Studio 3's Photographer Craig Wagner & CMD's Art Director Lawrence Wolf collaborate!

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Studio 3 Inc

See below to view Craig Wagner’s in-studio Product Photography and his lifestyle images!

Studio 3, Inc, Behind the Scenes, Commercial Product Photography, Commercial Lifestyle Photography, Lawrence Wolf, CMD
We are excited at Studio 3 about our latest partnership with CMD in Portland. Craig Wagner (Photographer) and Lawrence Wolf (Art Director) talk about their thoughts around their latest creative venture. Read below to hear more about the collaboration between Studio 3 Inc. and CMD.
A few words from Lawrence Wolf at CMD.
“One of the great things about working at CMD is the way the company embraces the Rose City’s bike culture. Bike commuting is actively encouraged year round, with a lot of extra support for people who get into the saddle for the Bike Commute Challenge each September. And, as an art director, I get to spend my days crafting the visual language of all the things we make for our clients: websites, mobile apps, brochures, you name it. It’s a process where I’m fortunate to work with some really talented individuals. This brings me to Studio 3 Photography, and partnering on a creative project that reflects my personal passion for cycling as well as that embraced by Portland and CMD.
I first worked with Studio 3 in December 2010, shooting bird’s eye views of two Western Star trucks. It wasn’t an easy shoot, given the sheer size of the trucks. And thanks to the unpredictable nature of Pacific Northwest skies in winter, we were forced to shoot inside a warehouse. In that kind of situation, you can only get an angle so wide before running into problems with distortion.
But Craig was very methodical in overcoming these logistic issues. Over the two days we shot, we bonded over a mutual appreciation for all things on wheels, be it two, four or eighteen. That shoot was just the beginning of a strong professional relationship, and then this past spring, something got us talking about my old bike.

I’ve been customizing this vintage Trek touring bike since the birth of my son. It had sat in my garage, collecting dust for several years, because it’s so much heavier than my aluminum road bike and I tend to opt for speed. But it’s always been a great bike. The steel frame gives it a really comfortable ride. It reminds me of the matching, yellow Schwinns that my parents used to pedal me around on. When I started thinking about how to introduce my boy to cycling, I swapped out the drop bars for mustache bars (to accommodate a front-mounted child seat). This gave the bike a totally different look, and I suddenly developed a new appreciation for the bike’s classic styling.

Soon after, I added a Brooks leather saddle and matching bar tape. Then it kind of took on a life of its own. Since then, I continue to adjust little details like striped white tires, or black dice valve covers.

My latest addition was designing the “Slow Ride” aluminum head badge, which I had made at International Graphics. “Slow Ride” was influenced by a few things: My son’s 70s-era, Evel Knievel helmet, and the fact that the bike weighs upwards of 30 pounds. We won’t be winning any races on this thing, but that’s hardly the point of our rides.

I was thrilled that Craig was interested in collaborating on a “Slow Ride” shoot featuring the customized bike. As an art director, I really admire his attention to detail and the way he plans a shot. He’s keenly aware of potential challenges, and always has a good solution for telling a story through his lens. Half the fun of this shoot was working together on the idea, putting together moodboards, and scouting locations.”

A few words from Craig Wagner at Studio 3, Inc.
“Working with Lawrence’s “Slow Ride” concept was fun and allowed me plenty of creative freedom. The mood boards were coherent and well designed. With a clear understanding of the desired outcome and tone, we were ready to go. I look forward to many more future projects with Lawrence’s creative concept development and the CMD team. See below for some of the shots we got on-location!”

Get involved in the Bicycle Transportation Alliance’s Bike Commute Challenge by clicking here.To view CMD’s joint blog post click here.

Commercial Product Photographer Chris Eltrich and Splashing Goggles!

