Scott Gable: Calspan

PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT

Claire McHale

Scott Gable was recently approached by the marketing team over at Calspan, an aerospace and testing facility that handles everything from the Department of Defense and Finnish Air Force, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and car seat manufacturers. Scott, who has shot a lot of industrial and high tech work in the past, found that this was the perfect intersection of his talents and he came up with some darker, high contrast lighting ideas that the client loved. The shoot was spread out over six days and covered three facilities for a corporate image library as well as an entire web revamp for the company.

Scott had originally pitched two separate approaches for the shoot during the preproduction meeting. One approach was to high-key/overlight all the scenes and the other was to use a darker more contrasted lighting.

On the first day of shooting we shot both ways and after the client saw the images coming through, they really loved the darker stuff, which I loved too. 

At one of the facilities Scott had a chance to photograph their impressive collection of high tech dummies, some of which cost just under one million dollars.

The dummy lab had some great potential shots for personal portfolio images and the client was cool enough to let me play around a bit outside of our shot list.

In the end the client was so pleased with Scott's work that, just last week, they asked him to create several videos for them.

To see more of Scott's work visit scottgable.com

This article was originally published Dec 22, 2015 on the Wonderful Machine Blog

Angie Cao: Dips & Spreads

Dec 16, 2015

PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT

Claire McHale

Angie Cao has had a great working relationship with Chronicle Books for the past eight years, so when they reached out to her to shoot the latest cook book from Dawn Yanagihara Dips & Spreads, she was all in. The book features forty-six mouth-watering, festive and healthy options that are easy to create and guaranteed to be party favorites. 

For the book Angie had over 20 dips to shoot, so she faced a challenge in showcasing these variety of snacks differently to keep the viewer engaged. 

We worked hard to create a set that would suit each one specifically without being too repetitive or distracting from the food. There are a lot of bowls in this book, but even more that didn’t make the final cut. 

The book was released last month and has been well recieved. If you are looking for an update to the old sour cream and ranch dip this holiday season, consider picking up a copy or spreading the love to friends and family!

To see more of Angie's work visit angiecao.com

This article was originally published Dec 16, 2015 on the Wonderful Machine Blog

Jiri Lizler : Kahanda Kanda Sri Lanka

PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT

Claire McHale

Photographer Jiri Lizler already had a planned trip to Sri Lanka to photograph a personal project, so to make the most of his trip he asked his assistant to put him in touch with local businesses in hopes of working for them while he was there. 

We sent about 300 emails and waited (that was 8 months before arrival). I don't really depend on email marketing but I got some responses very quickly, one of them was the actual owner of the luxury resort Kahanda Kanda. 

What started out with just a request to photograph a few suites of the resort lead to a six-day shoot photographing locations to be used in Kahanda Kanda's advertising campaigns. This was after the client saw images Jiri had produced in his free time photographing the coast.

This project was a dream come true for my style—no limitations, trust from the client and a great team who made everything run very smoothly.

With creative control and the confidence of the client, Jiri's only challenge was the weather but he still went to great heights to get the shot, at one point rigging the camera to a tree branch. Reactions to the images were great and the rest of his time in Sri Lanka was spent shooting for another client as a direct result of the job he'd just finished for Kahanda Kanda. 

To see more of Jiri's work visit jirilizler.com

This article was originally published Dec 18, 2015 on the Wonderful Machine Blog

Wouter Kingma : Adventure HQ

Dec 10, 2015

PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT

Claire McHale

Wouter Kingma is no stranger to adventure. Just last February he spent a week in the second largest desert in the world, The Empty Quarter, alone and completely off the grid. That project, supported by long time client Adventure HQ, lead to his latest feat for the outdoor adventure company. This catalogue shoot involved covering everything from rock climbing, mountain biking and kayaking, to fishing and much more—all in five days.

With locations in both the United Arab Emirates and Musandam in Oman, Wouter and his team crafted a minute by minute production schedule for the 16 hour days that started as early as 3 am.

I know a lot of cool locations in the region that work really well for photography. What the client had struggled with in the past was making the imagery look authentic, real and un-staged…I had set up the production in fine detail knowing what activities we were shooting at what locations and at what time, to the extent that I could roughly visualize the images I was aiming to get.

With such a huge shot list came not only a big team and group of talent, but an even bigger pile of gear adding to more complications on an already tight schedule.

The talent/team kept on changing making it really hard to allocate their garments so we ended up throwing lots of clothes in a box, which proved to be a challenge on set. Digging through duffle bags and boxes full of gear trying to find the right bike helmet or fitting shoe size is not a good place to be at ten minutes before sun rise—so less is more!

At the end of the day, Wouter came away from this project with images that look genuine and unstaged by utilizing “dirty tricks” like rolling in the sand to roughen up clothing and referencing adventure images he has shot in the past. He even had a behind the scenes video created to capture the spirit and energy of the shoot in hopes of getting more work like this in the future.

With every shoot you learn something new. I tend to work hard on getting as much out of the shoot as it allows, throwing in the hours, energy and focus. Within that forward motion it may be hard for others to keep up with the pace both physically and creatively. So at times its good to take a step back and digest where the whole team stands. Re-group and re-focus. 

Currently, Wouter is planning to create a series of short adventure films with ordinary people in order to really capture the bonds formed with each person and the engagement with nature, because, in Wouter’s words, "Adventure storytelling never stops!"

To see more of Wouter visit wouterkingma.com

This article was originally published Dec 10, 2015 on the Wonderful Machine Blog