A trip down memory lane takes us back to summer of 1983, and we’re in the middle of the Alvord Desert. For a few years around this time, we’ve been shooting calendars for Freightliner Trucks in-studio. These trucks were a work of art, show-trucks that were built and painted particularly to collaborate with the themes of each year’s calendar. But it was time for something new and fresh! This was our first attempt to shoot the calendar on location. Tom Stuart, our lead photographer at the time, scouted a few places that’ll be a great large flat space to offer beautiful surroundings to match the hues and beauty of the models and show-trucks we were shooting. So we arrived at Alvord Desert! Tom Stuart and our current Lead Shooter Craig Wagner, geared up, packed the studio van, grip truck, two RVs, and three 1984 Freightliner beauty trucks. They headed to the desert with two clients, three assistants, three models, a hair and make up stylist, and 3 truck drivers in tow.
For a week, our crew, clients, models, truck drivers, and stylist camped in the dessert shooting at sunrise and sunset and finding time in between to soak up the scenery and it’s activities. While our clients, models, and stylist camped in the two RV’s, the truck drivers slept in the semi-truck sleepers and Studio 3 rolled out our sleeping bags without hesitation, and slept under the stars.
The fun didn’t stop with shooting during the beautiful hours of sunrise and sunset. Thanks to the wind and rain, most of the day was spent getting equipment set up, with our crew jogging for a quarter of a mile at a time to retrieve our belongings. When we weren’t running for our lives, or shooting with the sun’s timing, the crew was enjoying BBQ’s, the local farmers hospitality with horseback riding, and dipping into the hot springs. With that said, take us back to the summer of 1983!
Category: Photography
It's In The Details
Another one from our creative and innovative team of Digital Artists! Being experts in the industry, they’re crazy efficient and solution-oriented artists, with crazy teamwork that collectively gets us to where we need to be. Let our Digital lead, Alex Gumina, tell you how we never overlook the small details and work together with our clients to get to the final product!
“When I originally received this image for post-production it was so clean that I wondered what needed to be done to it. Upon reading the photographers notes I discovered that the client wanted the reflections removed from the marble tile, the imagery on some of the screens changed, and a host of other fairly intensive edits. Swapping out the images on the screens was easy – we do this sort of thing all the time. However, when it came to removing the reflections from the marble tile I had to formulate a game plan. Because of the perspective, simply cloning tile to tile wouldn’t work. The grout lines wouldn’t match up. My first inclination was to path out each individual tile and clone sample in from other areas, but I knew there had to be a better way. I decided to make a complex system of open-ended paths over the grout areas in between the tiles themselves. I then created separate paths for the different areas of colored tile. I filled in each of these areas with a solid color, which I sampled from the actual floor tile color. After I had each of the areas filled, I used the path I made over the grout lines to fill in the grout and applied an inner bevel. The result looked good, but didn’t really make sense because the reflection was completely gone. I scaled it back, showed the client, made a few minor adjustments, and arrived at the end result.”
The Sweet Change Of Seasons!!
In the change of seasons, we at Studio 3 like to capture the highlights of what each period has to offer. Here, we’ve highlighted the rustic winter feel with its bright beautiful contributions. Senior Shooter David Bell goes in depth about his inspiration behind the shoot:
“This is one of a series of 4 shots. The harvest season was coming to an end, winter was starting to set in. I wanted to show the beauty and pretty color of the season. The dark wood and lighting with longer shadows is indicative of winter. The sun is low and we have shortened days with more darkness. Within this is the pop of colors of the season. I am always so happy to see the Satsumas return to the market. They are so bright, sweet and refreshing. The bright green leaves contrasting against the bright orange is always a treat. The rich red color of local Tart Cranberries along with sweet earthy brown Chestnuts make for delicious feast to the taste and eyes.
Pretty dappled lighting created in studio with strobe light captured with a Hasselblad camera with a longer lens to compress the elements. Bringing all of this together.”
– David Bell
Below, are the rest of the series. These gorgeous shots embody everything David spoke of. What a great way to bring bold and beautiful color to a dark and cold season. The pop of color helps us prepare for what the upcoming seasons will bring! While we wait for the sunshine, it’s warmth, gardens of colorful flowers and bold greenery to make it’s comeback; we can thank David for reminding us to skip the hot chocolate and slices of pie every once in a while, and enjoy the sweet delicacies that nature has to offer during the winter season.
Happy sweet change of seasons!!!
Portfolio Perfection!
At Studio 3, we are constantly improving our portfolio by being inspired by photography trends, current advertising campaigns, as well as feedback from local portfolio shows. This particular shoot was meant for photographer Craig Wagner. We had been constantly receiving client needs that included drinks, food, incorporated in a lifestyle environment. We decided to meet this need, by heading to a Portland hotspot, Produce Row. Below you can read Liz Swales, the Portland producer’s take on the shoot…
The Seattle marketing team came to me with the request of adding some beautiful, natural, and simple lifestyle, drink shots to Craig Wagner’s portfolio.