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Studio 3 Inc

Commercial Product Photographer Chris Eltrich has been playing with splashes to add some fun to his photography portfolio. His recent shoot included goggles and an aquarium. It was a day full of fun that ended with Chris dropping everything from lemons to bananas in the water to see which created the best splash. When it comes to focusing on the perfect splash, Chris offers some insight on how to get the job done:

The biggest challenge to the splash shot is the timing. Just capturing the splash is fairly challenging, but you want the product to look good too. You could, alternatively, take a bunch of shots and composite pieces together, but I wanted to get the splash and product in the same shot, so I needed a consistent method. Now at this point, a gear savvy photographer would begin assembling an elaborate system to trigger the camera when the product falls past a certain point, that you can tune to a fraction of a second. But as the jobs of my generation are slowly being appropriated by “the machines”, I decided to go all “John Henry” and show these machines we humans are still relevant.

I had my assistant drop the goggles about two feet above the water and I hit the shutter right before they landed. The first drop turned great, so I gave myself a congratulatory pat on the back (actually, I instructed my assistant to give me a congratulatory pat on the back.) Oh the joys of being a professional photographer. And so we began our day-long adventure in dropping things in an aquarium.

After a morning of getting great shots of goggles and receiving upwards of forty congratulatory pats on the back (so many that I ended up congratulating him with seven pats of his own), my timing abilities began to decline, and I started getting a lot of pictures of an empty tank or a pair of goggles floating.

Now some would fault me with not hitting the shutter at the right time, but I believe it was the machines, jealous of my amazing “early morning” timing, using some sort of time travel device or computer virus to stop me from getting amazing product photography consistently all day. Luckily, since I had already taken some shots that I loved in the morning we still felt like we had defeated the growing menace that is automation.

To view more of our Commercial Product Photography please click here!

Lifestyle Photographer Swinging Color!

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Studio 3 Inc

Recently, Lifestyle Photographer Dana Jonas, decided she wanted to photograph the newest apparel line to hit the tennis world. She however, did not want this to be like any other shoot. Wanting to play with the lighting, she aspired to emulate the motion associated with the intense sport of competitive tennis. Read her thoughts below on this motion detecting light technique:

It’s been a while since I painted with light and I thought instead of fighting the motion (my first plan), I’d use it to my benefit! Luckily Studio 3 had this wonderful concrete wall built for a previous job that I thought would be a great backdrop for this idea. I set-up the Speedotron Black Line 2400ws strobes and a red gelled Mole-Richardson 2k continuous hot-light, which was carefully flagged off. I did this so that it would mostly fall on the racket as they were moving. I set the exposure to about 1 or 2 seconds depending on how long I needed for the trail and fired the Canon 5D MarkIII camera when they started moving. Then with the pocket wizards in hand, I fired the strobes manually at the end of the swing so the red trail would be behind the tennis racket from the direction they were swinging. Had I fired the strobe at the beginning of the exposure, the red trail would have been in front of the motion, which visually wouldn’t make any sense at all. This shoot was a blast and required some coordinated button-pushing and obviously very talented tennis models! Truly makes a photographer understand that their tool is not a camera, it’s light. I can’t wait to try this again with a different color. Any suggestions on the color I should work with?

To view more Lifestyle images created at Studio 3 please click here!

Bike Photography In Two Styles!

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Studio 3 Inc

Seattle and Portland are in the nation’s top ten bike friendly cities, so it’s no surprise our photographers are inspired by the environmentally friendly mode of transportation, therefore they get their bike photography on. Dana Jonas and Chris Eltrich teamed up to play out their personal strengths, with Dana shooting bicyclist Eddie and Chris shooting the fun color inspired product shots, it was a bike to remember. While Chris shot his series in studio, Dana chose a pier on Green Lake and here are her thoughts on bike photography:

I chose to shoot on a pier in Green Lake to have the option of creating the element of surprise. My goal was to have the viewer take a second look, like: what, wait, wow…is that guy riding on water? The model was great, seeing eye to eye on my vision. He even got so intense as making himself hyperventilate to look authentic. It was a great team and match up, I am definitely loving the fun visual result!

Check out the lifestyle bike photoshoot below:

Here are a few words from Chris Eltrich on shooting bike photography in studio:

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