Photography Blog

photography blog created for school

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Another windy day in the studio with Kristin. What are your opinions on color vs black and white?

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Windswept beauty.

Two light setup. My main light was a beauty dish with a 20 degree grid to light the model. The second light was a small reflector with a 10 degree grid which was pointed at the background to create a small halo of light right behind her head.

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Basically created a metallic goddess.

I can’t take all the credit for this image. I was inspired by an image from one of my favorite photographers. I wanted to see if I could create something similar and this was the result!

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Sharing some new fashion work! This shot was achieved by using two lights to the left of camera. The first was a bare bulb which creates shape to the model and the shadow on the background. The next light was a large umbrella which was used to fill in the shadows.

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I’ve been working on my headshot lighting lately and here are the results!

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Happy Valentine’s Day! 

For this image I wanted to a high key look with a simple element added for Valentine’s Day which in this case was the lipstick kiss. The lipstick kiss was achieved by putting lipstick of a kiss shaped stamp.

I used two lights for this setup. One light was used to light the background to get a pure white background. This light is also wrapping around the subject giving her the edge lights. The second light was my key and was a octabox placed center and above. I used a silver reflector to bounce light coming from the key to fill in the shadows.

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A professional headshot for an owner of a local business here in Fresno. This was achieved with 3 lights. One was in a large umbrella with diffusion behind the subject. I used this like to create the pure white background. I extended the white in post so that the background would be evenly white. My 2 other lights were my key lights. They were in strip boxes, one on each side of the subject. You can actually see these 2 lights in the eyes of the subject.

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I wanted to get out of my garage and try something different with an on location shoot. This image was taken at the popular spot at the spiral garage in Downtown Fresno. Many photographers shoot here so I wanted to try and create my own unique image here to stand out. This is what I created!

I little bit of info about how I pulled this image off. So, I went for an analogous color scheme for this shoot. I achieved this all in camera! The way you see this image is how it looked on the back of my LCD screen. I used 3 lights and a color temperature trick! By setting my white balance to tungsten, it made the natural light more blue. Two lights were placed to light the model. The main flash had a beauty dish with a grid to narrow the light which creates shadows. I used my second light to fill those shadows. I added a blue gel to this light to push the blue colors even more. The last light was there to light the background by filling in shadows created by the sunlight hitting the vertical structure. I also added a blue gel to this light to keep the color palette consistent.

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New image from my first shoot of 2021! I recently purchased a 70-200MM f/4 for my Sony A7RII and it is the perfect lens for this type of work. This was shot at f/8 at 200MM.

Follow me on instagram for more work like this! @zachphillipsphotography

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A red inspired photo shoot I did for the holidays

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Project 4 Submission 

Update: I added a small shadow under the arm so the contrast between the arm and inside of the box doesn't’t make it pop off.

My idea for this last project was to show mail being hand delivered through the mailbox. I was trying to come up with an idea for the last project and I found inspiration from the environment around my house. It is a simple idea but it was fun to put together.

I used three photos for this final composite. I combined the first two photos to have the mailbox open and in a different place. The last photo of my hand was used to place inside of the mailbox to be handing over the mail.

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A couple photos from a series I shot for a local candle maker’s instagram.

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Weekly Inspiration: Caravaggio

Caravaggio was an Italian painter active in Rome from 1517 to 1610. Caravaggio painted from live models to create his dramatic scenes of violent struggles. There is even an art styled named after him called Chiaroscuro which shows the use of strong contrasts of shadows and high lights with bold compositions. I was drawn to his painting called The Taking of Christ (1602) where Caravaggio put himself into the painting. Caravaggio was known to be battling with his inner demons and this is a direct representation of that. It always stuck with me cause I can picture myself there in his postion. The lighting and detail in this painting is incredible. From the highlight on the armor to the shadow detail in Christ’s eyes.

In modern times, many of us enjoy the lasting influence of Caravaggio’s work without ever knowing it. Any of Caravaggio’s paintings could be pulled from a modern movie as an example of great cinematography. I learned about Caravaggio pretty early on when I became interested in lighting for video and photo. I was drawn to his work because of the use of darkness. It made what was showered in light feel even more moving. This is all complimented by the story that's happening within the painting. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio

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Image form a shoot I originally planned to do for Halloween but I still wanted to give this dark look a try.

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Project 3 revision

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Project 3

I wanted to add a human element to this project. I don’t hate this image but it isn’t as successful as I hoped it would be! I shot all these images with a self timer which made it difficult to get every perfect. If I had more time, I would try to capture myself, the smoke and the flashlight all in the same shot because I had trouble trying to mask and blend it all in photoshop. This was one of those projects that refused to work!