I recently wrapped a very rewarding, albeit technically-challenging shoot for the new Nissan Altima. Critical Mass out of Calgary asked me to shoot a 360-degree flyaround at 6th & Hope in downtown Los Angeles and a matching interior panorama. For the flyaround they wanted 72 frames. Shooting 72 frames in a short period of time (before light changes too much) while dealing with downtown LA ITC (intermittent traffic control) and pedestrians was no easy feat. I think I got two bites of my working lunch. Oh well. Some days are like that. The results were well worth it!

It was a different shoot than usual right from the start. The agency had pre-selected their location and had done extensive previz for the shoot. While it was refreshing to have this level of detail and input from  the agency before the shoot, it also meant I was going to be held to their exacting standards. Oh well. That’s what I do and I suppose that’s why I got the call.

It was also a bit different since the job was being run through local ad agency Chiat Day and Ridley Scott’s production company RSA Films. That meant more layers of communication, approval, etc. but as it turned out all the people involved were very professional, and a pleasure to work with.

To get the shot on location I teamed up with previous collaborator Tom Barron of ImageG. Tom is a motion control wizard and customized a rig to make the shoot a possibility. He modified his Bulldog rig to get the reach and moves that were required.

ImageG team setting up the Bulldog crane on location.

Anja and Bill, part of my crew, setting up the Canon 5DMk2 and running camera cables on the MoCo rig.

Helder, resident MoCo genius from ImageG, checking movement of the crane from the command post.

There were quite a lot of computers, electronics and cabling on this shoot. The shot above shows the digital “command post” where we fired the camera from and could review takes. We maxed out USB 2.0 shooting with three repeaters connecting four 15′ cables.

Before the hero car can be set in place, the crane must be rigged and tested. All hands on deck.

Here I and my crew are checking camera function on the MoCo rig.

How many photographers does it take to operate a camera?

Photo and MoCo crew checking on crane/camera alignment.

A view of the rigged camera in one of it's camera positions.

Here is a final from from the above camera POV.

In between takes, my crew and I went out and grabbed background plates for use in post production.

I can't thank my crew enough for their support. They rock!

Another view of the fully-rigged Bulldog with 5DMk2.

Yep we pretty much blocked the entire street!

Grabbing some more details and backplates on B camera. White tape marks were the camera angles we used.

You can see the finished product on here on the Nissan USA website. Critical Mass did a very nice interactive piece with CGI and other assets combined with the assets I provided.

I recently finished up a photo shoot for Toyo Tires. Toyo Tires was new client for me and I was very excited to be called upon to work for them. I got to work with a wonderful group of creative people from The Garrigan Lyman Groupon the project. The crew was extra solid, which made the shoot a breeze!

Toyo Tires shoot group shot.

The shoot entailed producing photo assets for the Toyo Tires website re-design GLG was working on. We got to shoot nine different vehicles, each one representing a different segment of types of tires Toyo sells. That was the coolest part of the shoot because on most car shoots we are working with just one car or model. Another unique part of the Toyo shoot was that we got to shoot some privately-owned, highly-customized vehicles.

For example, we shot this tricked-out BMW M3 for the high-end sports car tire segment.

605 HP BMW M3

For the ultra-premium sports car/racing tire segment we shot this custom Nissan Skyline GTR. This car had a flat off-white paint job. This was the first time I had ever shot anything like that!

Custom Nissan Skyline GTR

For the off-road segment we got to shoot this really cool Jeep:

The Jeep is on set.

It was very important to maintain attention to the tires in the shot by use of lighting. You can almost feel how sticky the tires are!

When a new car comes in, the floor gets a fresh coat of paint so tire tracks don’t reflect in the paint.

The cove floor getting a fresh coat of paint.

As the photo team was at work inside the studio, the next vehicle on deck got prepped and cleaned outside by the car prep team. On deck here is a cherry Ford Mustang.

A sweet mustang basking in the setting sun.

It always amazes me how messy a studio can get in the process of a shoot, especially a car shoot, yet the camera’s frame remains clean, uncluttered and pristine. Here are some shots of some of my camera and lighting set-ups. I can’t show the final shots yet as they have not been published.
Here’s a typical interior set-up.The camera is sitting on a solid block of aluminum, locked down by triangulating so it’s rock-solid. Why do we need such a set-up one might ask? I do lots of exposures and bracketing so I don’t want ANY camera movement. In fact once placed, whether it’s a camera, light, flag, or whatever – I don’t want it moving. So, I insist on the crew using alot of sandbags even in the studio. We almost always shoot irreplaceable prototype vehicles so we don’t need to be having things falling or getting knocked into the car. We often will drape the car in black cloth (where not visible to the camera) to further protect it.

We are using a medium format Hasselblad H2 with 35mm lens and a PhaseOne digital back for this shot.

Notice that piece of tape on the c-stand arm? Anyone know why that’s there? It’s there just an extra visual cue that there is a stand sticking out there and to avoid it. It’s for safety of the crew mainly, but also so no one bumps that, which is connected to  the camera.

