We’re springing forward with new technology! Studio 3 is keeping up with the recent time change with the new Samsung Galaxy Smartwatch! Inspired by losing an hour this past weekend, we thought we would focus on the hottest watch around. According to the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, wearable devices are catapulting into todays market! This snazzy timepiece is compatible with the Galaxy Note 3 and other Galaxy smartphones. You can place and answer calls directly from your wrist, how crazy is that!? With this clean accessory, you get style and substance. Pairing with that, we had Senior Shooter David Bell work his magic with lighting to enhance the clean smooth timepiece of the future. Once the smartwatch presented itself as inspiration, we had David Bell run with it:
“Hip and happening are always connected, you gotta love technology! Very cool Samsung Galaxy Smartwatch that keeps you connected all day. The shot is inspired by the fact that it works where you are. Clean and simple, like the watch.”
Excited about the new wearable technology addition to our wardrobe, Studio 3 did some research on what this sexy little device can offer. Check out this commercial showing the ‘Evolution’ of the dreamed about futuristic watch that became real…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32_cZvpx3D0
Category: Beauty & Fashion
A Trip Down Memory Lane, In Freightliner Trucks! #TBT
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!
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!!!
Commercial Lifestyle Photographer Matt Jebbia Summer Fun!
This shoot was a fun collaboration between many of us here at the studio. What made it work was having access to some great vintage props, a great model and a perfect morning of Seattle summer weather. A few words from Commercial Lifestyle Photographer Matt Jebbia!
We came up with the concept of using Dick’s burgers due to the upcoming 60th anniversary of “Dick’s Drive-In”, and we were lucky that fellow Studio 3’s Commercial Product Photographer David Bell had the perfect vintage VW that he allowed us to use.
Since we were a bit worried about taking this awesome vintage car on location I decided to use the Studio 3 parking lot. It provided a nice backdrop and allowed us to utilize some studio equipment that would have been harder to use out on location.
We set up a 6×12 foot sail in the parking lot that helped to diffuse the harsh noon sun, added a medium soft-box to add some light to our models face, and played around with some different camera angles and props to bring this shoot to life. We use a variety of camera systems at Studio 3 but for this shoot I opted to use the Hasselblad H2d with an 80mm lens. It’s not my camera of choice for location shoots but since we were 10 feet from the studio door it made it easy to use and allowed us to shoot tethered for quick image review.
I have a coca cola image in my portfolio already and decided to add the coke bottle at the end of the shoot, just to add a different prop and I felt that we had the perfect model, vehicle, and location to make it work. It was a bit stressful working so closely with a vintage convertible owned by our Senior Photographer. But once we all got into the flow of creating the perfect shot, it all seemed to come together. And luckily for all of us no vehicles were damaged in the process!
To view more Commercial Lifestyle images created at Studio 3, Inc. click here!
Product Photographer Matt Jebbia Dior Brush!
Product Photographer Matt Jebbia set out with a goal of showing movement in a still object. His inspiration of the beauty product industry shines below in his latest image. Read below for a few words from Matt.
Its well known around the studio that I have a little fetish for beauty products. Not for personal use per se, but I find them a lot of fun to photograph. For one there are so many different varieties, with all kinds of colors, glass, metals, and plastics to choose from. I started a few months ago shooting a couple of Dior products and decided to continue to add to my portfolio with this Dior brush. My goal with this image was to add to the current series of beauty product images centered around the Dior brand and I wanted to add some life to the Dior brush given that it’s a static object.
So I decided to throw some powder onto the brush and blow it away. I started by setting up two rim lights accenting the brush from just behind and to the right and left side of the brush. Studio 3’s photographer – David Bell uses this lighting setup for some of his shoots and I decided it would work perfectly for the image I wanted to create. Adding a small silver reflector in front of the camera added some light to the front of the brush and brought out the silver tones in the brush banding. With the static image in place I added powder to the top of the brush and a Nikon SB 800 speed-light from below to add some light to the powder as I blew it off the brush with canned air. It took a bit of trial and error to get the desired powder bursts, but in the end I loved several of the captures so much I decided to have our amazing digital artists composite several of the powder bursts into the final image. – Matt Jebbia
Product Photographer Matt Jebbia Hydrate for Life!
Product Photographer Matt Jebbia puts his creative skills to use by breathing life into an ordinary subject. Utilizing water to help add drama and movement brings this image to life. Read below for a few words on this shoot by photographer Matt Jebbia.
Working with glass objects is probably one of my favorite products to work with. That combined with water just always seems to enhance an image and bring the subject to life. I planned the image out in my mind and on paper but it wasn’t until I assisted Studio3 photographer Craig Wagner on a Nixon watch photo shoot incorporating splash photography that I was able to create this image exactly the way I had envisioned. In a previous blog post we mentioned a shoot that Craig Wagner and I participated in utilizing the Broncolor Scoro S power packs. We suspended objects in a water tank and dropped objects into a water tank and captured splash images. Before striking that set I decided it was my time to finish this image the way I had planned.
