Over the last few years Studio 3 has donated time to Rosemary Anderson High School in North Portland. This unique alternative high school works with inner city youth coming from difficult backgrounds, being committed to building strong interpersonal relationships.
From shooting the ‘yearly prom’ to the ‘daily life’ we feel very blessed to be a part of their experience.
With the year coming to an end and a couple more chilly months on their way, it’s the perfect time to start expanding those winter wardrobes. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we know it’s always important to stay dry and warm, but why not look good while doing so? Studio 3, Inc. Seattle got stylishly adventurous while working on some fashion photography for a Baggallini advertisement pitch!
Check out the fresh winter fashion photography, Studio 3 style, below. Our photographer, stylist, and model spent the day on location (well, many locations), riding the bus around downtown Seattle to get these awesome shots. What a fun surprise it must’ve been for their fellow riders to realize they’d found themselves in the middle of a photo shoot, out in the wild! In true Studio 3 fashion, even a normal city bus can be turned into a stunning runway on wheels!
As we love to do, we at Studio 3 have made our little list of favorites again, and this time it’s all about our go-to winter accessories, the things that help us survive that cold winter breeze and let us look and feel good doing so:
Hoodies
The must have-staple of any wardrobe, hoodies are probably one of the greatest things ever invented. They warm your arms and head like a wearable blanket and are the perfect way to start any layered outfit. Wearing a hoodie is like wearing a hug: warm, soft, and full of love.
Beanies
When a hood isn’t enough and you need to get that head warm (and you also want to look cute, of course), it’s time to whip out the trusty knit beanie. If a hoodie is a hug that stays with you throughout the day, a beanie is a wearable pat on the head: comforting, encouraging, and feels like you’re home.
A Cool Ceramic Mug
You know how drinking Coca-Cola out of a tall glass bottle just tastes better than out of a can? Well trust us, the same goes for every warm beverage and what you drink it out of. Our surefire way of feeling comfy and cozy in the office on cold days is by sipping our tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and every now and then a hot toddy out of our personal favorite mugs. If a hoodie is a portable blanket for your outsides, then a warm drink in your best mug is a blanket for your insides!
Stay warm, but also fashionable, dear friends!
To View More Fashion Photography Check Out Our Website!
What do handlebars, pencils, cops, walruses, and Salvador Dali all have in common? They’re all types of mustaches! Everyone’s favorite piece of manly facial adornment, the Mo, slang for Mustache, has taken over the month of November and Studio 3! We got in on the fun with some portrait photography, inviting over a dozen men and their Mo’s to our Seattle studio to get their mugs shot. From all ages and backgrounds, all lengths and styles of mustache, we captured the essence of what being a “Man with a Mustache” is all about.
Movember, as it is known, is international awareness month for prostate cancer. Men everywhere are encouraged to grow their own signature mustache for the month of November, raising awareness and money for world-class men’s health groups that combat prostate and testicular cancer as well as mental health challenges, including Live Strong and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Beginning in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia, Movember has since grown into an international campaign. Mo Bros and Mo Sistas, as we are called, raise funds by asking family and friends to donate in support of the mustached month. Mo Bros start the month with a clean shave and let their Mo’s grow all month, to the delight of themselves and those around them. Last year, the campaign raised over $255,000 worldwide! These funds are used to help support research projects, life support groups, as well as awareness and education efforts. Through their efforts and the organizations they support, Movember hopes “to have an everlasting impact on the face of men’s health”.
The official Movember website includes the history of the month-long celebration, as well as dozens of ways you can help support the cause, including some hilarious Movember-inspired merchandise, from t-shirts to mustache-shaped cuff links.
Hired by the Super Computing 2009 Conference team, Henry Ngan of Studio 3 was the only official show photographer to shoot documentary photography of Al Gore at the Portland event. Al Gore was featured as the keynote speaker, addressing the theme, “Computing for a Changing World.”
In Henry’s words, “The highlight of the conference was shooting documentary photography of Al Gore. I was the only media allowed in a private meeting with the conference leaders and the former United States Vice President. It was a true honor.” This was the 21st annual conference, recognized globally as the premier international event on High Performance Computing or HPC.
