2017 has been incredibly busy, so for easy of production, I decided again to keep this setup as pared down as possible.

Focusing this year on the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, we stumbled not only into a Rick & Morty themed party but also a giant warehouse party with every type of costume imaginable.

Taping a Thunder Gray backdrop to a wall near the party, we shot this entire project with my favorite battery pack, the Elinchrom ELB 400 and the medium (100cm) Deep Dish Rotalux modifier.

This year I shot about 85 people over 2 nights, getting model releases from each person so I can use them however I want (it also helps me make sure each person knows where to find the final images). It’s always fun to convince random strangers to follow me to the shoot location.

One thing we did not anticipate when we chose a central but secluded spot was that the party would be so popular that the line to get in literally wrapped around the block twice. At times I literally had to part the seas of revelers to shoot my portraits. But it also meant I could just pick people out of the line. Every cloud..

To speed up the process, we used tiny print-outs of each costume and taped them together to try find a layout that is visually pleasing for a good cultural representation of Halloween in Brooklyn.

Honestly, the images are a mess when we shoot them and it always feels like the images aren’t gonna come together, but eventually we manage to massage them into a set of collages that works really well. It’s an endless process of masking, repositioning and experimenting and make it ‘feel right’.

With thanks to Alex Schaefer, Philipp Benedikt and Hunter Moran

 See the full set here

I wanted to post a quick look into the work that went into pulling off the Halloween project for 2016.

As it has been an incredibly busy year, there wasn’t all that much time to plan this project. I had ended up booking a last minute job down in Tampa and that almost meant I couldn’t’ do the project at all. After such a great reaction to last year’s images, I couldn’t not shoot it again.

A friend tipped me off that Ybor City, in Tampa, had some great parties and lots of people would be down there in crazy outfits. And they weren’t lying.

So after a 12 hour shoot day, I grabbed photographer Scott Schmidt and headed to Ybor.

We shot about 60 people in over the span of about 3 hours. I simply walked along the sidewalk and asked those with the best costumes to follow me to the area which I had set up.

I picked a random wall, taped a 4 foot grey paper backdrop to the brick and used a Large Deep Throat Elinchrom Rotalux with my trusty ELB 400 pack and head to shoot the series. I brought 3 of their lithium ion-batteries but we hardly made a dent even in one battery.

The raw images show that we didn’t really have a lot of wiggle room when it came to composites, the retoucher Matt Richards really pulled off some amazing work to very quickly turn this mess into a coherent set of images.

Then the hardest challenge of all is the final composite, and like last year, it was a test of patience to get the visual layout just right. that means a lot of costumes just didn’t work in the final result, and endless nudging, remasking, repositioning and experimenting. There’s no formula here, it just kind of has to feel right.

With thanks to Scott Schmidt!

Final images are here

For a deeper look, join the Lighting Challenge group on Facebook. Link at bottom.

Let me take you through the entire process of how the shoot was done and how everything came together:

Sarah Oliphant graciously gave us access to the studio the night before and we did light tests, so many light tests. I recruited my friend Ryan and assistants Alex and Matt to help stand in and we tried various combinations and built the set, tried the lighting, etc.

This actually came before the shot of Sarah. This shot of Violet was really Violet’s set. It was AFTER this that I grabbed Sarah again and shot her on the same set. We did a bunch of her and she asked if she could get a shot with me. I guess that’s one way of getting her comfortable

Light testing for the shot of Mun, I often use myself as the test subject because I know what I’m gonna look like, I’m the one thing that’s always consistent. So many people’s skin reads differently but I know what mine will feel like.

A Large deep dish Elinchrom Rotalux on the right will have been to provide a base layer of light, the one nearest to Mun is the same modifier in medium, to provide pop and definition to her face.

Working with animals in the same shoot, always fun! It took a lot of coercing to get Strider just to sit still for one minute. Luckily he loves Sarah.

some shots as Sarah and Violet create their magic. 

Just a small part of the rental stock.

