We had a nice cover story in Rangefinder magazine this month, on newsstands now (April issue).

For their lighting issue they did a story on the mobile studio I used to shoot 99 Occupy Wall St. Portraits in one day. And they ran 28 images from the series on the cover. You can see the entire story and layout in the digital edition (here). Layout photos below.

The OWS project just doesn’t seem to stop kicking.

That project was intended to be the kick-off to my move into portraiture of prominent and influential people. I’ve continued building in that direction with a steady stream of portrait shoots that I’m looking forward to sharing more of soon.

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The first of a few exhibitions of the OWS portrait series was held by The Station Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the Houston Fotofest.

It was a big success generating a lot of interest and feedback. Working with the museum curator, Tim Gonzalaz, was a pleasure. The Station Muesum in Houston is a fantastic organization with a creative take on art and society.

The next exhibition will be in New York produced by Shoot 4 Change (www.shoot4change.net), a non-profit organization I’m now a member of that features photography that documents or inspires change.

Also working on a number of art projects with exhibitions in mind… much happening.

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Digital Photo Pro magazine did a feature story and ran our work on the cover of this month’s issue.

Story text here, images with the print magazine layout below (I always prefer the print mag layouts to the more utilitarian website layouts)

The story is one of the more thoughtful one’s I’ve seen, with a lot of attention on the OWS portrait series.

We have a ton of stuff in the pipeline right now, so will have a lot of press and media projects coming out of the studio soon.

It’s a great time, ramping up quickly this year on both the photography and the motion content side. It’s an amazing time to be creating art and media content.

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I have been working on a series of promotional images with Jesse Campbell, the powerhouse vocalist and leading performer with Christina Aguilera’s team on the NBC tv show “The Voice”.

If you haven’t seen Jesse yet (both of his performances so far on The Voice have been viral hits), you should check these out: Battle Round performance and Audition performance.

I’ve also been working with Jesse’s design team for his web site www.JesseCampbell.com, so that will have a lot of familiar images. Jesse asked them to build his website around the work we shot together (layouts, color tones, etc…). Nice to have the work find a home so well designed for it.

We shot most of these at the design studio of Thomas Schoos, another creative collaborator I’ve been brainstorming with and a huge talent in his own right (he has done some of the most high profile interior designs of restaurants and hotels in LA and around the world).

Images below.

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I have worked for many years with the owners and chief executives of CAO Cosmetics, Alee and Peggy — beginning prior to the launch of their product line (they are also closely affiliated with Paul Mitchell, running a prominent region of the training network).

They recently needed new images to promote the color components of the makeup line. We did a full day shoot with three models — it was a lot of fun and we captured a tons of great images. It was the kind of job where the editing process was tough because there were so many we didn’t want to let go. Hopefully the final images will be public soon.

The lighting was a classic beauty setup, with a slight twist: Overhead butterfly key light, with a big full bounce reflector under the chin. But instead of a beauty dish I used a 27″ Elinchrome Rotalux Deep softbox reflector that I’ve been loving for portraits.

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I was commissioned by DPA microphones to shoot a portrait of jazz legend Wayne Shorter.

My assistants and I drove to his home in West Hollywood, set up a small portable studio in his garage, did a few lighting tests then let him know we were ready.

He came out with three different types of saxophones. For each we attached the DPA mic, and he played while I shot. What a cool way to get into a rhythm and riff off of another artist while in one’s own creative process.

To me portraits are the opposite of the big conceptual or fashion shoots. Simple, quick, intimate. Small crew, minimal gear. All about a conversation with the subject in which we are both giving and taking.

I have committed to doing a lot more of these in 2012.

Images below.

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This is a collection of images we did with fashion designer Anthony Franco.

It follows the story of a special training facility for the “lethal arts & sciences”. It’s not every day you get to depict assassins and gun-play in a commercial shoot, so when the chance arises one needs to make the most of it. This is what we did with the opportunity.

It was a large team working on this from wardrobe, to casting and talent, to set design, production, and the assisting team. And that’s just for the still photography part of the shoot.

We shot in several locations — most of which was in the building where my studio is. But we transformed several of these spots, even people who know the building well would not recognize them. It always helps when the environment is physically built rather than doing it digitally in post. I think it leads to better images, and is certainly a more engaging experience on set.

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Coming soon in the blog we will have some new work and a behind-the-scenes series, but now a couple new press pieces.

First, an article in the latest Hasselblad Bulletin on the OWS Portrait Series.

Hasselblad Bulletin, “Faces of Protest” Portraits by August Bradley

And recently the luxury art and culture magazine Le Grand did a retrospective story in their printed edition.

In addition to the interview, some of the info for the story they pulled from old articles (nice to see they did a lot of research, but should have checked the dates on the articles — particularly when they said I’ve only been shooting for “a few years”. That was from my first article). It’s a beautiful magazine, you can flip through it here or see the story pages below.

Le Grand Magazine digital rendition of Print Issue (p. 61+ for August Bradley Story)

And here are the pages from the print mag, click on thumbnail for larger view…

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With our switch to the RED Epic camera, we’re now working with RAW files on the tv commercial shoots. This gives us an extraordinary amount of color control and range. Below are a few snapshots from my day in the color grading suite optimizing the color on the files from our last shoot.

With film (as opposed to digital), color was an obvious part of the Director of Photography’s job since color was a result of film selection, development technique, and the choice of lighting, lenses and filters. The DP would recommend and come to a decision with the Director before the shoot on what the final look would be, then execute that look.

Now that digital is taking over, the color tones are largely determined in post-production on computers (setting aside set and wardrobe choices). The tools range from simple sliders in the editing software, to separate software packages just for color grading, to full hardware/software integrated bay’s at the higher end like we have in the images here. This particular system is the Nucoda Film Master at the post-production house Keep Me Posted.

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The rapid viral momentum of the “99 Faces of Occupy Wall St.” portrait series has been fascinating to watch.

It was propelled by being run with background articles in the The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The New York Times Lens Blog (one of the most respected photography presentations), and many others driving tens of thousands of daily unique visitors to the website. It all happened in less than two weeks, here’s a summary:

The site went live late on a Wednesday and posted I to my blog, Facebook, and Twitter account (@augustbradley). That Thursday and Friday most of the Occupy movement blogs, twitter accounts, and digital publications were posting it including a home page post on AdBusters, the media publication that inspired the occupy movement in the first place. That sent a big spike in traffic and hundreds of Twittter tweets and Facebook posts.

The following Monday The Washington Post and New York Times both expressed interest in working it into their online publication schedules. Then the next morning the police raided and evicted the OWS camp and the story hit a new level of urgency and interest.

The Washington Post ran it on their Arts & Culture blog immediately, pulling comments from my project description and from my blog post into their article (The Washington Post “Arts” Story). The New York Times Lens Blog, one of the most influential and widely followed photography blogs, called asking for images re-sized to their specs within three hours, and they did a twenty minute interview for their article which ran the next morning (NY Times “Lens” Gallery Story).

This led to discussions about the series on Slate, The New Yorker, and many others.

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The new RED Epic Camera and Arri 18-80mm 2.6 lens that we were testing in my earlier post has now been rolled into production on our latest tv commercials. It’s a beautiful setup — detailed photos below.

The lens is not only quicker for transitions (no lens changes), but also sharper than the Zeiss CP2 primes we had been using. The raw files are beautiful, with an extensive range to manipulate in post. I also love the well thought-out touch screen field monitor from which you control most functions in the camera. Fast, intuitive with exceptional image quality.

It’s not light, but compared with cinema cameras of even a year ago in the same category it’s far more versatile in terms of movement and rigging. The extra weight is actually nice on the larger fluid head, making moves on the slider (shown below) even smoother.

We had a curve-ball thrown at us in one shoot which required shooting portions at very dim lighting levels, and we had no problem matching the brighter shots with the more dimly lit ones.

Very happy with this new setup, this will be the standard in the immediate future for our broadcast tv commercials.

Photos from the recent productions below show how we configured the rig.

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While in NY for my presentation at Shoot NYC, I also did a portrait series of the Occupy Wall St. protesters.

