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.”
Category: Digital Art
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.
Lifestyle Photographer Matt Jebbia & Digital Artist Alex Gumina "Peace of Mind"
It’s summer in the Northwest, the perfect opportunity to get outside and shoot. Recently, Lifestyle Photographer Matt Jebbia headed to Green Lake to capture the practice of yoga in a peaceful setting. He came out with some great pictures, read below for his inspiration behind the shoot:
There is just something amazing about shooting outside in the NW. Seattle being one of my favorite areas to live and work has just an astounding amount of parks with water that just add an awesome element to any photographer’s photo shoots. These yoga images were shot on a pier at Green Lake in North Seattle. I was a bit concerned that my choice of time of day was a bit ambitious given that the sun is usually at its hottest point at 4:30pm. Turns out that in relationship to my model the sun created some pretty nice lighting on her face when she turned just the right way. This inspired me further, knowing with the help of our digital team, we could create an awesome tropical, yet serene image.
The pictures inspired a collaboration between Matt and Alex, with the end result of the model appearing as if she were in a tropical place like Bali or the Maldives. Alex Gumina shares how he created the tropical feel:
When Studio 3 photographer Matt Jebbia originally came to me with these yoga images he wanted to give them a more tropical feel. They were shot on location at Green Lake and although a beautiful setting, it certainly feels more like the Pacific Northwest than it does a tropical paradise. His initial edits for me were “remove the houses, lengthen the dock where needed / remove the railing, and see what you can do with the background in general”. The words “see what you can do…” sort of opened up the door for me to get creative, and I decided to take full advantage.
I thought to myself “where would be a really beautiful, peaceful place to do some yoga?” and the Maldive Islands came to mind. After a quick Google search I found an inspiration image and went to work. If you look closely, you’ll actually see this image at the top of my layers palette. I pasted it in so I could sample the blues for my sky gradient. For the clouds I considered using a Photoshop brush or some vector art, but I wanted something a little more original so I decided to hand “paint” them in on my own. It was at this point that I decided to start recording a video (see below).
I had already drawn my path around the model and used an alpha channel for her hair, so it was really just a matter of cleaning the image up, dropping in the background, and changing the color of the water. While reviewing the image with our Studio Producer, Megan Nolan, she pointed out that it looked like the model was struggling a bit with the sun in her eyes. I did some quick adjusting to fix it and I think the end result is perfect.
I spent about half an hour on the image before I started recording, and about three hours on it after. When I finished I imported the video into Adobe Premiere, did some quick editing, squished it down to three minutes, and added an audio track. What you have here is the final product. Enjoy!
Product Photographer Craig Wagner Time for a Dip!
Product Photographer Craig Wagner puts his creative skills to use for our client Nixon. Utilizing natural elements to add drama and movement brings these watch images to life. Read below for a few words from Craig!
This photo shoot required a lot of teamwork and was a problem solver’s dream. It was obvious that digital art would be needed but I chose to capture as much as we could in camera giving the final image a surreal look.
For the first image of the Nixon Dip Dye collection we utilized the Profoto Pro-8a 2400 power packs for their high flash duration to capture the water splashes and their impressive recycle time to capture the floating colored dyes. Studio3’s custom made “Time-Delay” triggering device allowed us to precisely control the amount and height of each splash. Managing the colored dye proved to be the real creative challenge on this shoot. Our studio producer rounded up a variety of colored powdered pigments and dyes to suspend in the water. We were surprised to find that regular kitchen food coloring provided us the results we were after. To get the right amount of movement of the dye we used a 33 gallon tank which allowed us enough water space to create just the right current.
The second image below of the Nixon Velvet collection was shot on black plexiglass utilizing our Roscoe smoke machine. which we love to pull off the shelf and add into many of our fun creative shoots. Finding that the smoke was a big challenge to manage its direction and flow on such a small set, we turned to dry-ice which provided a smaller much more controllable amount of vapor flow. Adding colored gels to our strobes really made the smoke stand out and added a lot of movement to the overall image. Nixon’s creative team was great to work with. They had a (tight) solid concept but were very open to experimentation and my team’s input. This shoot gave us the opportunity to play with some new equipment, pull some of our fun gadgets off the shelves and exercise our creativity to bring these Nixon watches to life!
Technology Photography! You've got mail
It’s no secret our photographers love shooting technology. We’ve got a group that has a passion for Technology Photography! With the constant innovation it’s often times hard to keep up. At Studio 3, instead of our photographers getting frustrated by the constant change, they get inspired. Read below to see their words on not only the changing environment of technology, but what they love about shooting it:
What I find extremely inspiring about technology is it’s incredible pace! I believe in the near future we will be able to see technology manifest right in front of us. With that said, I freaking love showing all the possibilities of new technology, that inspires me to push the envelope and do some really unique stuff.
-Dana
Technology is my middle name, I am inspired on what technology can do to enhance our lives, by accomplishing tasks with much more efficiency. I am the type of guy that is a tech guru, knowing everything that goes on inside, underneath the hood, inside the box, therefore I find it thrilling to stand in the consumer’s shoes…how am I going to convey what this product can do for you? Therefore, I always try to show the product in a good light: friendly and approachable.
-Henry
The challenge of making it interesting and drawing the viewer in, that is so inspiring. On top of it all you have to make the product look new fresh and different, that’s my favorite part. I am always so excited to see what is new, hot, and how I can show it off.
-David
I get inspired by the “top secret” nature of shooting the product, knowing about technological advancements before the general public has always been cool and inspires you to concept something way more exciting than just a black box. In fact, I have actually shot a black box, one of my favorite shoots, where we shot it on a roadway set with a vivid sunset as the background. We shot it on an 8X10 transparency, with all the effects done in camera and the client loved it!
-Craig
To view more of our Technology images photographed at Studio 3 please click here!
Dana Jonas: The Making of a Mash-Up
Ever wondered exactly how Dana makes her vibrant pop-off-the-page Mash-Ups? We managed to snag her off-set for the inside scoop:
Ah, my gosh, the idea came to me as a child actually. I remember sitting in the waiting room for my doctor (I was probably 12), looking through fashion magazines and I thought to myself, I wonder what would happen if I chopped up these pictures and put my favorite pieces together. Years later, I put a spin on that simple yet whimsical idea and called them Mash-Ups!
My process is quite simple really. I find an interesting subject, stick them in front of the camera and get them to do all sorts of crazy movements and dances. At times I focus on the arms or legs, at other times the face. Often I have a general idea of the composition I’m want. I relay that to the model, and let them run with it. Many of my chosen models are also performers or have some background in theater. At the end, I sit with my selects and let instinct and creativity take over. It’s truly a freeing process.
Below is a quick video of Dana’s editing process for Maggie’s Mash-Up, the final image of Ms. Maggie and a couple more of our favorite Mash-Up images 🙂
[youtube 1ujSXwbOQas]
Maggie: 5 pieces
Nico: 6 pieces
Talisha: 9 pieces