The Lighting Challenge with Felix Kunze Facebook Group

Passing the torch is Tony Winner LeChanze with 2016 nominees Pascal Armand (Eclipsed), Saycon Sengbloh (Eclipsed), Brandon Dixon (Shuffle Along) and Adrienne Warren (Shuffle Along)

Years ago when I was doing sweaty production shoots at tech rehearsals for London’s West End shows, I never thought I’d be asked to shoot a portfolio shot of Tony nominated Broadway stars in New York. So when BroadwayBlack asked to to be involved in their highlight of this year’s black nominees, I didn’t have to think long to say yes. It’s the culmination of so many of the different areas of photography I’ve become interested in over the years. To combine something that’s anthropologically important, culturally current and aesthetically pleasing. As a photographer, that ticks all the boxes.

Light Testing:

One way that I gain an advantage in this competitive industry is to maintain a certain standard when it comes to lighting and posing. To achieve this, I love to do lots and lots of light testing.

I live in a large loft apartment in Brooklyn, with a fair amount of space, which means I can easily test from here. Having the opportunity to test before the shoot makes it a lot easier to plan ahead and be prepared.

For a big big job like this where there is celebrity talent, where timing is tight and scheduling is a challenge, I had to plan out my poses, plan out exactly what my lighting setup was gonna be and make sure it worked. There’s a big difference between a lighting diagram jotted down on a napkin and one actually executed in the studio and one that looks good!

So to prep I had my intern and a stylist friend come over and pose patiently while I messed with the light, messed with the angles, messed with the composites, messed with the poses, etc. I wasn’t happy until I got to a point where I felt inspired. A ‘jump-off point’ to finesse on the day.

Light testing gives me a chance to take the pressure off myself, shoot with friends, no clients on set, take my time, let the process take over, explore new things, mess around.

Light & Posing Test #1 – “To prep I had my intern and a stylist friend come over and pose patiently while I messed with the light, messed with the angles, messed with the composites, messed with the poses.”

Test #2 – “Light testing gives me a chance to take the pressure off myself, shoot with friends, no clients on set, take my time, let the process take over, explore new things, mess around.”

While these aren’t the final poses or exact lighting setup we used on the day, it helped me find my way in the process. I feel it is important here to show my process when I do these group portraits, how much planning goes into it. So while these images are very low-grade composites, not meant for final publication, they really help me and the team to see my vision. I sent this to my producer and the publication to give them an idea and they loved it. I also printed it out to show the talent on set.

To achieve this swiftly and efficiently, I tethered Phase One XF 100 MP straight into Capture One Pro 9, applied my basic colour curves, exported and then composited the images into Photoshop. Because we didn’t know how many nominees would be in the final shot, I did a test with 4 and one with 8 subjects, just to be prepared.

Production:

Because of the challenges of scheduling and location (these guys all have shows to perform in, 6 days a week), we couldn’t drag the talent to studios miles away in Brooklyn, we had to stick close to midtown Manhattan. To avoid expensive studio locations, we found a rehearsal space, Pearl Studios, that was close enough to the theatre district. I went and scoped it out, my producer solved the problem of getting 14’ backdrops up to the 12th floor (elevators are too small) and we schlepped a van load of equipment up a passenger elevator.

The backdrop & corresponding floor, sourced from Oliphant, transformed a plain rehearsal space into something a little more visually appealing and befitting the glamorous talent. The space just happened to have a grand piano for us to use, so naturally in it goes. For lighting I used two battery powered Elinchrom ELB 400 packs and my trusty Elinchrom modifiers. We kept it fairly simple, as usual.

Everything was set… Now I just needed to actually shoot!

The shoot:

I set the Phase One XF 100 MP on a tripod, marked it down, and started putting together the shot, one subject at a time.

“I set the Phase One XF 100 MP on a tripod, marked it down, and started putting together the shot, one subject at a time.”

“I tried to set the mood by generally being silly”

My focus on every shoot is to get all the technicalities out of the way, to focus on making the talent feel comfortable. I tend to start that while they are in hair and make-up. My general rule of thumb is to make some jokes, get them to react in a genuine way, where I feel that they are on the same page as me, to gain trust before the subject even steps foot on set.

First up was LeChanze, who is actually a previous Tony Awardee and agreed to be part of the shoot, to pass the torch to the next generation. She brought her Tony award but I decided not to include it in the shot, I wanted to create a timeless image. Instead I highlighted her by giving her separate backdrop to pose in front of. This elevates her importance in the shot without any pretension.

