Shooting Fashion in New York City
Last Wednesday, the day before my New York City seminar, I did a fashion shoot for an upcoming book project (it’s one I haven’t announced yet, but it’s due to my editors in two weeks, so it’s getting close to being wrapped up).
I wanted a really cool location, so I contacted my buddy David Teng, a NYC-based photographer who has he’s assisted me in a couple of shoots up there, and he turned me on to an absolutely incredible location called “The Metropolitan Building,” just across the Queensboro bridge from Manhattan (link). We had the entire third floor, which was room after room of amazing walls, furniture, accessories, chairs, couches, chaise lounges, you name it. It was photography paradise!
We had three professional models for the shoot (that’s model Katy Beal above) , along with Hair stylist Chuck Olsen (above left), working with Jackie (right), who was an assistant to the Fashion Stylist working with us on the shoot, and Jackie helped with props and set design) along with Make Up by the amazing Cassandra Renee (the coolest MUA in New York. This was third time working with Cassi—she rocks! Here’s her Facebook page).
(Above: Here’s an iPhone shot of our first shooting location. Well, actually it was our second, as we started each shoot on a gray seamless set-up nearby, and then we’d head to this room for our first shoot with each model. This is before we set up the lighting).
Here’s a shot of model Sophia Niekrasz, and although I took this shot above with my Nikon D3s using my trusty 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, as you’ll see in the production shot below, I tried something completely different for me.
Above: That’s right, I’m shooting a Phase One 645 DF with a Leaf Aptus-II 80-megapixel digital back, with a Phase One 150mm f/2.8 lens (I talked about this rig the day I first got it [on short-term loan] over at my Facebook page. I haven’t had a chance to look at what I captured yet (I’m working on those tomorrow), but I can’t wait to see how they came out. 80-megapixels. Yikes!!!! :-)
For this shoot, I had a really kick-butt Fashion Stylist, Emily Bess (seen here fashionizing Katy on a different set). Emily was amazing, and she created our story for the day, told through the outfits and accessories she put together. Here’s the link to Emily’s site (highly recommended!).
We were also lucky enough to have Stevie as one of our models for the day (that’s her getting fitted by Emily before one of the shoots). She was with us for the NYC “Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it” tour and I asked if she would be one of the models for this shoot for the book, and of course, she was awesome!
Above: Here’s Stevie on Set #2 and that’s me with the Phase One. It’s definitely a different experience shooting with a medium format body, but after just a few minutes, I started to get really comfortable with it, which could wind up costing me a lot of money. ;-)
Above: We also had a male model on the set, the incomparable Braddo, seen here flashing his trademark “Blue Steel” look. Poor Brad has to stand in for the models while we’re testing out the lights, and I have about 1,200 or so similar shots of Brad, that one day will come back to haunt him in a book I’ll call “The Many Moods of Beautiful Brad.” ;-)
Where are all the rest of the shots?
Well, the main shots were for a book project of mine that hasn’t been announced yet, so I didn’t want to show too much at this stage, but I still wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes look at our day in New York. The location was truly amazing—probably the coolest place we’ve ever come across, but unfortunately we did it on the hottest day I think New York has had this year so far, and of course there was no air-conditioning whatsoever, so it got crazy hot in there. By the end of the day, Brad and I could barely walk (we got there at 9:30 am, and didn’t leave until after 7:00 pm, going non-stop the whole time—building sets, moving furniture, and hiking to get water).
I’ll have a whole lot more about this shoot very soon, along with some of the photos from the 80-megapixel Phase One, but until then I want to thank Emily Bess, our awesome Fashion Stylist for taking a handful of my loosely illustrated ideas and turning it into something very creative and cool (also, thanks to her assistant Jackie who was absolutely invaluable during the day with her ideas and input).
Thanks to Cassi, MUA rock-star, and to Chuck our new hair stylist who came up with some very creative looks, and of course our models, Sophia, Stevie, and Katy. My thanks to Amanda at The Metropolitan Building for being so easy to work with, and to Jeffrey Kolsrud at Q. Management (link) for all his help in finding some fantastic fashion models for our shoot. I can’t wait to share the rest with you guys! :)