Product Photographer Henry Ngan Danner!

Product Photographer Henry Ngan continues to amaze us.  He recently began a series of images capturing still life in a new light.  We decided to celebrate the upcoming changing of the seasons with an outdoor lifestyle shoot featuring Danner boots.  For more insight into the creativity of this fantastic shoot here are a few words from photographer Henry Ngan.

First of all, this is why I like Danner boots. You can kick the living daylights out of them and then have what’s remaining re-crafted. Mine are made in the USA right here in Portland Oregon, my own back yard. They just get more comfortable the longer I wear them and that’s why you don’t want to get rid of them when they seem worn out. Just send them back to the factory in Portland, Oregon and they will re-craft them. They feel like bedroom slippers once you wear them in. They are the boots you need to get for rough, heavy duty use. If you take care of them they will last a lifetime and then some. Don’t make the mistake of getting one of the ones made offshore. They won’t last because they are made differently and you won’t be able to re-craft them.
My intention for this shoot was to create a dramatic image through warm detailed lighting.  Highlighting the Danner boot in this fashion was my focus. I wanted to show the viewer a beautifully crafted product that will eventually become even better after lots of hard wear and tear. Just 2 lights were used on this set. But I re-directed multiple beams of light using various reflectors to create this image. The story is told by the sum of all the components. But the lighting is concentrated on the boots and fall off on the rest of the image. I am currently working on a series focusing on this type of lighting and warmth. Stay tuned for more images to come!

A sneak peak into Henry’s latest shoot!

Product Photographer

Executive Portraits What's your good side?

Often times executive portraits can be simple shots of the staff on white, black, red, whatever color your team desires. However, here at Studio 3 we like to mix it up and add some interest to showcasing what’s best about your employees. The environmental executive portrait often adds interest to not only the employee but what a company has to offer. Two of our senior photographers, Dana Jonas and Henry Ngan, have recently portrayed architects and construction workers on site, to give meaning beyond the title.
Read Dana Jonas’ thoughts below on how to find the perfect location for a fun executive portrait:

My favorite part about this whole project was finding the location. I just kept thinking, they’re architects, I want to find something magnificent for them, something that really stands out. I was driving on 15th, in Seattle, and even though I’ve passed this bridge probably a million times, my head whipped around and I think I even said out loud, “Ah-hah!”. So after a super sketchy u-turn, I pulled over and went to check the bridge out. As soon as I got up there, I knew it was the perfect spot. I got so into photographing it, I don’t think I came down for another 20 minutes! It inspired me from the get go, something I always look for in locations.

Executive Portraits

Getting dirty on the construction site and Henry Ngan’s thoughts on how to put someone’s best face forward:

People are fascinating to me, especially when it comes to their accomplishments.  I strive to bring out strong points and the nature of a person’s day to day.  Before I take the picture I find out more about them, what they are most proud of, what they love about their career.  I want to capture who they really are, what their career means to them, and the value they add, all within the portrait. An environment chosen by them, only adds to that story.

Executive Portraits

Executive Portraits

Executive Portraits

To view more Environmental Executive Portraits created at Studio 3 please click here!

Photographer Henry Ngan Cruising Wild Alaska!

Photographer Henry Ngan stepped out of the studio this summer and into an adventure along the Panhandle of Alaska.

I first arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska by boat then went by Tracy Arm Fjord in the Tongass National Forest and then on to Juneau and then Skagway. What an experience! In Skagway I got to take an amazing rail trip on board the White Pass and Yukon Railroad, a narrow gauge railroad, up to White Pass just across the border into the Canadian Yukon. The railroad did a lot of steep climbing, to get to the amazing scenery. We went across trestles, bridges and tunnels.  Along the way up were bears, hikers, and local folks camping out. The train was made up of vintage passenger cars pulled by three Alco DL535E locomotives.  In Juneau, where Governor Sarah Palin once held office, I visited the Mendenhall Glacier just to the north of town. The glacier was formed from snowfall compaction which took place over thousands of years in the Juneau Icefield above Mendenhall Lake. Glacial ice as you can imagine is very hard dense ice and has a rich blue color. It is blue because it absorbs all colors of the spectrum except blue which it reflects and because of the lack of air bubbles. The extreme color made this one of the most breathtaking photographic experiences. I can’t wait to go back!
If you ever get a chance to go to Alaska be sure to visit the Ketchikan community! It is a great environment for inspiration and is nestled in the Tongass National Forest.  Ketchikan’s impressive variety of shops and galleries feature work of many of the island’s resident artists.
Already living in the great Northwest, I was wondering what it is I could possibly experience in Alaska that’s not already in my own back yard. Alaska is truly spectacular and everything is much bigger, more remote, and unspoiled. It really is the Wild West, more so than anywhere in the lower 48. It’s kind of like the Rocky Mountains in Colorado but much more grand. As a photographer living in Portland, I’m surrounded by natural beauty everywhere I point my camera and love sharing that vision with the world. I photographed using a  Canon 40D with a 17-55mm lens. A rule I try to follow when photographing outdoors is to shoot early and late. This rule gets you the most interesting lighting when time and weather conditions allow. The effect is more directional, warmer or cooler, and more mellow. Below are some wonderful images capturing the unspoiled and remote scenery. – Henry Ngan

Photographer Henry Ngan

Floating Glacial Ice, Tracy Arm!

