ron sumners

photography, video, stock imagery, sound engineer, drum bashing

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Ragdoll Sunday video shoot

Four days of shooting... two outside in the nasty cold, one running through the halls of an office building, and another in a small cozy hotel room in Zurich. Our little crew of four arrived at 7am on the first day at a business office rental place and waited for the actors and extras to arrive before a long day of shooting. Eleven hours later we were done. The last day was spent in an old train assembly plant that was used as a huge indoor parking lot to shoot the band playing the song. It was another long day but the results were awesome! We are going through edits and will have the finished video done soon!

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I’m sitting in the corner smacking the drums with Cushy Number playing I Will Follow, at The Pub in Zurich. We had two tripod cameras setup on each side and Andi Caplazi with a handheld out in front - not a bad video for the conditions!

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Franziska Hauser band photo session...

Fun band photo session with Franziska Hauser and Band! There’s a bunch of cool locations just outside my front door...

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Photoshoot with Joe and Eva!

Great photoshoot with Joe Schwach and Eva Wey! We ran around the corridors of the building posing and playing in all the cool spots we could find. Sure hope my neighbours enjoyed the musical interludes.

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Ragdoll Sunday recording...

Wow, they are so loud. A few months ago, Ragdoll Sunday and I setup our gear for a two-day recording session at my Chicken Hill studio and tore through 17 songs, 5 pizzas and countless mugs of coffee. Next week on June 12, 2017, we are back in Chicken Hill to peel the paint once more.

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finally, back in the studio. my first model shoot since moving into my new studio in Baar. ...a quick fitness stock shoot with Olivia. It’s been months since I’ve taken any stock photos!

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cd packaging for Steve Loesche

It’s been a while since I designed an album cover. I’ve done thousands in the past 30 years, and I really miss it!  Especially when you have a customer like Steve that never asks for changes and seems to like everything I do. :)   Steve, Caroline Breitler, and I had a fun photo session and come away with some good shots for the cover.  Steve is easy to work with, and his smile is never forced.  Where’s my autographed copy Steve!?  We used a bunch of live photos from various shows that I pointed my camera at - lots of quality musicians playing on this album! GO AND BUY IT!

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the final shoot for Lite My Fire, Prairie Pearls

It was a long day on Sunday, but we finished an hour ahead of our scheduled quitting time of 7pm.  We started at 1pm loading the little Yaris with a five piece drum set, ladder, mic stands, three cameras and three tripods, booms, lighting, diffusers, laptops, etc, etc….  Justin, my Aussie mate and camera number 2 operator, calmly drove the 38 minutes to the Pirate Bar while I silently sat in the passenger seat stressed about how late we were going to be and how I wasn’t going to finish my shot list by seven, our cutoff time.  We pulled up to the front doors and let the equipment spill out onto the pavement. We were only 13 minutes late!  The band was there waiting as well as Carina my lovely makeup artist.  We dug in and snapped together stands, pressed appropriate buttons and skilfully turned knobs setting up our first shots with the three cameras.  The takes went quickly, the beer glasses emptied fast, and my stress level decreased as the data cards filled up.  Six o’clock approached and we were done!  The Prairie Pearls “Lite My Fire” music video was through the shooting stage!  The sweaty tired band dragged themselves out the front doors and off into the night, as a few of us stayed behind to toast our work. Thanks to everyone involved for making the day go smoothly!  … here’s a few screen grabs of the raw stuff…

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Photodune blog profile

Profile of my zombie photos on Photodune! ...

http://marketblog.envato.com/inspirations/gruesome-flesh-eating-photography-ron-sumners/

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manuela and christoph wedding

Finally shipped the heavy 72-page, 40cm x 30cm wedding album with the thick metal cover off to Christoph and Manuela.  That was a massive heavy book!  Their wedding was back in May and the weather was perfect for them - not so perfect for me shooting all day in the onslaught of sunshine.  Of course I brought all the right photographic equipment, I just forgot the important sunscreen.  My poor face - especially my big nose that is slightly closer to the sun than the rest.  I was armed with my two buddies, Canon 5D and Pentax 645D strapped to my sides hanging off the BlackRapid double harness - one of the best purchases I’ve made!  I do like to shoot weddings even though it’s so stressful - the end result always justifies the stress.  It was a beautiful day spent with beautiful people.

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whisky cake

I’m getting fat. I really enjoy food photography, especially when the client supplies me with a large amount of product to shoot and I get to eat it afterwards. Today’s indulgence was small Whisky Cakes from Confiserie Meier for the cover of the box that Coop will be selling in their stores.  Neither my wife or my son can have any because of the whisky content, so that’s three chocolate cakes for me to ravage thank you very much. Although I’ve become sick already and I still have one full cake and parts of a second. I certainly hope my customer is happy with the shots because the delicious cake will be gone soon. Anybody else need some pralines shot? …or sushi? Pizza? How about beer - I think I need to photograph a small brewery's entire beer catalogue.

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prairie pearls music video

It’s been quite a disappointing summer this year, especially now since I have an outdoor music video that needs to be finished and there hasn’t been a decent few hours to shoot in a while.  We started this video back in July at 4am on a small airport runway trying to get as many shots as we could before the planes started to roll out of the hangers.  We weren’t sure what the weather was going to do but luckily we had a good sunrise and great light for the next hours.  It’s been about six weeks since that shoot and the leaves on the trees are starting to change quickly! We were running out of time needed to shoot the second outdoor session so it would match the first, but yesterday in a scramble we found a great spot and shot the second set of video.  The weather was perfect and the awesome sunset added magic to the end of the takes.  We have two more sessions for this project and we’re eager to finish!  Here’s a few stills from the shoots…

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event photography - ZIWC Hawaiian Party

Today I’m pushing images through Lightroom and editing shots from an event I photographed for the Zug International Women's Club on the weekend - a Hawaiian themed party that started at 6pm. I’m usually only paid to stay for an hour or two to get a few shots, but I ended up staying until the end because of the Club’s generosity to let me consume fruity drinks while swinging around my impressive camera. They had the most precious little slushy machine spinning around a delicious Pina Colada mix that I couldn’t pass without sliding my little paper cup underneath it’s spout and pulling the lever. Delicious! My compliments to the bartender - but I did hate him the next morning. The light was terrible in the room but nothing 4000 ISO couldn’t fix ... and a bit of flash to stop motion the hula-hoop and grass skirts that swung around. From what I remember of the night I think I had a good time.

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first

My very first entry. I’m quite new to social media and I’m finding it overwhelming - so many different places to spew your ramblings. I’ve decided to write about my design work, my photography, and the different shoots that I do. So this is my official ‘news’ section of my website - I hope someone reads it one day - but not today - I’m going to bed now.