The show floor at the Oregon Convention Center was the epicenter of enormous bandwidth flow to various HPC computing consortiums around the world. There was the bandwidth challenge whereby various teams were competing in order to set new records for sustained data transfer among storage systems from around the world. They were able to achieve data flow of 110 gigabits per second (Gbps), sustained indefinitely among clusters of servers on the show floor and those at Caltech, Michigan, San Diego, Florida, Fermilab, Brookhaven, CERN, Brazil, Korea, and Estonia. In the LHC challenge, a peak bidirectional data flow of 119 Gbps was achieved. We will be able to solve the world’s problems in a shorter time span due to achievements we see today. We are talking globally distributed data analysis here in order for worldwide collaboration amongst physicists, scientists, and engineers that Henry Ngan was able to capture. There is just so much data that needs to move between all these supercomputers as quickly as possible that it is truly mind boggling to the average person and Studio 3 was happy to shoot these hi tech geniuses. As a photographer and a computing junky (Geek), Henry Ngan was able to capture and experience all this electrifying excitement on the convention floor in Portland. If you want to know more, go to this link: http://www.hpcwire.com/search.html?sortby=date&sitesearch=bandwidth+challenge+sc09&search=Search
Read below for Henry Ngan’s documentary photography shooting experience:
I used Canon 5D MkIIs for this shoot with various lenses from a 70-200mm to a 16-35mm wide angle to capture all the events unfolding from keynotes, to ribbon cutting, to information sessions, to group shots of various organizations. We had an older Canon 5D in the corner of the main floor doing time-lapse photography of the whole event. The 5D MkII performed well using high ISO settings with little noise problems. I had to be able to capture all the ambient lighting because many of the exhibits were lit up glitzy like Las Vegas. Canon speedlites were used to fill in or create some direction in some cases.
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Click here to view more of Henry’s photos from the entire conference!
Studio 3 teamed up with the Oregon Humane Society to shoot some fun animal photography for the 2009 OHS Magazine cover and inserts. Every year we love volunteering our services to help these animals in need. Henry Ngan’s beautiful photography helped the Oregon Humane Society more than double their holiday donations. Read below to see how Henry tamed these animals and snapped nothing short of adorable animal photography.
It’s always fun to shoot for the Oregon Humane Society, especially when they bring over those cute kittens.Everyone in the studio gets involved.We decided to take the glamour approach by incorporating Hollywood lighting.With kittens it’s of course hit and miss.Some won’t last a second on the set.You may only end up with one star that will pose for you and follow instruction.I was inspired by how Hollywood stars were photographed and lit in the ’30 and ’40s. So I took this approach and lit the subject with a strong key light, to create majestic animal photography for the holiday cover. I had to shoot fast and also be able to freeze motion. In order to get the exact effect I was looking for, I approached Pro Photo Supply and Rob Layman and got a hold of a high speed Canon camera and some Elinchrom lighting to do the job.We tried various tricks to get the cat’s attention:Dangling bird feathers from a fish line in front of the feline seems to work best.I found it was just a matter of time and patience. No matter what, I always get the necessary shot. n this case, there was a lot of chasing and cajoling and a bit of catnip to entice the subject into submission, in the end I got exactly what I wanted.Job done. Except…then it is time to dive up the kittens and see who wants to take one home. Unfortunately, I only had a fish tank at home, not a good idea. But, being with the studio I have enjoyed volunteering to create great animal photography for the cover photo of Oregon Humane Society Magazine for many years now and look forward to the years to come.
Transcending the boundaries between photography and fine art, Studio 3’s digital art department has been hard at work expanding creative possibilities through flawless photo retouching & enviable digital art. Get to know the magicians and how they manipulate photoshop to work to their advantage.
Being a Digital Artist is a ton of fun. When I began my career in the Graphic Arts about ten years ago I never imagined myself doing the things I do now. Back then I did a lot of flyer design for nightclubs, brochures for salons, etc., and the occasional logo design to now doing incredible digital art and photo retouching. After teaching myself the ins and outs of Photoshop in relation to Graphic Design, I capitalized on that experience and landed a job with a local photographer and began getting into some actual photo retouching. It was at this point that I figured out that I could combine the two and achieve some pretty amazing results. I began taking my own pictures, and manipulating them into some pretty interesting, other-worldly things. I used my retouching experience to make the images perfect, and my design experience to composite the pieces together in a way that was aesthetically pleasing.
Studio 3 has given me a platform to really expand my Digital creativity exponentially. Also, the amount of Photoshop knowledge I have gained during my time here is immeasurable. I work with such a creative and capable team that I learn something new almost daily.
If I had to name favorite Photoshop tool / trick it would have to be the brush tool. The brush is my best friend when working on a digital project. It can be used to change the color of an image, add or subtract from an image, blend, and airbrush. I even use the brush tool frequently to hand paint elements into an image that weren’t there to begin with. It’s incredibly universal.– Alex Gumina, Digital Lead
I’ve worked in art-related fields for over two decades. As a painter with a technical bent, I enjoy expressing my creative and scientific inclinations as a Digital Artist. Working with Photoshop is like doing math using pixels and images instead of numbers and equations, to create an awesome photo retouching experience. I love it, and there’s always something new to learn or a different approach to take.
I draw my inspiration from the visual arts – Painting and photography. I enjoy contemporary art magazines not only to see what the latest trends are, but to imagine what we could innovate next.
One of my favorite Photoshop tricks is pretty old-school. With a new twist, I’ve found that it becomes even more useful.
Here’s the old-school part: I use a black and white version of the image as an adjustment layer mask. This allows me to affect the highlights more than the shadows. Or, if I invert the layer mask, I can focus the adjustment more on the shadows. Apply curves to adjust the mask, blur it, paint on it, etc.
For a new twist, I use a Black & White adjustment layer to fine-tune a greyscale version of the image. This way, I can affect the masking of certain colors more than others. Often, I’ve found this to be more intuitive and precise than using channels, the Color Range tool, or just painting a mask with the Brush tool. Once I find a good-looking mask with the Black & White adjustment layer, I “Select All” and “Copy the Merged” layers. Turning off the Black & White adjustment layer, I create my new adjustment layer and paste my new layer mask in place.
And then it is time for a sandwich.-Carl Beery, Digital Artist
To Check Out An Incredible Portfolio Of Photo Retouching Visit Our Website!
The home of the cactus sign and hand-rolled burritos we all love, Taco Time Northwest is not the average Mexican quick-service eatery. Their attention to using only the freshest, top quality ingredients and preparing everything in house every day is what they say makes the “deliciously fresh difference”. With so much importance placed on their ingredients, Taco Time sought a way to communicate the pride they take in their preparation to all their guests and hired Studio 3 to help out with some new food photography.
Our beloved food photography guru David Bell knew the way to showcase fresh ingredients is through clean, vivid, invigorating images. The series he created brings all of Taco Time’s key ingredients down to their most basic level, showing customers exactly where their food is coming from. Says David about the series:
Fresh, Local, Made in store. These were the key words given to me. Taco Time NW wanted me to shoot beautiful images of what goes into making their food. These images are being used for decor in the restaurants. We wanted the images to be art ~ beautiful, yummy ingredient shots.
Yummy indeed!Having stemmed off of the original Taco Time franchise in the company’s early years, Taco Time NW’s mission has always been to provide its customers with fresh, locally grown ingredients and food made in store with care and skill. A family-owned and operated company, they make it a priority to give back to the Northwest communities where their guests and employees live and work. Over the past decade, through their fundraising efforts, Taco Time NW is honored to have donated nearly $2 million to over 600 different charities in Western Washington!Their love and care for the people they serve and work with as well as their integrity behind their trade let you know that they’re real Northwest community members!
These 3 photos are part of the series that will be featured inside the local restaurant chain alongside others David shot.
To View More Food Photography Check Out Our Food Photography Portfolio!
Studio 3, Inc. and long-standing client Burgerville, Inc – the Northwest’s socially responsible fast food joint – have joined forces to produce monthly, mouth-watering food photography shoots, which focus on gourmet seasonal offerings.
Renowned food photographer, David Bell, was commissioned to shoot the new gourmet Burgerville look, based on his extensive high-end food photography and drink experience from shooting for such clients as Starbucks, Widmer Brothers Brewery, Publix Super Markets, Inc. and Coca Cola. The results are nothing short of delicious.
Every month until December 2010, Burgerville plans to highlight one seasonal, locally available ingredient through food photography. The new campaign kicked off in January 2009, with Studio 3, Inc. shooting Yukon Gold potato menu items. Rosemary, spinach, and asparagus recipes are scheduled for upcoming months. Burgerville is also considering adding regionally produced beer and wine pairings to its seasonal menus, which will perhaps add some new drink photography to their repertoire. All recipes are developed by local food chef Grace Pae and the Burgerville Chef Council.
David Bell couldn’t be more excited to work with Burgerville, especially since they are known for their progressive practices and commitment to local services. David highlights his experience of helping develop food photography for Burgerville’s seasonal ad campaigns:
I knew I needed to make these food photography images absolutely mouthwatering. The styling and art direction was client provided, but I had a bag of tools to create an epic image that would have customer’s begging for Burgerville’s seasonal offerings. In order to create that ready to bite shot I used a wide angle lens to make sure the image was nothing short of in your face. I was lucky enough to have the capabilities to create the image and having the background white allowed me to play. The final image was later dropped on a graphic background, that only added to the highlighting of the delicious burger. To keep things real, I used strobe lighting to ensure all looked natural. I absolutely love working with Burgerville and am definitely behind their initiative of keeping things fresh and local. I can’t wait to try and shoot their next seasonal food product. YUM!
To Check Out More Food Photography Visit Our Website!