“unhealthy amounts of mirroring (demonstrating poses)”

Then it was Pascal Armand (Eclipsed), Saycon Sengbloh (Eclipsed), Brandon Dixon (Shuffle Along) and Adrienne Warren (Shuffle Along). For each of them, I tried to set the mood by generally being silly, energetic and doing unhealthy amounts of mirroring (demonstrating poses). Below is me doing my best ‘Beyonce with wind on her’ impression.

We tethered the entire shoot into my laptop, using Capture One Pro 9, replete with the extra-secure jerk-stopping piece of tape on the USB cable.

“We tethered the entire shoot into my laptop, using Capture One Pro 9, replete with the extra-secure jerk-stopping piece of tape on the USB cable.”

There’s no feeling quite like showing the subjects the photos as they are coming in. When you know they are good, they see that they are good, they get into the mood and it makes my job easy.

Obviously the end result is very different from the light test, but that’s just how things end up working out. No shoot I’ve ever done worked out exactly to plan, and that’s part of the beauty of photography. I like the result more more, with each person existing in their own space within the image.

To achieve individuality, I interacted with each subject enough to get an idea of the kind of pose that would work for them; for example, that’s how LaChanze’s effortless beauty and Adrienne’s ‘athletic cool’ really shines through. The goal is always to show personality. I want them to feel comfortable, they aren’t models, I want their individual characters to show.

“There’s no feeling quite like showing the subjects the photos as they are coming in. When you know they are good, they see that they are good, they get into the mood and it makes my job easy.”

Compositing:

For a composite shot like this, the 100 megapixel capability of the Phase One XF 100 MP really shines, it allows me to get a depth of detail that gives us complete control. Compositing people into images is always more complex than it initially appears, we start to get into parallax issues, details not quite matching up, etc. But having pixel depth gives me options.

On tight schedules, options are everything. A complicated composite like this is made much easier because we’re using the best equipment available…

BroadwayBlack

Production: Dual.Phocus

Make-up: Bob Scott

Hair & Styling: Chloe Chada

Retouching: Woof & Warp

Backdrop: Oliphant Studios

For more, follow me on instagram

A friend of mine gave me this mantra years ago and I’ve been repeating it ever since.

For me, it extends to living my life with good people.

As a photographer, the holidays can be such a busy time, usually people need their projects finished before the break and it’s always a mad dash to the finish line; then nothing in the first two months of the new year.

So I fill the winter with snowboard trips. They give me perspective, time to think. That time on the ski lift, just hovering over the landscape, that time on the mountain focusing just on your breath, the way the board feels under your feet and the sound of the snow crunching, it’s cathartic.

I’ve talked about this a little bit on my FB group too, but somehow the snow trip always comes at the right time, when a year is over, a new one begins and there’s time in between to get away from work for a while, to spend time with friends, to just disengage for a bit.

But of course, there’s no such thing as switching off completely and photos will be taken, even if it takes me almost a year to publish them:

*LES=Lower East Side of Manhattan

I wanted to do something for Halloween that didn’t involve me going through the hassle of putting together a costume. Last year a friend of mine who does this sort of thing for a living put me in an amazing beetlejuice costume, that was fun. But he put in the work and it was GOOD. If I just did it myself, I don’t think I’d do a GREAT job.

My biggest joy on Halloween is riding the NY subway and skipping train cars at every stop so I get to see everyone’s costumes, that’s always amazing.

With thanks to Sarah Newton, Jimmy Beech, Joe Payne, Rebecca Faulk, Christopher Nieto, Jeff Kolbfleisch and Ashley Bromirski on hair and make-up.

A special thank you goes to the Raleigh Little Theatre.

My retouching workflow is shown in detail here

Kristina & Troy Houser, shot on location in Florida

hair & makeup: Katlyn Shuart and Brooke Rein
assistants: Paul Warner, Hunter Arthur, Joel Dominguez

Like this? Get more from the Felix Kunze newsletter

This is as in-depth as I’ll ever go in sharing my before & after images and sharing my workflow. I don’t think I’ve ever shown a raw, out of camera image before.

So many people have been asking how I use Capture One, Photoshop and Alien Skin Exposure, I think it’s time to do some sharing.

I’ve mentioned this Facebook a bunch of times: Capture One has changed the way I shoot. I now only shoot tethered.

Every photographer has had the same experience – you don’t want to show the back of the camera to the client. First you have to do a bunch of work to sort out the contrast and color balance and sometimes even the white balance. You want the client to see the final, gorgeous, polished version, not the crappy raw file.

