My first serious try with a smoke machine. Everything cool until the smoke alarms went off! All it took was a couple of hours trying to get the perfect photo with Toulous forward Louis Picamoles.
 |
| Louis Picamoles |
Posts tonen met het label Under Armour. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label Under Armour. Alle posts tonen
Mike Tindall
Spent a couple of hours working with Mike Tindall on our last visit the UK. Under Armour has created a campaign around Combines Training. So.. we put Mike to work and tried to get a little real world sweat happening under hyper real world studio lights and big megapixels. Good fun for me, Mike did what he needed to do to help us get our shots. We had plenty of room to set up big strobes inside a large indoor training facility. This allowed us to get Mike really well lit and have the backgrounds (ambient light) go to close to black. The artificial turf in the gym gave Mike the confidence to move with speed and power.
It was pretty much my dream setup to get some good high contrast sports photography going. I only wish I could take this gym back with me to Amsterdam and turn it into my studio. That and I'd like to have a DSLR with a flash sync above 1/200th please..
We were also in the UK for a campaign shoot with the Welsh Rugby Union. Once the New Zealand 2011 World Cup Jerseys launch in July I will be able to post images from this shoot.
It was pretty much my dream setup to get some good high contrast sports photography going. I only wish I could take this gym back with me to Amsterdam and turn it into my studio. That and I'd like to have a DSLR with a flash sync above 1/200th please..
Under Armour Basketball
And now for something completely different from my life African. Flew back to France for a production with Under Armour. The focus of the shoot was Clermont Rugby but we managed to fit in a couple of 'Core' Under Armour sports as well. The new Clermont Rugby jerseys launch in July, so those pictures will have to wait until then. I can show a little basketball action.
Under Armour brought new recruit Edwin Jackson a 6-foot 3-inch, 201-pound shooting guard from ASVEL Lyon. Under Armour creative team put together a storyboard of the moves they wanted captured. We did this shoot in the Clermont stadium ceremony room with big strobes. The place was perfect for a temporary studio as it was huge and dark. Camera set @ around f11-f16 @ 1/200th so my backgrounds went nice and dark and the athlete/apparel jumped out at me through my lens. To put pictures like this in perspective in terms of man hours. After a couple of weeks of pre-production, Under Armour brought to the shoot; a creative director, sports marketing manager, a product specialists, and I came with lighting assistants. When all is said and done, I dial in the camera and lights but there is no way to get shots like this alone. We also filmed a 'making of' which is in post production now. We'll try to get a piece of the film online in the coming month. Here are two photos from the shoot.
This was my first time shooting basketball with a proper studio set-up. Definitely would love to go crazy lighting up a proper basketball court and doing a big shoot on location at some point in the future.
Under Armour brought new recruit Edwin Jackson a 6-foot 3-inch, 201-pound shooting guard from ASVEL Lyon. Under Armour creative team put together a storyboard of the moves they wanted captured. We did this shoot in the Clermont stadium ceremony room with big strobes. The place was perfect for a temporary studio as it was huge and dark. Camera set @ around f11-f16 @ 1/200th so my backgrounds went nice and dark and the athlete/apparel jumped out at me through my lens. To put pictures like this in perspective in terms of man hours. After a couple of weeks of pre-production, Under Armour brought to the shoot; a creative director, sports marketing manager, a product specialists, and I came with lighting assistants. When all is said and done, I dial in the camera and lights but there is no way to get shots like this alone. We also filmed a 'making of' which is in post production now. We'll try to get a piece of the film online in the coming month. Here are two photos from the shoot.
Jamie Cudmore protecting my house
This AD campaign is live in France. I posted a few more raw pictures from this shoot below this post. Always interesting to see what the picutres look like once they've been branded.
Jamie Cudmore
The Facebook feedback loop
The web is an amazing direct feedback loop for photography. Some might say too direct. Always great to read what people have to say about my work though. Here's a photo composite Under Armour put together for ASM Clermont Auvergne Rugby. This one is currently being used for their facebook fan page profile. All good!
Julien Bonnaire, Brock James, Aurelian Rougerie, Jamie Cudmore, Julien Pierre
Clermont Auvergne Rugby
Shooting Clermont Auvergne Rugby was in one word; Fun and a challenge. Okay, two words. The plan for this shoot was to spend two days on the beautiful pitch shooting action portraits of the Clermont Rugby athletes and a few Under Armour contract athletes. The weather had been amazing for weeks leading up to the shoot. Give this fact, we did not worry about the weather when planning our production.. After all, we only needed to have 5 or so 1600-2400 watt strobes connected to 200 meters of extension cables in the middle of the stadium pitch. This kind of strobe power is needed to knock out the (normally) harsh Southern France sun and get the look we were going for.
It started raining from the moment we got our setup right and kept on raining until the moment we wrapped the production, at which point the sun came out. Shooting in the rain with big strobes is next to impossible. Needless to say we improvised like mad. We took the whole shoot under the stadium bleachers. Client and I made the decision to go for the 'industrial look' as opposed to the planned magic on the field. I would have loved to have two days on that stadium pitch, but I'm happy with the photos we ended up getting under the stadium. Here's a couple from day one. Many thanks to my band of lighting assistants (Victor, Levi and Joost) who helped get us through two hectic days. I shot a timelapse of the incoming storm as we were setting up. Should make for a good laugh (now). I'll post it when I have a chance.