I like to use a lot of smaller lights. My favorite is the Dedolight 150. When one uses alot of lights, this kind of spaghetti mess of wires is a common sight in the studio. This was a security code red vehicle – thus the wheel covers to mask the car’s identity. Yes, even in the studio.To reach the center of the car, we had to remove the two front seats, the rear seat and make a double-plate rig to mount the camera. For this shot we used the Canon 5DMk2 with  the 24-70mmL lens. I still use that lens to find shot angles most of the time, but will often swap out for Zeiss prime glass for the final shot. Yes, I am somewhat of a perfectionist.

This week I was honored to have one of my images selected to be Image of the Week on FoundFlow by FoundFolios.com. This shot was complicated and difficult but turned out quite really great. We shot it for Toyota using two neighboring sound stages and two perfectly-aligned camera set-ups. One stage had the seat buck and interior talent. On the other stage a set builder built a driveway set and we shot the full vehicle with exterior talent on-set.  Yep, that’s my Golden Retriever standing in. The two separate shots were then married in post production to produce the final image.

I shot a job late last year for a very cool company that makes really cool musical instruments and accessories for musicians. Line 6 contacted me because they wanted to step up the quality of their photography on their website. Here’s what Dave Patrikios, Creative Manager of Marketing for Line 6 had to say about working with me:

The people from Line 6 were really wonderful people and I enjoyed collaborating with them. We got some really great shots of their ground-breaking mixer that they were very happy with. I wasn’t able to show the shots until recently, when the new mixer was released to the public.

One of the shots being used at www.line6.com front page.

Here are a couple of the shots I delivered to Line 6.

©2011 John Early

Some of my still life work was featured this week in an emailer Wonderful Machine sent out to over 5000 creatives. You can check it out here.

Today some of my work was featured in the latest FoundFolios FoundExposed series. The theme this time was “Objects of Desire.” I am truly flattered to be featured beside the company of some really great photographers such as Stan Musilek, Jimmy Williams, Bill Cahill and others.

My feature shot is a bold graphic shot of the front grill of an Infiniti FX45. We shot this as part of a dead front shot for Infiniti.com. After I delivered the shot to  the agency, I wanted to simplify the shot and take it back to it’s stylized shapes. So, I darkened the interior, removed windshield wipers, and some patterned “bumps” in the grill design I found distracting. It’s always been a favorite of mine. Please let me know your thoughts.

Recently, I took a business trip to San Francisco which consisted of hanging with my rep Lenlee Jenckes and fellow Lenlee Represents roster photographers and going to agency portfolio shows every day for three days. After the shows, I decided to tack on a few days to the trip and just go shoot some stuff for me. I’d just head north along the coast and shoot landscapes, nature, life, whatever I felt like. No restrictions. Oh and maybe stop in at a few breweries along the way.

I ended up having a ball. I not only experienced a “high on photography” feel I haven’t felt so intensely for a while, but I got some pretty cool stuff to boot.

In fact some other folks agree. I took 2nd place in the 2011 PDN Great Outdoors Photo Contest with one of those shots. Unfortunately at the time PDN has not updated the 2010 Contest winners so  there is no link available. Here’s a crappy iPhone shot of  my image in PDN.

The image was captured just before sunset. I’d been on the run driving and shooting all along the coast since sunrise. I pulled in to check out the lighthouse and had to park really far away due to the summer crowds of tourists. Despite the distance, as soon as I stepped out of my truck and made my way down to the ocean, I knew I had a special location. I set up, composed the image and shot alot of various exposures for HDR combination later. I used a heavy variable ND filter to slow my shutter speeds way down to blur out the waves and make them look more surrealistic. I processed the RAW images using Aperture 3. Later in PhotoShop I combined the various light and dark exposures as different layers. Then using masking I painted the light exactly as I wanted it to appear.

After several requests I have made high-quality large-format prints of this image available on my stock site. Here’s the final version.

"Between Day and Night" - Pigeon Point Lighthouse, CA, USA

In another effort of targeted marketing my rep Lenlee Jenckes recently came up with a an idea to re-create an ad for Johnnie Walker using one of my shots and her design skills. I shot it, she created the “ad,” then emailed it to a handful of agency creatives at Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York. Next step…their Facebook wall

Here’s the shot. Can you spot Johnnie?

After notable unrest in the past decade Heineken’s US business landed at Wieden & Kennedy’s New York City offices in May 2011. You can read more about the story on Adweek.com.

Now, I’ve always wanted to work for Heineken and W+K, so I’m going after the business. I photographed two test shots to hopefully catch their attention. The first shows an open fridge full of Heineken, symbolizing the employee fridge at W+K, with the word “Congratulations” spelled out in magnetic letters.

First in series sent to W+K NYC offices.

This was sent by emailer first. If the user clicks on the fridge they will be rewarded with a view of this tasty, frosty Heineken shot (below) on my site. Once on my site, hopefully they will look at the rest of my liquids portfolio and remember me for the next job!

This image was shot specifically for this emailer campaign. Yum!

The emailer campaign will be followed up with a snail-mail campaign consisting of the two images sent on postcards about a week apart. The fridge shot will be sent out first and then the second will followup as the reward. These will include a handwritten note from me to personalize each card.