It turned into a more elaborate project than initially anticipated — my team and I ended up bringing a portable studio powered by Broncolor A2L packs with Lithium batteries and the MobilLED heads (a pretty sweet setup and super portable). Every image I had seen of the Wall St. protests had a snapshot or photo-journalistic feel. I wanted to bring a more distinctive look and sensibility, while still capturing the grit of camping for months in a concrete park and the intensity behind their efforts.

This series also takes advantage of the Hasselblad medium format super hi-res captures, showing a great deal of detail and crispness. There were a ton of other photographers shooting that day (and every day), virtually all with Canon or Nikon. I wanted to create something different.

Since the movement is non-hierarchical and is not represented by leaders or clearly defined personalities, any glimpse requires a broad sample. 99 people selected as arbitrarily as possible seemed like an appropriate, as well as symbolic, number to get a sense of what’s happening here.

This portrait series focuses on faces — no environment, no signs; each person with an honest look into the lens without any trappings other than what they were wearing at the time. We wanted it to be personal, these portraits are a look into the eyes.

You can see the collection at the link below. The series was shot with this type of grid-like presentation in mind, with the ability to click deeper onto any of the images.

Full Presentation:
www.99facesOfOccupyWallSt.org

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Before any major gear change is implemented in a production shoot, I test extensively to understand the strengths and limitations of new pieces of equipment. One of my long running tv commercial projects has outgrown the 5D, and we are rolling the new RED Epic into the production. I’ve used the Epic many times, but it is new in this context (set/lighting arrangement). So today we tested for this use in particular.

We are also looking at changing from the Zeiss CP2 cinema lenses to an Arri/Fujinon 18-80mm 2.6 zoom to be able to do transitions faster without lens changes. I LOVE this lens, it’s my new favorite for cinema work and will increasingly be rolled into my productions. The trade-of for the convenience of a zoom with such sharp glass is size. The weight of the rig just tripled. But happy to make that trade in most situations.

With the ability to jump between 5k and 4k in the Epic (and the equivalent shift in sensor crop), I can get an equivalent range to the 5D of 28mm-100mm. Perfect for my kind of shooting.

Photos after the break…

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I recently did a WWII aviator concept shoot for a film in development.

The images feature actress Ina Kopp who is a prominent name in film and tv in parts of Europe, and is now making a move to the American scene. Wardrobe by Louis Verdad.

It was fun shooting at the air field with the classic planes and all the wind and smoke. We shot in an airplane hanger and out on the runway, but space was tight as both were crowded with other planes and equipment.

These are actual planes from the WWII era. The distressed one was underwater for 40 years — set designers couldn’t build that very easily.

Had to keep our footprint small, and be in and out quickly so used one power pack (Verso) with two or three heads off of it. Played with colored gels to create subtle mixed colors in the light. Wind machine, smoke machine, and two great assistants. All shot on Hasselblad 39 megapixel.

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Among the most fun things I have done in my career as a photographer is the live demo shoots and presentations for Hassselblad, Broncolor, Livebooks, and others. After each one I’m always asked about workshops, but it has been hard to work them into the schedule.

No more. I’m clearing the schedule and creating the workshops I have always envisioned.

First up is a two-day workshop on June 25 & 26 all about Photography Production — how to plan the shoot, casting and working with model agencies, props and sets, and then all the elements around the shoot itself (working with the creative team, directing models, lighting, vibe, client presentation on-set, etc…).

I’m throwing a lot of resources into this elite workshop — including the sponsorship support of the premier camera company, Hasselblad, and the most advanced photo lighting, Broncolor. They’re going to give us an arsenal of gear to work with. My studio will become a giant sandbox to play in.

We have discussions planned on key parts of the business, and demo shoots, and hands-on instruction (your camera and/or the Hasselblad H4D cameras provided). We’ll explore both simple and complex lighting, concept development, and execution.

It’s my goal to make this a once in a lifetime experience that will rapidly take each participant’s photography to higher level. And I anticipate the dialogue started in the workshop to continue through the online platforms we’re building.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions. Early-bird discount for those signing up by May 23.

Details here: Photography Immersion Workshop