Photographer Henry Ngan

Train ride to the Yukon!

Photographer Henry Ngan

Outside Juneau view of the Fjords!

Photographer Henry Ngan

Mendenhall Glacier!

Photographer Henry Ngan

Sunset over Juneau!

Henry Ngan: Deep Under the Earth!

Sometimes you can find inspiration in your backyard, other times you find inspiration in the third deepest train station in the world! Photographer Henry Ngan recently found himself in the super cool Robertson Tunnel, a local engineering gem that passes through the west hills of Portland, filled with basalt up to 16 million years old. Whoa!
Lets hear what Henry had to say about his adventure in the deep:

The Robertson Tunnel is truly a great achievement of Industrial Design and the technology required to create this tunnel inspires me. The designers created a people friendly space in an unlikely place and capturing the human element within it was what I aimed for. Feeling the rush of the wind, people reacting to the mystery of the emerging train  — preserving this moment was my intention.

We love a challenge!

We are living large with an abundance of studio space so we decided to put it to use with our latest project, a 360 degree interior spin of the spacious Freightliner Coronado.  Most of us aren’t long-haul truckers and have never had the chance to even venture into one of these massive vehicles.  So here’s your chance to sit back and view our interactive 360 interior spin of this amazing truck.  Check out the quote below to get insight on the creative process from photographer Henry Ngan!

“Working on this project presented numerous challenges.  First and foremost is how to capture this interior space through a camera lens so the viewer feels as if they are actually sitting inside the truck.  We accomplished this by experimenting with several focal lengths to find the sweet spot where lens distortion is kept to a minimum.  Multiple still images were needed at several angles to capture the full 360 degree view of the interior from front of cab to the rear sleeping quarters.  The second challenge we faced is how to light the interior space from the front of the cab to the rear spaces so that we accounted for the varying lighting changes that occur naturally.  As you transition from front of cab to the sleeping quarters you have less windows that allow for light to enter into these spaces creating a natural warm environment.  Through my extensive exposure to varying photographic challenges my favorite projects are the ones that utilize all my skills and creativity.”

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Grass Fed Photography

grass fed

grass fed

grass fed

Portland Photographer Henry Ngan recently took a week long photographic tour of a few ranches in Eastern Oregon that are part of the Country Natural Beef Cooperative. Country Natural Beef is a marketing cooperative started in 1984 by Doc and Connie Hatfield in Eastern Oregon with the commitment of its members to produce naturally raised grass fed beef using environmentally sustainable practices and humane treatment of animals. Doc Hatfield said “Our consumers know where the cattle come from, and they know the people who produced it”. With camping gear and camera equipment in tow, Henry stepped into a different world of cowboys and the open range. Throughout his five-day, four-night venture into the ranching world, he took his lifestyle photography to the next level, actually stepping into the life itself and was able to capture many unique moments including horse wrangling, cattle herding, family life on the ranch and plenty of gorgeous landscapes.

Henry enjoyed the warm welcome of the families that own and operate Probert Ranch in Vale, Foster Ranch outside of Baker City, Mallory Ranch towards the Wallowa’s, and the McClaran Ranch in Joseph. Says Henry about his experience:

I camped out at each of the ranches amongst the Angus and Herefords in my Jeep, gazing at the stars in the clear night sky. I could see deer once in awhile passing through while the cows grazed.

My equipment of choice was Canon 5D MkII with an assortment of lenses from a 70-200mm to an 85mm to a 16-35mm. I found that cattle can be skittish and easily spooked if you are a stranger. That made it difficult to get really close to them without warming up to them first and some coaxing along the way and hiding behind blinds such as stacks of logs. Life is tough on a cattle ranch. Everyone works hard in an often times harsh environment especially during the winter and during calving season. My plan was to capture some of this way of life. I will have to go back to capture the seasonal nature of ranching. During the winter, the cattle are driven into the valleys and canyons where it is warmer and where they can get to the grass away from the snow. The following spring, they are moved again into the higher elevations.

Photographer Neil DaCosta joined Henry for the last two days, taking the “old school” route and shooting with a 500 CM Hasselblad and Kodak film (remember film?). Both photographers had a blast, roughing it on the wide-open ranges and shooting some amazing imagery.

 
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All four ranches are family-owned and have been operating since the late 1980’s. Country Natural Beef and their ranchers uphold the highest humane animal practices and use environmentally sensitive land management practices.

Conveniently Exclusive Documentary Photography: Al Gore

Portrait Photography

Documentary Photography

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.

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/slr_cameras

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/ef_lens_lineup

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Documentary Photography

Documentary Photography

Documentary Photography

Documentary Photography

Click here to view more of Henry’s photos from the entire conference!

Animal Photography for A Good Cause

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.

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.

http://www.prophotosupply.com/

http://www.elinchrom.us/

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras