Blake Lively

This photo is the most used image for the advertising of the feature film that recently came out, "The Age of Adeline".  It was wonderful to work on this period film for the costumes and hairstyles and locations were stunning.   Blake was the star of the production and I was interested in meeting  her again as I worked with her when she was just 16 on the film, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants".  Now all grown up and beautiful as ever,  I had another 2 months of filming to find the most flattering light and angles to bring out the best in her.
This close up  was actually taken not only on the first day of filming, but the first scene!  I arrived to the location at the top of the Hotel Vancouver and got my gear all prepped; then squeezed my way into the small office we were filming in; said hello to some crew members I had worked with on previous productions and took my first few frames which are what you see below.
I chose a long lens at a focal length of 200 to keep myself farthest away and most invisible from the actress as possible.  A long lens with a wide open fstop at 2.8  also blurs out the background which brings all attention to the subject.  There was a little atmospheric smoke to make the soft flattering light even softer.  I chose a shutter speed of 125 which is about the slowest you would want to go while hand holding a lens at 200.  My ISO was 1250 and my camera was a Nikon D800.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ian McShane

Image
One of my favourite villains of all time is Ian McShane.  He was the super villain on “Agent Cody Banks” that I photographed the stills on back in 2002.  I would later become an even bigger fan of his watching him play the town bad guy in ‘Deadwood”.  He has has that wonderful British charm that translates well into his nasty characters.  His charisma and sense of humour on set always made the crew smile despite the abnormally long hours we worked on this particular feature.   He has a very characteristic expression with the raised right eyebrow and slight snarl on his lips.  I wanted to capture this exact expression nice and close with him looking right at the lens.  When filming on set you are photographing while the actors are performing so you must set it up later if you want to get a shot of them looking at you.  We were filming in this very futuristic bad guy lair which was an ideal spot to get the perfect portrait.  Ian was happy to accommodate my wishes and I got the desi
Read more

Monsters

Image
Quite often it is the job of the studio photographer to flatter the subject as much as possible.  Women most often are lit and photographed in a way to make them look flawless and ageless.  It is not everyday that a real live monster steps into your studio and it is your job to glorify all of the gory details.  What fun!!!!  Here are 2 Zombies that I shot for the poster art for the film "Cabin in The Woods".  To transform these performers into Zombies it takes hours of laborious work from an amazing special effects team and a lot of patience from the ones being transformed.  My first inclination when photographing the undead would be to throw most of the creature into shadow and let the viewer's imagination take over.  However, upon looking at the incredible details of the make up and costume, I realized that I had light it is such a way that the details could be seen and still maintain a mysterious feeling with shadow. I chose rim lighting from behind the subject on bot
Read more

Kids in a Mexican Parking Lot

Image
Mazatlan, Mexico is the place where my partner grew up and a wonderful sunny, beachy place to have relatives to visit!  After struggling to communicate with an extended family in my terrible Spanish,  I grabbed my camera and went out into the night to engage in a visual language that I could understand.  I was searching for areas that had interesting night light that I could photograph time exposures of.  Rolando, my partner and guide took me to beautiful places overlooking the city showing the many night lights of Mazatlan.  Later, we got a little more up close and personal and just walked along the streets.  Then I saw them.  Three kids just hanging out in an empty parking lot.  It did not appear as though they were playing or waiting, they were just there; showcased by the colourful mix of orange sodium lights and fluorescent.  I felt the need to capture this image but I had to talk the the kids first.  They needed to stay still for a time exposure plus, it would be a bonus to place
Read more