The first thing that came to my mind was Produce Row, a place that I used to manage and call home. The bar, lighting, classic nature and overall feel of the well known restaurant and bar in Portland, Oregon made it a dream to shoot in.
We were able to use what Produce Row has to offer, lots of whiskey, fancy mixology, and a bar with 25 taps. It was the perfect set up. With the addition of Craig’s beautiful lighting and creativity, we were able to create classy images that met the request.
I set up the shoot among two days, knowing from previous experience that there are only about 3 hours in the day the restaurant is slow. I didn’t want our shoot to affect or be effected by their overall patrons.
This made our team work well and get our creative ideas working in a timely fashion.
It was a great experience combining efforts with our team and my old team at Produce Row, while capturing the beauty and knowledge of drink mixing.
-Liz Swales
And of course, this story wouldn’t be complete without Craig Wagner’s insight on how he was able to capture such beautiful images.
The sequence of the bartender making a drink are amongst my favorite, I created a bit of energy by dragging the shutter to allow movement, the soft natural light was a bonus.
With mixology being all of the rage these days, I thought it be nice to expand my portfolio with some environmental shots, my producer sent our scout to a few locations including Produce Row, which was remodeled in 2010, the space, environment and lighting made it the perfect choice for this particular project.
Shooting on location can be challenging, light conditions can change rapidly, space can be tight and you may need to shoot during business
hours. We chose to break the shoot into two afternoon sessions to lower our impact on their patrons.
A large bank of north facing windows provided beautiful natural light. Only using a flexfill and a kicker light in addition allowed us to move
around the venue quickly.
-Craig Wagner
Check out Craig Wagner’s beautiful images below and be sure to give us a call for your next on location shoot!
Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
Starting the New Year, Studio 3 reflects on our performance and progress. Always wanting to provide classic work while staying fresh and up to par with current trends, it is helpful to hear great feedback from happy clients to let us know we’re on track.
We have had the pleasure of doing photography illustrations for Marquis Corporation for over 20 years, which naturally progressed into providing video illustrations to show just how great their spas are. You can’t watch these videos without wanting to get into one yourself, we guarantee it!
It was an exciting and challenging project that Studio 3 was ready for. Our team shot over 20 videos in 5 months, 2 television spots, we set up 5 different spas in our studio at once, with our Video Director David King pulling 14 hour days for 23 days straight in post production. It was a busy time but we enjoyed every minute of it with Marquis Corporation on set with us everyday.
When completing a large project like this, we like to pat ourselves on the back and show our appreciation for the team that comes together to make it happen. But when we hear positive feedback from a client that is happy with our work and the affect it has, it excites us even more. It reminds us of our capabilities and the great people we are lucky to work with everyday. Teamwork makes the dream work!
Thanks to a simple yet powerful message from Jim Johnston, it has Studio 3 fired up and ready to take on the New Year. Bring it on 2014!
Raising the Bar with Anthro
Recently, our video department had the exciting opportunity of shooting for Anthro Corporation. Anthro started with a plan to make technology for furniture. Our plan was to take their vision, highlight their latest addition, and bring it to life. Director David King speaks more in depth about putting together this clean and subtly sexy clip!
For anyone who has a job where spending long stretches sitting at a desk is a requirement, I’m sure there are many a day you wish you could just stand up for a while, stretch the back, get the blood flowing back into the legs, and keep on working. When I’m wearing my editor’s hat, it’s not uncommon to pull 10-12 hour shifts sitting in front of the computer. Because of this, when we renovated our edit suite here at Studio 3 Films, finding an adjustable work surface that could be used while sitting or standing was top of the wish list. Once you do any research at all on the subject, the company that tops your search list is Portland-based Anthro Technology Furniture. As an editor, I’ve been aware of Anthro’s product line for many years and was thrilled to be able to build our new edit suite around a desk from the Anthro Elevate series. Motorized height adjustment, tilting keyboard surface, cable management and adjustable monitor arms make this workstation infinitely adjustable for maximum ergonomic comfort. I’m standing as I write this!
Shortly after getting the new desk, Anthro approached us with a need for a video, showcasing one of their desks for an upcoming trade show. While I knew Anthro for their creative field products, they are also very big in the education and medical furniture fields. The product that we were asked to feature is called “Steve’s Station”; a Radiology Desk, featuring acoustic panels, dimmable ambient light, as well as Anthro’s signature height adjustment. The folks at Anthro had a vision of showcasing Steve’s Station as if it were a luxury car, using sexy, low-key lighting, subtle camera movement and a moody music score. I’ve worked on dozens of car commercials over the years so I knew exactly what they wanted and thought it would be great fun to translate that look and feel to an adjustable workstation. It was certainly easier to light without all the reflective surfaces you get from an automobile.
-David King
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Sculpting Portlands Past
Studio 3 Portland had our Senior Photographer, Henry Ngan, take a walk around this beautiful city capturing what Portland had to offer. Amongst the many landmarks that keep Portland weird and unique, he came across a couple of sculptures that reminds this fresh and hip city of its rich history.