And more so than the client, there’s your side as the photographer. You have to imagine what the final image may end up looking like. And you don’t really know either. You’re already so busy with shooting that this just adds an extra bit of worry ‘will this image work out?’.

Yikes.

Here’s the solution:

1) Use Capture One (10% off with ‘AMBFELIX’). I shoot tethered via a USB cable. This means every shot the camera takes is automatically imported into the computer. This obviously wouldn’t work at a wedding but it’s helpful in the studio and even on location shoots.

When you shoot in Capture, you end up with the RAW file, it looks flat, it looks boring, it has no contrast and the white balance is often off. This is where I make my first changes. I ordinarily: Correct White Balance; tweak exposure; increase contrast; desaturate a little bit; work in shadows and highlights to suit; and maybe adjust the color balance. I leave levels and clarity alone for the most part.

Before and after shooting tethered in Capture One

This will give me a beautiful image right off the bat. Capture One will automatically apply these adjustments to each new image as you shoot. Simple. Powerful.

It makes all the difference. Psychologically you are now not covering up terrible looking images in the back of the camera and hoping the client doesn’t ask to see them. Instead you can shoot proudly and get excited about what you’re shooting. Such a different process. This is a HUGE issue for a lot of photographers.

A little tip: Use Capture in SESSION view, you’ll see how it manages the files through the filesystem. I much prefer that. So for a shoot of Allie, I would have something like ‘Allie Portrait Shoot’ as my folder name on my shoot drive (I use an external drive). It would be where all the Captures are stored. I don’t use the catalogue view in Capture.

So now you have an image that’s already amazing, and I like to stretch the definition of ‘in camera’ to include this, the Capture One edits, as they can be applied while you’re shooting:

Before and After using Capture One tethered – each image from the shoot will have this look and feel

2) Edit skin in photoshop. I export the files from Capture One into a folder on my desktop, usually something like ‘Allie Retouch’  - I export in 16 Bit TIFF in Adobe RGB

I take the images into photoshop and do a light skin retouch and handle any major messes. Usually I’ll have shot them so that they look pretty decent using the lighting I previewed on my How-To Class on CreativeLIVE.

I won’t show more of my photoshop process here. Watch Pratik Naik’s class on retouching, I learnt most everything from him and the plentiful online resources out there. Sue Bryce also has a lot of resources in this regard.

All the finished images on here have had some small photoshop work done for skin and little fixes.

3) I use the standalone Alien Skin Exposure 6 app (30% off with ‘FKZ1409′ till Sunday night) on my mac to do color work on these images. The process, as explained in my demo is not as scientific as it may seem – I rely heavily on my personal taste which I’ll try explain below.

I’ve created a set of presets based on the images below.  They are available to download here. Grab them and follow along

Preset ‘Allie2′ – light toning to give it a more vintage feel

preset ‘Allie Hair’ – the main inspiration here was the Les Miserables poster by Annie Leibovitz. I wanted to achieve my own version of that image.

preset ‘Stephen’ – this one for me was about finding the split between the raw and the capture look and lightening things up a tad

Preset ‘Regi’ – this one was almost perfect in Capture, it just needed a little portrait and a low opacity light leak from the top

Preset ‘Diana Hair’ – This is all about giving her that ‘iPod commercial’ feel. Mostly in color toning and a light leak from above

The ‘Allie1′ preset is a simple vignette and included as a bonus.

I urge you all to explore these presets and see what I did. Make your own, have fun with it! I’d love to see them on my Facebook page too.

Those of you paying attention will notice there’s also a NEUTRAL preset. This is what I use and start my edits from. I don’t think it’s in Exposure by default so I made one of my own.

That’s it. Simple. Fast. Beautiful images. 

links:

Capture One – 10% off with ‘AMBFELIX’ – all through mid 2015
Alien Skin Exposure 6 - 30% off with ‘FKZ1409′ till Sunday
Felix’s Alien Skin Exposure preset pack - FREE!

This is taking location lighting to a new level. I put one of my Oliphant backdrops up in a field and I used daylight as a basis and then added in my own lighting to ‘kick it’ a little.

So we end up with this clean studio look for these shots of Tony.

With thanks to assistants Hunter Moran & Jessica Ball.

Behind the scenes: