israel groveman photography

Here are my favorite images from the Marcus Shirock portrait session!  I’m really excited to unveil some of these additions to my portfolio.   Marcus is an actor in LA, and a former football champ.  He was recently one of 40 people chosen from California to audition for the part of a very famous warrior – and no, it’s not “Robin Hood.”  When I shot with him, the goal was to capture as much as we could in a day, and we ended up having time for about 3-4 different looks.  Marcus is as gung-ho and committed as he looks – without question.  It is one of the coldest days I can remember we were shooting without tree cover amidst ice floes on the Potomac River – I was freezing myself, and I had Under Armour and North Face covering me.  He was dedicated. There are very few actors/models who would go as far as Marcus went to get these shots.   The chain mail shirt he was wearing part of the time weighs more than 60 pounds, and along with the freezing weather, the modeling conditions were very challenging.

Marcus will be using these images to create a press kit for himself at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on January 21st, 2010.

Marcus’ grandfather, Chief Turkey Tayac, of the Piscataway Indians, was the last chief who was born in the 19th century to die in the 20th.  He is buried in a State Park across from Mt. Vernon, the home of our first President, George Washington.  We shot these photos in the park itself – it was the first time Marcus had been back for 17 years.

This first shot represents about six hours of work in Photoshop – and it is probably one of my very favorites from the entire shoot.  Although we didn’t shoot in the mountains, it sure felt cold enough for it.

The goal with this type of work is to go for something that looks manufactured with boosted drama, without losing too much of the original detail. With my black and whites, I specifically targeted a 1940’s era tonal balance that was often used in actor headshots.

Here in this next shot, in my post-processing, I was specifically targeting a color palette and grain mixture that would evoke a movie made sometime inbetween 1970 and 1980.

A bit more Photoshop, just for fun.

I didn’t have an action that created a specific color palette I wanted that is connected to a movie Marcus auditioned for – so I created my own filter using reds, browns, and golds.  I like how it came out.

My clients get multiple copies of the best images like this – so they have some to choose from.

Last but not least, I had some fun and created a mini poster using some stock photography that I already owned. I had a great time working with you, Marcus.