Burgers And The Gym...

I have been so very busy shooting one magazine feature after another and at the same time doing more camera equipment evaluations. But I just had a chance to do something fun. My best friends at Iron Bodies Gym in Costa Mesa California had their Grand Re-Opening at their new location. This is a gym that is known for putting out some of the strongest lifters around and some top amateur competitive bodybuilders. And if you want to learn how to really bodybuilding stage pose, this can be the place to go. So what do you do for a gym Grand Re-Opening? Well you serve some good food…


Kurt rolled out a huge grill he brought from home and spent the day turning out burgers, chicken and hot dogs. Now this stack was not for some major double triple but for this crew it did only make about three burgers! So if you want a gym where you can really lift, grunting and yelling is the norm, dropping your weights is expected, and racking your weights is discouraged and considered best if you can throw that 75 pound dumbbell somewhere near where you picked it up, then Iron Bodies is your place. Check it out, just go to Iron Bodies Gym at http://www.ironbodiesgym.com.


Thanks and keep coming back if you "Wanna See More...?"

Travel Photographer

I just recently had the opportunity to shoot a travel feature for a nationwide magazine.



I can't tell you which magazine until it runs in a few months but I can tell you that there will be a cover photo from my work as well as the main feature. It was really a pleasure to shoot right around where I live in Palm Springs California. So often I am on an airplane jetting off to somewhere else to shoot. On this assignment I spent a number of days and nights shooting photographs at everything from shopping centers to restaurants to trekking around in the ice and snow at 9000 feet. The photo here will not be used, it is the mountains nearby Palm Springs during one of the very few rains we get during the year. The quick storms brought the snow level to 18 inches up there.

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alone, frustrated and lost!

Well Buckeye Color Lab is there to help you...


Knowing the difficulties that photographers face everyday, Buckeye wanted to convey that they know you feel alone sometimes. And in keeping with Buckeye's philosophy of great customer service and providing partnerships that help photographers build and grow their business, they wanted to convey that in their new ad campaign for 2008. So we conceived of showing a photographer all alone in the middle of nowhere just trying to get his work done.


Well almost in the middle of nowhere but only 15 minutes outside of Palm Springs California and 30 feet off the road side. My crew parked their cars and we set up our shoot. And other than the occasional train going by we did not have much company.


Although I guess in this photo from the shoot, it pretty much looks like I am the one all alone in the middle of nowhere. You can see this ad now in the January 2008 issues of Professional Photography Magazine and Rangefinder Magazine. The photo is also the full background of the Buckeye Color Lab trade-show booth. So if you are at Imaging USA in Tampa Florida right now you will be seeing it. Or later this year at the Wedding and Portrait Photographers Convention in Las Vegas.

Thanks for visiting and keep coming back if you "Wanna See More...?"

Olympus Magic!

There is something in common with the two immediately prior blog posts. They are both gym shoots for national magazines and they were shot by me with the Olympus E-3 camera with the Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 SWD lens.


I had a curiosity and interest in the Olympus system but had never really followed up on it. I am not that much of a camera gear geek and my interest in taking the time to learn new equipment for use is minimal at best. But one day I was early for a business appointment in Los Angeles and there was a pro camera store close by, so I walked in. The Olympus representatives happened to be there doing product demonstrations.


There are a few things of interest to me about the Olympus system. For one, Olympus was the first to have an internal sensor dust removal system. If you are a professional photographer, there is nothing more annoying than having to remove dust spots from a few hundred photos when you are on a huge deadline, automated by software or not.

The Olympus system is a designed for digital concept from the ground up. That in itself seemed interesting. Then it was also built around the 4:3 aspect ratio. We are most familiar with the 3:2 aspect ratio of the 35mm cameras. But for a lot of shooting that is really inconvenient. With 3:2 you get a full size print essentially around 8x12 inches in size and multiples of that. So if you want a standard print of 8x10 or 11x14, you have to crop your image or print with borders. The 4:3 format also matches medium format which is also my shooting preference. So the uniformity was of interest to me.

Next of interest to me is the Zuiko lenses. Having a reputation for being very sharp, the variety of lenses fitting my shooting needs is almost perfect with a long reach and f/2 apertures. The camera system creates a comparative multiple in focal length as compared to other systems. So the 12-60 lens on the Olympus is the same as a 24-120 lens on another system. The lenses are also comparatively smaller and lighter than other systems. That is a big deal if you fly with your gear and of you are shooting with multiple bodies and lenses in tight places.

As I handled the camera I was pleased with the ergonomics and the big bright viewfinder. The menu system seemed simple enough as did most of the controls. The Olympus reps were concise in their explanations and truly interested in supporting the professional photographer. I found out that much like two other manufacturers, Olympus has an equipment loaner and service program for the pros. That is very important. To further evaluate the system, Olympus offered to send me out a system to try out on an actual shoot.

So a coupe of days prior to my shoots, the E-3 arrived along with the 12-60 lens. I spent a little time looking it over and found most features easy to set up and use. I gave a quick look through the manual for some more details and it all started coming together. I also downloaded the latest version of Olympus Studio 2 for RAW processing. And then it was time to shoot a few photos. I happened to be meeting a friend who is an advanced amateur photographer so I took it along.


