, the licensing fees required to use them legally are out of my price range. Like phot...
For me, the soundtrack is one of the most important things to consider when making short films. There are tons of great songs that I'd love to use. Unfortunately, the licensing fees required to use them legally are out of my price range. Like photography, music makes money via licensing. I respect this since my business operates a similar way. For my videos, I tend to look for music more in my budget and then acquire the usage rights.
One option is to use lower-priced music stock sites. I've spent hours listening to music from numerous sites and so far I haven't found anything that inspires me. Another option that I've found works really well is to look for smaller, local artists via myspace.com. When I find a song that I like I contact the artist and ask for the rights to use their song with one of my movies. This use is typically limited to the life of that video, regardless of the media used to show it (such as DVD, web or presentation). This arrangement is appealing because my videos are for promotional usenot for resale. In exchange for the rights to use the song I offer to photograph the band as payment. So far it has been an appealing strategy for everyone involved.
About a year ago, I used The Brokenmusicbox's song with my Macworld cover creation video. They recently decided how they wanted to be photographed: in their living room surrounded by all their musical instruments. For the final photo I gave them two options. The first was the version that I photographed using my Canon. The second version was the same photo but enhanced with the Picture Show app on the iPhone. I did that because when they came by my studio to talk about the photo shoot, they saw some of my photos that I had taken with my iPhone. Of course the final file size isn't as big, but it'll work well for onscreen use.
It never ceases to amaze me how the tone and feel of a movie can change with different soundtracks. Going through this process is actually really fun for me. I enjoy finding new bands and musicians that I hadn't heard before.
Plow
I had fun taking some photos for a new restaurant that just opened here on Potrero Hill. The couple who are starting the restaurant have created a beautiful space full of reclaimed materials. In fact, the office space was an architect's studio pre...
I had fun taking some photos for a new restaurant that just opened here on Potrero Hill. The couple who are starting the restaurant have created a beautiful space full of reclaimed materials. In fact, the office space was an architect's studio previously. They did a complete build-out to make it a commercial restaurant. The food is great, too (I'm especially loving the crispy potatoes). http://www.eatatplow.com.
Dwell Vacuums
We had an amazing two days with Dwell Magazine. This time, we got creative with vacuums. They all sucked! The process started off by using a rough overlay of the spread from Brendan, the art director. This allowed us to map out where the crumbs an...
We had an amazing two days with Dwell Magazine. This time, we got creative with vacuums. They all sucked!
The process started off by using a rough overlay of the spread from Brendan, the art director. This allowed us to map out where the crumbs and vacuums went without interfering with his final design. The crumbs are strategically placed and the paths of the vacuums were cleared using different size brushes. The next step was to photograph all the vacuums separately at the correct angle, matching the area that was cleared out for them in the crumbs.
Sift through the mess at your local newsstand and sweep up a copy of the October 2010 issue of Dwell Magazine. You can also get a copy at Zinio.com
Dwell - Make It Yours
Here are some behind-the-scenes photos for the current cover of Dwell's "Make It Yours" magazine. It was like a puzzle figuring out how to fit all the pieces together. Good thing we had donuts to keep us focused.
Here are some behind-the-scenes photos for the current cover of Dwell's "Make It Yours" magazine. It was like a puzzle figuring out how to fit all the pieces together. Good thing we had donuts to keep us focused.
Macworld iPhone 4 cover
Ive always thought it would be cool to photograph the cover of Macworld magazine using an iPhone as my camera. When the new iPhone 4 was released with the 5MP camera, the editors at Macworld were excited to see if it could be done. What better way...
Ive always thought it would be cool to photograph the cover of Macworld magazine using an iPhone as my camera. When the new iPhone 4 was released with the 5MP camera, the editors at Macworld were excited to see if it could be done. What better way to showcase the phones new camera than to have an iPhone take the photo of the iPhone on the cover?
Normally when I shoot the cover of Macworld Magazine, I use a Phase One P65+ which is a 60 MP digital camera. It has twelve times the megapixel count of an iPhone 4. This was going to be a very challenging task for the iPhone. My goal was to photograph the cover using only the iPhone and any available app for the iPhone (I couldn't use Photoshop on my Mac!)
For the most part, my strategy for photographing the cover didn't change from how I normally would photograph with the Phase One digital camera. I still had my normal set with lots of lights, flags and stands. I did have to change my light source from strobes to tungsten lights because the iPhone can't sync with studio strobes. I did end up making my own camera mount for the phone to go on my tripod (monopod). I hadnt seen one that would do exactly what I needed (even if I did I didnt think it would ship to me in time) so I picked up some parts from the hardware store and rigged one myself.
Normally when I photograph the cover I use my Mac to add the iPhone's screen, clean up dust, scratches and any other imperfections. I wasn't going to have that same control on my iPhone so I had to ensure the photo looked good and close as possible to final in-camera. During the shoot I would send the image files over to the art director at his computer so he could drop the image into layout. We needed to be sure the scale and crop was perfect.
The iPhone's Retina display was truly awesome. I was really able to see the detail in the photo as I was shooting. It made me wish Apple produced all their desktop monitors this way. The final photo was dust-free and looked great. I was extremely impressed with the detail that the iPhone was able to capture. For post production I used two iPhone apps: PhotoForge and Resize-Photo. PhotoForge was used to remove a slight green cast from the photo. Resize-Photo was used to increase the photo from 216 dpi to 290 dpi in order to meet printing requirements. One app that I wish had been available when I was photographing the cover was Camera+ 1.2 with separate touch exposure and touch focus.
Also check out the Editor's Desk inside the magazine where Jason writes about me and my process for creating this month's cover or view online here.
The digital version of the magazine is out now on Zinio. The printed version should be on newsstands soon. See what you think:
http://www.zinio.com/browse/publications/index.jsp?productId=6564920
Macworld iPad cover
The iPad is gracing the cover of the new Macworld magazine. I'm excited about the new cover layout. This is one of the first times that the product hasn't been in the bottom right area of the layout. In fact, the photo is so big that it even cover...
The iPad is gracing the cover of the new Macworld magazine. I'm excited about the new cover layout. This is one of the first times that the product hasn't been in the bottom right area of the layout. In fact, the photo is so big that it even covers the Macworld name. I can only imagine the meetings about that! It seems fitting to have the screen of the iPad represent the cover, seeing how the iPad is going to be such a great device for viewing magazines.
The cover was photographed in 3 parts. First, the hands where photographed while holding an iPadbut with lighting for the hands only. Then I photographed a straight-on view of the iPad with no hands, which enabled me to have more control over the product lighting. Shooting the hands separately also gave me the flexibility to move them around to fit the layout. The third shot was the 3/4 view of the iPad on the table. The gradated background on which the iPad sits was created in post production.
The accompanying article also has some images of the iPad in different environments. We were on a really tight deadline for the project, so I didn't take as many behind-the-scenes photos as I would have liked. The environment photos were taken in my studio with hand model, Stacey Lee. Stacey had jury duty so we had one day to pull everything together and photograph it. At one point we weren't happy with the chair in the photo and we didn't have time to get a new one, so we drove over to my house and quickly grabbed one of my living room chairs.
See my previous post for more photos.http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/65-weekly-photos-april-1
The digital version is out now via Zinio.com and should be on newsstands shortly.
Smokin' Pots
The Dwell Smokin' Pots spreadis printed and on newsstands in this month's issue. I'm really happy with how things turned out and as always the dwell team was awesome.You can read about how the photo was created here. You can also read the article ...
The Dwell Smokin' Pots spreadis printed and on newsstands in this month's issue. I'm really happy with how things turned out and as always the dwell team was awesome.You can read about how the photo was created here.
You can also read the article on Dwell's website.
Macworld GPS opener printed
The Macworld GPS photo is printed and on newsstands in this month's issue. You can read about how the photo was created here.
The Macworld GPS photo is printed and on newsstands in this month's issue. You can read about how the photo was created here.
Dwell Night Tables
No matter how long I spend on an image it's always a thrill to see it in the final layout. The images I shot with the dry ice a few months ago (http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/42-dry-ice) were just published in Dwell Magazine. Something about s...
No matter how long I spend on an image it's always a thrill to see it in the final layout. The images I shot with the dry ice a few months ago (http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/42-dry-ice) were just published in Dwell Magazine. Something about seeing the photo with the final text layered on it, in print, is so satisfying.
Macworld: Puttin' it all togehter
I've just completed the opening photo for Macworld's annual Editors Choice Awards. It was a huge puzzle, because I had to take so many different photos and piece them together. The process of assembling the images is the big moment where you find ...
I've just completed the opening photo for Macworld's annual Editors Choice Awards. It was a huge puzzle, because I had to take so many different photos and piece them together. The process of assembling the images is the big moment where you find out if you've envisioned things correctly. As it turns out, just before I took the set of the red carpet down, I decided the photo needed more depth. I took another shot of the red carpet going into the photo rather than straight across the frame. Thankfully, I was able to make this change because when I photographed the people I had them stand to the left, right and center. This gave me the flexibility to move the people around and play with their final positioning.
Recognize that hand holding the award? It's mine. I don't normally use my hands in shots, but because of scheduling it just made things easier.
Rob at Macworld will be adding some words to the awning in the final design phase, but other than that the image is pretty much complete. Keep an eye on news stands for the magazine sometime in mid January.
Here's a link to the sketch that the photo was based on. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/46-the-sketch-that-started-it