I suspended the Dior Hydra-life product from a piece of round plexi into the 33 gallon tank upside down. I know in previous attempts that dropping an object like this into water is a time consuming adventure so I decided for this image to suspend it. I really only wanted the object to have nice lighting and the real splash came when I removed the Dior bottle and went to work on the perfect water ripple.
To get the perfect water ripple we used a small eyedropper and a cup full of water. I did several takes but as it works out sometimes the perfect shot is usually the first. When our digital team and I began working on the retouching I thought something was just missing from the final image. So I asked our Digital Artist Alex to create a droplet of water suspended and falling off the side of the Dior bottle. I think with that addition it brought the whole image together. – Matt Jebbia
To see more images in the Dior Collection photographed by Matt Jebbia click here!
Lifestyle Photography Rouge & Whimsy
Lifestyle Photographer, Dana Jonas, made the best of the changing Fall colors by taking her camera out in nature. She gathered up some AMAZING stylish clothes, a beautiful girl, an extremely talented stylist, and an impeccable make up artist to shoot some one of a kind fashion photography. We love seeing her new work and inspiration. Everyone involved had a blast, even though they had to fight the cold and damp weather, they still stated it was one of the best shoots they had been on. We loved the location and look forward to going back in different seasons! Read on to see, Dana Jonas’ insight on this colorful shoot:
All in all I think this project was a little creative therapy for me. Fall was killing me this year, I felt like I spent the entire time whipping my head around trying to find the perfect location for this shoot. I think I went out location scouting over 5 times (full days of scouting). It was mentally exhausting. Logging all these so-so locations because fall held out on us for so long. It was so refreshing to walk into this wonderland. Kruckeberg Botanical Gardens couldn’t have lent itself better to photography and the crew I worked with couldn’t have been more perfect. Ashli Thompson on MU&H, Tan Tran on Wardrobe styling (he also designed the epic jackets and outfits towards the end of the shoot) and Elle DeBell as our phenomenal model. We are already planning our winter return! Looking forward to getting creative with these guys again 🙂
Here is a sneak peek at a few images from this foliage filled shoot! We’d love to hear which image you like best.
To view more Lifestyle Photography created at Studio 3 please click here!
Product Photographer Matt Jebbia Pump It Up!
Scrumptious Voodoo Doughnuts and a pair of Jimmy Choo Eros Pumps, is there any better combination for a photo shoot? We decided to pair these two products to create a story of Sweet Misery. Who hasn’t arrived home in the early morning hours after a late night of dancing and bar hopping. Those early morning hangovers sure are better with a cup of Joe and some doughnuts fresh from the Voodoo shop. Read on to get some insight on this creative shoot by Product Photographer Matt Jebbia.
My inspiration for this shoot was hashed out over a studio brainstorming session. The concept was a little off beat. Expensive shoes and doughnuts aren’t what most photographers think of as a match made in heaven. But I think most of us can agree that we’ve managed to spend way to much of our hard earned money on a pair of shoes at some point in our lives. And I wanted to play off this odd pairing and totally exaggerate the idea. This was really the beginning of the creative idea for the shoot. Adding Portland’s famous Voodoo doughnuts just seemed like a fun idea and completed the conceptual story “Sweet Misery”. We began by setting out the assortment of donuts, and built the rest of the set around the Voodoo. I knew that I wanted some nice warm sun light streaming through a window so I setup my first light behind the shoes, added a color warming gel and placed a 4×8 sheet of white foam-core in front to fill some of the harsher shadows. All that was left was some light on the background and a couple of spotty grids to bring out the doughnuts and sparkles in the Jimmy Choo pumps. The hardest part of this shoot was keeping all of my co-workers away from these delicious treats. – Matt Jebbia
Inside Look: Matt Jebbia's Daydreamin' Material
In these last weeks of summer, we were feeling the warmth and beauty of these carefree days that face us every year. With the feeling of endless amounts of free time to daydream and think about the possibilities that lie ahead, we wanted to share with you what inspires one of our in house photographers, Matt Jebbia. Read below to see how he spends his brainstorming time and maybe you can find your own inspiration:
What inspires me is the use of light. Light has the ability to shape an object or subjects mood, presence, and form to convey a story. Light can be either natural or artificial, in school I learned to use light in the standard photographic ways. But what I love, is that you can break all the conventional rules of light to create even more dramatic and beautiful images.
The photographers that inspire me the most with their unconventional use of light are: Shuakashi (http://www.shuakashi.com/), who often paints with light to create streaks and patterns that blow my mind, Melissa Rodwell, Jill Greenberg, and most of all my all time favorite Irving Penn. I love fashion and beauty as a subject, so nonetheless, these photographers who specialize in this area are of particular inspiration. The way they capture light, and movement, and even the perception of movement in their subjects…That’s what is so inspiring to me.