My first real subject was Richard sitting across from me at a table at Starbucks. With the sun having set behind the mountains I did something I never do, I did a shot with the built in flash. And it was the best built in flash shot I have ever seen. The image on the LCD looked great and I was very impressed.

The next few days and again in a week were spent using the system to shoot actual national magazine features. In total the system worked flawlessly. To sum up, the photos, all shot in RAW, were the best out of camera photos I have seen except for medium format digital. They are sharp, colors are wonderfully saturated and still real and life like. Contrast and shadow detail excellent. The system was fast focusing and easy to use. The LCD on the back of the camera is the most useable in this size I have seen, big and clear and sharp. I could actually evaluate what I was shooting.

I processed my shoots in Lightroom as opposed to the Olympus software but only because I was on a very quick deadline and was not sure about using Studio 2. But I can tell you the RAW images in both are beyond exceptional. The photos were so excellent that I needed almost no post work other than standard skin blemish work. If anything that was more difficult because the photos were so very sharp. But I have never had to do so little post processing. And the auto white balance was the most accurate I have seen. The skin tones are amazing, perfect!

Now I know much has been talked about Live View which allows you to view your scenes live for shooting. However I really did not have a chance to evaluate it. I can certainly see uses for it and enabling Live View is with a very convenient and simply placed button. But I will say that being able to swivel the LCD is really convenient and the idea that it reverses and fold the LCD inward to protect it is very smart.

Another point about image quality is something that you see in medium format. In medium format, images have almost a 3 dimensional quality. More than just depth of field, I think it must having something to do with shadow details, tonality, and smooth transitions. I can very much see a lot of that quality in the images from the Olympus. Take a look at this photo from one of the gym shoots...


Also note the skin tones and colors. And finally also take a look at this photo which I shot for the cover of another magazine.


The Olympus E-3 camera with the Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 SWD lens lived up to way beyond my expectations. I am sure there are more points and features I am forgetting to mention but those are the things that stand out in my mind at the moment. But the biggest point more than anything else is the image quality. Everyone who saw the photos as they peaked over my shoulder as I reviewed them on the computer could do nothing more than say WOW. And if you have ever worked around your clients looking over your shoulder, you know how important that is!

There is one more point. Compared to the cost of other camera systems, the Olympus is just a bargain. If I think of anything else I will update or maybe do another post. But if you have any questions send me an e-mail to SecondFocus@mac.com.

Thanks and keep coming back if you "Wanna See More...?"

Lifting Weights and Golf!

I had the chance to shoot another gym series with amateur bodybuilder and fitness trainer Jason Phillips...


Jason has a very interesting history so far. He has also been a professional golfer. And there is more to Jason but I will wait to tell you later after the magazine feature we did is on the news stand and book store shelves in a couple of months.


Thanks again to the Power of Fitness health club in Palm Springs California for hosting our shoot. Keep coming back if you "Wanna See More...?"

Gym Time With Ava Cowan...

Not a bad way to spend some time is to spend it with top fitness model and Ms. Figure America, Ava Cowan.


But in this case we spent the time shooting a workout series for one of the top bodybuilding and fitness magazines. We had Ava fly in from Florida on a Thursday to Palm Springs California. The first order of business after she settled in was to look over the wardrobe. Provided by top fashion designer, Elisabetta Rogiani, we had a mountain of sportswear and swimwear and more to look through. A little dinner and the next morning, makeup and hair styling and off to the gym.


We were hosted by a superb gym in Palm Springs, the Power of Fitness. It is a big, wide open health club with a lot of new equipment, well maintained and a wonderful staff. Certainly one of the best gyms I have shot in and a great gym to spend your work out time.


Although it might look like it, shooting in a gym is not just a guy with a camera and a good looking girl. Behind the scenes we have my lighting assistant, a second assistant, a makeup artist and another photographer shooting some behind the scenes photos along with my second assistant. There are strobes placed at different locations and a small mountain of gear on hand. Then of course we have all the clothes too.


For two days, Ava did not just look like she was working out, she was working out. Actually she lifted and pressed weights for at least 5 hours on each day. We didn't make it look real, it was real. Something else to think about on shoots like this is food. A top competitor like Ava doesn't keep a body like hers by not eating. Exactly the opposite, she has to eat about every two hours. And good food! This is not a shoot where you bring in fast food and sodas. So we had Ava to feed as well as a crew.


The workout series was also punctuated on Friday night with a night time shoot of swimwear, so we really worked Ava hard and everyone else for that matter. Saturday it was dinner for everyone at one of the better Mexican restaurants in the area. Ava even went off her regular diet. But she still managed to fit on the airplane when she flew home on Sunday.

There is more to this story so look for a couple of more blog posts shortly. We tested out some new camera equipment and even squeezed in one more shoot on the same weekend. So I hope you found this interesting and keep coming back if you "Wanna See More...?"

And thanks to my friends and photographers, Warren Weber and John Bender for the behind the scenes photos.