Stuck in the creative process? Need a visual partner that really gets your brand and your customers? You can bring any brief to us, and we’ll collaborate with you to create the best imagery yet. You want to choose Studio 3, Inc. because no matter the idea, WE run with it.
One of our main areas of focus is footwear photography – and being located in the footwear capital of the U.S. is no accident. (Headquartered in Portland, Oregon we have Nike, Adidas, Columbia, and KEEN, just to name a few of the giants…not to mention Bogs, Skora, and On.) Studio 3 shoots all brands of footwear, big and little (and right and left), from rugged outdoor boots to sleek stiletto heels to high-performance sneakers. These Nike running sneakers, photographed by Matt Jebbia, were shot to showcase the product in action, creating in-camera motion blur to make the image lively and energetic. Do you feel how the Nikes energize the photo – and how your eye is instinctively drawn to them as a moth to a flame?
You can get your product photography done by just anyone, or you can get it shot by a company that lights your brand on fire. Call Studio 3, Inc. We’ll help you cross the finish line with our sizzling images.
Tag: Matt Jebbia
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!
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 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!
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!
Product Photography by Craig Wagner!
We love testing out the latest gear releases, so when we had the chance to test out the Broncolor Scoro S power pack we decided we wanted to test it to the limit! What better way to see what it can do then to combine it with an afternoon of water splashes and fruit drops. Here are a few words from Craig Wagner who loves Product Photography!
My first intention was just to test out the pack. What I found is that the Broncolor Scoro S pack is extremely versatile with the ability to adjust flash duration, as well as the triggering delay. We setup a 33 gallon tank filled it with water powered up the Scoro S pack, attached two heads, one with a medium umbrella on the background and another with 7-inch silver reflector coming from just right of camera. Sometimes with the newer photo equipment you have to refer to the user manual in order to figure out all the little intricacies of the equipment. But the Scoro S is very user friendly with a fantastic display menu allowing the user to easily navigate and adjust to the desired settings. We played around a lot with the adjustable flash duration settings dialing it one way or the other depending on if we wanted a little motion drag or tack sharp precision in our image. For the first image I suspended the apple just below the water surface and used a stream of water to create the burst.
The second image was created by dropping the peppers into the tank of water. Using the studio’s infrared triggering device allowed us to consistently capture the peppers in the desired placement.
For this shoot I used the Canon 5d Mklll with the Canon 100mm lens. With the camera attached to the infrared trigger we were able to simultaneously remotely fire the camera when the infrared lazer stream was broken by the motion of the falling peppers. – Craig Wagner
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!
Studio 3 Films Director David King WSU Vancouver!
We are so very excited to partner with Washington State University in Vancouver to highlight their beautiful NW campus. We shot the campus over three days to capture student interaction, campus activity and the amazing NW environment. For insight into this video project read below to hear from our Studio 3 Films Director, David King!
When approached by Washington State University to produce a recruiting video for their Vancouver, WA campus, the questions we asked ourselves were, “what makes this campus unique?” and “how can we use that to help tell the story of Washington State University Vancouver?” All it took was a visit to the beautiful campus to answer both of those questions. The setting, with views of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens, along with the diverse student body tells the story of a small, local campus with all of the amenities of a major University.
We shot the footage over three consecutive days. One day before the students returned for the fall term in order to get some beauty shots of the buildings and surroundings. Then a week later when the students returned to school to get the feel of student life. One more day to shoot a couple of time-lapse sequences and it was time to edit.
We thought at first that a voiceover accompanying the video, explaining the virtues of the WSUV campus would be the way to go, but soon realized that the imagery itself said plenty about what it was like to attend school here. The administration came to us with a desire to show how a local campus could give a prospective student the large university experience and we were able to accomplish that by just letting the campus speak for itself.
What a beautiful campus!
To view more video projects created at Studio 3 Films, click here!