Jamie Cudmore - Clermont
Under Armour Football/Soccer
This viral teaser was a Storeage creation for the kick off of the European Under Armour football boot launch. I shot the stills on location and we shot the player and referee on green screen @ DESMET studio's in Amsterdam.
We used the Panasonic P2 cam for the green screen (wish I had my 5D MK2 at the time). Dealing with the Panasonic MTS file format within your workflow can be a struggle if you do not work with it day in day out. It cost us some time to come to grips with it but in the end it worked out fine.
The beautiful high bit rate H.264 codec on the Canon DSLRs are perfect for these kind of effects shots (make sure you dial down sharpening). The 5DMK2 and the 7D are now in my bag at all times. Next time!
Credits: Agency - Storeage, Art Direction - Moritz von Graevenitz, Motion Graphics - Jay Goodman, Visual Effects - Joe Pavlo, Producer/DP - Arnout Groen
We used the Panasonic P2 cam for the green screen (wish I had my 5D MK2 at the time). Dealing with the Panasonic MTS file format within your workflow can be a struggle if you do not work with it day in day out. It cost us some time to come to grips with it but in the end it worked out fine.
The beautiful high bit rate H.264 codec on the Canon DSLRs are perfect for these kind of effects shots (make sure you dial down sharpening). The 5DMK2 and the 7D are now in my bag at all times. Next time!
Credits: Agency - Storeage, Art Direction - Moritz von Graevenitz, Motion Graphics - Jay Goodman, Visual Effects - Joe Pavlo, Producer/DP - Arnout Groen
UA11 launch
Under Armour 11 as they are called. We photographed this series a few months ago for Under Armour. Now after months of hard work by agencies Store-Age and Perfect Fools the campaign has launched. I have not seen all the final images, but I like this one.
WRU Stadium Billboard
Here's one of the billboards hanging in the Cardiff Millennium Stadium. This is a composite image from a photo shoot for Under Armour with the Welsh Rugby Union. Store-Age put the composite together. This one goes down as my largest printed photo to date. It's around 10 x 80 meters huge.
Design by Karina Engedal @ Under Armour
Here one frame as the athletes were shot. This gives an idea how much post production goes into the final design for this production.
Stadium photo courtecy Under Armour.
Design by Store-Age Amsterdam.
Here's another version up closer. We shot 20 athletes in two days. Working with the WRU guys was great. These are the kind of gigs where you wake up in the morning smiling at the thought of getting paid to do this kind of work. I have photographed live action Rugby games, but had not had the chance to get rugby athletes in the studio. Watching them train felt like looking in on something medievil.
Fedex lost one of my lighting equipment bags so we really had to push things on set-up day to get local gear backup. I had amazing help from local Cardiff photographer Brian Cottam who also assisted me on lighting for the shooting. Thank-you Brian.
Design by Karina Engedal @ Under ArmourThe Under Armour crew out of Baltimore worked the the styling, athletic moves, and general look and feel during the shoot. Working with this many athletes in front of the camera requires a team effort. No way in hell I could pull this off alone.
Here one frame as the athletes were shot. This gives an idea how much post production goes into the final design for this production.I'll get more photos online to show the end results after the post production team is done with the images. For me, it's always interesting to see what comes out of the final design.
Concept for the photo came from Nate Shriver @ Under Armour
Here's one more from the studio. The photo was cleaned up a little and a vignette was added in post. I have not seen how Under Armour used this one. The plan was to use it as part of the campaign meant to launch the Under Armour WRU jersey.
Belgiun Sprinter Frauke Penen
We worked together during a shoot in Hannover Germany. We shot a sports model the day prior for the same shoot. The model was athletic and very good. Frauke is not really a model. She's an athlete who happens to work well in front of the camera. I was hesitant to show her the photos from the previous day as example because the model had done so well and I did not want to intimidate her right at the start. Athletes are not usually good at studio work. It could be that after years of practice they get better, but standing in front of a photographer in a big studio is not the primary reason they got into their sport.
Frouke insisted on taking a look at the photos with the model and we did. As we sat behind the big LCD studying the images from the previous day, I was really happy with the way the photos with the model turned out. After looking she said, 'is that all'. I had to laugh and figured we'd be in good shape for her shoot.
Here's a shot as they came out of my camera. Post process was a crop and some sharpening.
Design by Karina Engedal @ Under Armour
As a result of her efforts, I believe Under Armour chose to use more of her photos in place of the photos from the shoot with the sports model.
Design by Moritz von Graevenitz: Belgian Sprinter Frauke Penen in Action
This last design from Mortiz was a concept design for a pitch (edit: which Reebok later created to perfection without us).
Frouke insisted on taking a look at the photos with the model and we did. As we sat behind the big LCD studying the images from the previous day, I was really happy with the way the photos with the model turned out. After looking she said, 'is that all'. I had to laugh and figured we'd be in good shape for her shoot.
Here's a shot as they came out of my camera. Post process was a crop and some sharpening. Design by Karina Engedal @ Under ArmourAs a result of her efforts, I believe Under Armour chose to use more of her photos in place of the photos from the shoot with the sports model.
Design by Moritz von Graevenitz: Belgian Sprinter Frauke Penen in ActionThis last design from Mortiz was a concept design for a pitch (edit: which Reebok later created to perfection without us).
Abonneren op:
Posts (Atom)
