Here was one of my first beauty shoots. In it I also teach others what I use as far as my gear to show everyone how to get great images from simple lighting set ups:

Penny Xiong Beauty Shoot

Many times on facebook/flickr I’ll post some behind the scenes photos for others to see my set up:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thucy4611/sets/72157627869531998/

The watch that he got from his family was a beautiful victorinox swiss army watch. It was bronze with tri-dials. I decieded to shoot this watch to make a mock up for a print ad and a billboard pieced. Around the same time fstoppers.com was having a contest on their facebook and I decided to enter. What we had to do was take an image and edit using Alien Skin Software (http://www.alienskin.com/) then post the before and after to show what dramatic effect it made. Here was my post and the pre-shot of my set up.

For this show I used one of the “film” effects from the software. Alien skin provides a ton of presets to choose from that you can start off with then take into lightroom or photoshop to do extra adjustments. I really like the bleached out look of this second pieced. Here is a screen shot of Lightroom with a comparison of colors and details.

Here we can see what the side to side comparison is with the effect. Details are brought out, contrast is very much boosted, and it give the image more of a pop that it’s been waiting for. This next image is of what my set up looked like. I used a 42” shoot through umbrella behind the object pointed down to give hard back highlights then used a fill car on my right to fill in a few shadowy areas. My settings were at 1/200 shutter, f/ at about 5-6.3 and iso at it’s lowest around 200. The flash was set at 1/4 power and about a foot away from the table. I got this rabbit fur thing for $5 at hobby lobby to use for my backdrop. I wanted to go for that rugged hunter look so I added a few bullet rounds from a time when my cousin and I went to the shooting range. It worked out perfectly! I got the shots I wanted it and here are a few of the finished images that follow.

I was super happy with how these turned out. Please let a comment and let me know how i’m doing. I’m very much open to suggestions and if you have any questions please post and I will answer the best I can.

JeFRESH.com

Here is a bit of history on them:

FreQuency Dance Crew, created when I was a freshman with two other fathers; Jeff and Yuwei. The crew was formed after Cultural Vogue to unite MSU dancers of all groups, forms, and qualities to make one superb crew that would dance, learn, and take stage. After a sucessful year the group started to die out only to be brought back by videos performances scattered throughout the years. Well they are back again with some old and some new to bring you an epic set for Lunar New Year Show. Be sure to check them out this sunday at the MSU Auditorium, doors open at 6:30pm.

Roster:

- Jean

- Steven

- Lina

- Jose

Photographer: Jeff Nguyen

Assistance: Vincent Nguyen

To see more check out my facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/JeFRESHmedia

DVN Board Video

As a thank you they all helped me promote JeFRESH and i even gave away a free shirt for one of their raffle prizes. They got me this cool lens that attaches to my iphone. It has dual purposes. WIth both parts attached to each other it acts as a wide angle lens that lets me get every part of the scene, and with the top part detached it acts as a macro lens where it lets me get super super close on an object.

WIDE SHOT

MACRO SHOT

Amazingly all of the image were taken with my iphone. It’s amazing how much better these phones get with sharpness and detail. This has replaced my point and shoot camera, and it fits in my pocket, and i can call people, and….. I can play words with friends. Best device ever.

Just picked up this prime piece of equipment the other day. It’s an off brand verions of the Westcott Orb (http://www.adorama.com/WEAO36.html) but it works like a charm. It’s a bit bigger than the Westcott and the white scrim detaches completely which makes it 10x more easier to set up and take down. What I love about the brolly style softboxes is that it’s easy set up like an umbrella, fits in any light stand bag, super lightweight, super portable, fits on any stand, is universal for any strobe, and works like a charm!

Excited to go out and test this bad boy out!

So I had a lot of time to kill while I was waiting and decided to do a few product shots. I found a bottle of Grey Goose and decided I’d shoot it.

My set up was:

• White Lightning in large Octo Camera Right up top (0verhead)
• White Lightning in softbox behind the bottle on camera right and camera left (2x)
• White backdrop
• Bottle was placed on black stool
• Shoot with Nikon D700 with Tamron 20-200mm f2.8 @ 1/200th, f/8, ISO200

This is what I got (edited)

I posted in flickr and some were not so fond of the composition and they said I was breaking the rules of photography. My comment was that Photography does have rules but it’s also an art and in art… rules don’t exist and making interesting images involves bending the rules a bit. Keep shooting and be yourself no matter what!

Cheers!

I took the shot of them spread out like this so we could cut them out in CS5 and place them accordingly. We both come up with some cleaver text and copy and made the ad. We presented it to the class and most people liked it. I think it turned out great.

I then decided to more…

I bunched up the pills together to get this shot: (almost like a stock image)

Then I took it further to make a fun ad for Target’s Pharmacy after watching a bunch of target spots that day. This one turned out sweet as ever and i’m super happy with the results! Lemme know what you think!

It was a fun shoot and something creative to do with my time, one things stems from another and you never know where your creative projects will take you. From one shoot we got 2 different fun ads.

Have a wonderful weekend!

This is the JeFRESH blog where i’ll post random things about my experience as a freelance photographer/videographer. I’ll post interesting stuff I find on the web, behind the scenes of my shoots, and tips/tricks about photographer for those inspiring learners!

Check out the rest of my site to see more of my work!