James and Jessica Friley | Second Shooter

I had the privilege of second-shooting for my friend Sarah Patch in April.  As a second shooter, my goal was to capture unique ideas for my portfolio, but also to make sure I captured some of the detail from the day that the main shooter couldn’t focus on.  Specifically, if you pay attention, you can find many quiet moments or abstract compositions that are really a whole world of shooting on their own.

Second shooting is a lot of fun, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to build portfolio, and practice, practice, practice!!   Here are just a few of my favorites from the day.


Subway On The Floor

Not staged.   He’s two and a half.   This is reality.

April 14, 2010 - 8:02 pm

sandra groveman - Oh my..how I miss him…what a treasure, and amazing blessing! ‘Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them!’ Ps.127 You are a blessed man! I love and miss you!

May 18, 2010 - 1:49 am

Daniel - Haha! Awesome expression! Good thinking to grab the camera, too. I probably would have been annoyed that I had to clean up after my kid and missed out on the fun. :-)

Before And After | Samurai Sword Scenic

Here’s just a little peek at some of the work I do in the digital darkroom.  When I’m doing a shoot involving actors, films, or anything cinematic, there are things I do to highlight the drama and add that necessary cinematic flair.  The changes with this shot aren’t so dramatic, but they make a big difference to me!

The steps include color correction, noise reduction, selective sharpening and selective color pop on the sword, sky replacement using masks, layers, layer enlargement, layer blurring, and then selective painting with the brush tool.  Overall there were probably roughly about 700-1,000 individual steps between the shot as taken in camera, and the final result.

BEFORE: (straight out of camera)

AFTER

April 7, 2010 - 3:20 pm

bigfan - nice. not too much. just right so that the sword packs a punch.

“Samurai Rumble 3-D” Photos | New York City

I had the privilege of being involved with helping Young Lee, a friend of mine, shoot a 3-D film in New York City.  Young is a visual effects animator and an actor, and he assembled his own home-made High-Definition 3-D camera.  Watching the tech unfold is a story in and of itself.  I was never really a huge fan of 3-D on my own, but it is mesmerizing to actually work with it and see it come to life.  You can watch the film on Youtube, here: Samurai Rumble 3-D! Red/Cyan 3-D glasses required.  You can find them on Amazon.com for pretty cheap if you’re interested.

I have a small cameo in the film as a knight.  The day we shot was very busy, as you can imagine, so we had very little time for photos, but I loved the setting and did the best I could with our limited time.  We had just about ten minutes before the sun dipped over the horizon to shoot portraits.

The other samurai in the film and in the photos is Eisuke Nakajima.  Eisuke is a kendo swordmaster, a trained samurai and a highly trained stage combatant.  He taught me more about stage fighting for the short scene I was in than I had than I’d ever encountered.  If you watch the way he moves in the film, it’s a beautiful thing – especially when you see how light on his feet he really is.  He was involved in every aspect of the film, especially a short like this that involves so much choreography.

Since this is a new blog for me, I will eventually put up some posts from my shoot with Young Lee last summer.

April 5, 2010 - 1:53 pm

emily - # 1 is amazing! Your blog posts always inspire me!

Sarah Stanley

Sarah Stanley is a world-class athlete and fitness motivator.   It’s impossible to sum up everything she does, because every time I catch up with her, she’s preparing for another 50k uphill race, or just completed a 100 mile marathon.  Yes – that is not a typo, friends.  She runs 100-mile marathons.  Sarah’s website is:  http://sarahstanleyinspired.com/.

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