More work!

Shortly after the workshop, I wound up getting two gigs back-to-back.

One of them was a corporate portrait for use on the company's website, and the other was a custom "stock" piece.

The first job was obtained through my long-time friend, the extremely talented Josh Berta. He's been working with Rocco Piscatello at the Piscatello Design Centre for some time now, and when one of their client's website needed an updated photo, he referred me for the job.

I met with Rocco, and we discussed what he was looking for, and later that week, we got together at the client's office for the shoot.

Here's what we went with:

Shot with my lovely new 35mm lens, and converted to black-and-white in Photoshop.

The very next day, I got a call from another graphic designer, Ben King (who, coincidentally, I met through Josh), and he asked me if I would be able to put together a shot for him within the next 24 hours. He described what he was looking for - a hand holding a remote control, giving the impression of "power", for use in an comp he was working on for a client. I think it had something to do with "on demand". The final direction was "think 'Black Panthers' but with a remote in the fist".

Fortunately, my friend Ryan had a nice-looking remote control, and he was available to model for me first thing the next morning. We wound up going with this shot:

I did a few little bits of touch-up in Photoshop, but I think it came together nicely, and Ben was appreciative of the fast turn-around.

I have to say - I was really into this kind of work. Getting a specific assignment, and setting out to do it is a very rewarding process for me. I think it appeals to the "problem solver" in me, which has a tendency to come through in a lot of the stuff I do.

This shoot gave me an idea for a potentially cool concept, which I'll be writing about in a future post.

Pimps & Pinups shots are online!

A while back, I was asked by my friends at Pimps & Pinups (a hair salon) if I could help them out with a couple of photographs for their website.
At long last, they're now online!

To get to them, go here, and click on "New York". That's the first one. To get to the second one, click on "Services".

Retouching/post production by Seth Thompson.

Here are bigger versions:

Some background:
Pimps & Pinups is a hair salon that was started a few years ago in London. This past year, they decided to open up a second location here in New York City.
My good friend, Michelle Williams was hired as a stylist there, and not long afterwards, she asked me if I'd be interested in helping out with some photographs of the salon for the website. I happily obliged (this was before I decided to make the big transition, and was working full-time as an IT consultant), and put together these shots. The owners of the salon were impressed, and put them up on the website immediately. They then asked me if I would be interested in another photo...

If you reload the P&P website, and hit the "London" link this time, you'll see the original version of the shot I made. They asked me if I could essentially reproduce this look and feel, but with a different girl, in the New York salon. I knew that it would be a challenge, but I was eager to give it a shot. After setting the appropriate expectations, I put everything together - rented some nice studio strobes, lined up an assistant, and made plans with my friend Seth - who is a bit more skilled in Photoshop than I - to help out with the post processing (of which I knew there would be a lot).

The main direction was to make my shot look as similar to the original as possible. Looking back, there are a few things that I would do differently today, but all things considered, I think everything worked out pretty well.