You can find James Gion’s sculpture of the dapper “Italian Immigrant” statue in the traffic island at the intersection of NE 99th Ave, Sandy Blvd and Killingsworth. Many statues honor an individual, a war, an event. The “Italian Immigrant” gives tribute to anyone and everyone who took a path that led us here. It reminds Portland of our sense of community. Those who came before that laid the foundation for us, is now brought back to the Rose City where they are honored at the heart of the Parkrose district. Standing tall and confident, the Italian Immigrant invites all that come from around the world, to set their briefcase down in search for a new adventure here in Portland.
Artists/Architects Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio wanted their representation of the past from a different point of view. The bold new art projects titled, “Inversion: Plus Minus” is a set of towering sculptures that stand along SE Grand Ave. Pictured, is the tower on Belmont street. Using weathered steel angle iron; the artists’ brings “ghosts” of former buildings to life. One half of the towering set (not pictured) is located on the Hawthorne corner. This structure will feature a matrix of metal that almost appears as a solid building. The other half, the Belmont sculpture, emphasizes negative space. Referencing the outer shells of ordinary industrial buildings. Portlanders continue to find ways to remind the present, invite the future and remember the past. Whether it be honoring people, places or things; it all represents Portland. And we SUPPORTland!
New Assistant Photographer! Welcome Jonny!
We wanted to welcome our new Assistant Photographer to our Portland Studio! A few words from Jonny!
My interest in photography was born on four wheels. I received my first skateboard when I was 12 years old and haven’t been able to get off one since. I grew up in rural Wisconsin, which is not the most optimal place to learn how to ride a skateboard. But that didn’t stop me from sacrificing my elbows and knees to the concrete gods. As I quickly obsessed about all things skateboarding, so did my passion for documenting it. I watched every skate video I could, studying angles and dreaming of my first fish-eye lens. It was at this moment when I began to think about camera angles everywhere I went (that was skateable). I started out with disposable Kodak cameras. I photographed my friends at the local skatepark and inevitably moved over to video (Hi-8 and VHS-C). I spent almost all of my time skating, filming, and working at the local pizza shop. I spent the first year of college ‘undeclared’ until I came to my senses and joined the film production program. My junior year I landed a summer internship in Portland. After I graduated I packed up and made the journey westward.
My goal was clear: get into the camera department at all costs. After a couple of years freelancing in reality TV land as an assistant and as a local videographer shooting weddings and smaller jobs, I felt dissatisfied with the progression of my camera and lighting skills (reality TV doesn’t necessarily lend itself to creativity). So I took a chance and tried photo assisting. I instantly fell in love with photography and the amount of precision and tinkering to get that perfect shot. A half a year later I was a busy freelancer frequently working for Studio 3 when an opportunity arose and I swiftly jumped on it.
Meet Corban: Digital Artist, Video Editor, Animator, Illustrator, an all-around Artist!
We are so excited to introduce Corban who’s now a part of the Digital Art Studio 3 team in Portland! He has many amazing talents. Read below to learn more:
“I’m a renaissance man, jack-of-all-trades, or as Wile E. Coyote put it: “Super Genius”. The universe is my playground. Even though I’m not yet a master, I’m a journeyman at so many things I can do practically anything. This curious state of being comes from my insatiable thirst for knowledge. There’s always something new to discover. My mind rebells at stagnation. I need problems to solve. I need work to create. Who needs television when the real world is one big sandbox?
Born and raised in Oregon, I was encouraged to follow in the footsteps of my grandfather by becoming an engineer. It certainly made sense considering my aptitude for math and science. Electrical engineering in particular seemed a good choice. I loved technology and what could be done with it. Being on the cutting edge of electronics seemed an exciting prospect.
I enrolled in engineering school at the University of Portland. By day I was your mild mannered engineering student. But by night I was an artist teaching myself drawing, animation, and graphic design. Often people would ask me “What are you doing in engineering school? You should be an artist!” And they were probably right.
The arts were part of my life since childhood. I would draw my favorite cartoon characters or sculpt them out of clay. I’d listen to radio plays or construct cities with Lego bricks on the living room floor. In school I was involved with music and theater, playing multiple instruments, acting in Shakespeare plays, and singing in musicals. From drawing and sculpture to film and theater, the arts captured my attention. But, strangely, it never struck me to pursue it as a career.
The summer after graduation, it finally dawned on me that I was meant to be an artist. Engineering just wasn’t as entirely satisfying as I had hoped. The work was fairly easy. But life in a cubicle didn’t sound exciting or creative. It sounded like a dependable boring job. And that wasn’t really what I wanted.
So it was off to DigiPen Institute of Technology for four years to get educated in the digital arts. It was during that time I fell in love with story, film, and animation. Storyboarding and video editing in particular are my two favorite parts of production. In fact the digital arts as a whole have been wonderfully engaging. As an artist you need to learn everything there is to know about everything to synthesize new art. And the technical nature of the industry satisfies the part of my brain that enjoys solving the puzzles of process.