My Shoot with Mother’s Anthem…

Strobist Info:
“Beauty Setup”
1 AB-1600 w/ 60″ Softlighter, on boom, above model
Reflector below camera, to bounce light under the eyes a little

It’s finally here… My shoot with Mother’s Anthem!

Well, part one at least… hehe, we had such a blast shooting these! Here’s the story behind the set (story style, of course… what else is there?):

It was a warm day… A day, unlike many others, for Matthew and Daniel had quite the task set before them: building that of a set. They looked deep into the woods, through many paths, and with their four hands, found the darkest of the fallen branches, and brought them back to the opening of the forest. With their new found discovery, they attempted, many times, to fill Daniel’s car and trunk with these branches, and then, after roughly an hour, drove, illegal style (check the following pictures to see the 2 foot long branch sticking out of the window), all the way downtown, to their humble studio…

Enough of the story mode… hehe. Seriously though, it was the craziest car ride ever, being surrounded by sharp branches all around your head, while driving down big roads, with a branch or two sticking out well past the windows, passing police officers even.

Once we finally had the branches upstairs, we put up the paper, painted it (stripes, with rollers), and began building our “set”. I had a dark gothic play styled set in mind, which is what we were attempting to create. Later that evening, as it got to be closed to midnight, we went around downtown, and found some old bricks, to use for “branch stands”. With those back at the studio, we propped up the branches, and tied the rest of them to the ceiling, to have the “enclosed” look to the set. We were done!

I was extremely nervous leaving that all that night, figuring, that with my luck, the band would arrive from Austin in the morning, to our fallen down set, or something of the like. Luckily, everything was still perfect in the morning, and after a few test shots, we got the images that we were going for. Even though these might not end up being the “final” album edits for their upcoming CD/DVD, I thought I’d finally get these up, since they’re up on the band’s site. Thanks so much for looking, and for reading!

Without any further ado, enjoy!

By the way, if you haven’t heard Mothers Anthem yet, check them out, because they’re quite amazing… I do their graphic design as well, and am currently hard at work on their upcoming CD/DVD design.

Thanks for looking!

www.mhoganphoto.com

These are my woods.

(Clicking on the images will allow you to view them bigger, with a black background, via my Flickr site)

We had a great time shooting these! I’ve been doing mostly paid work lately (which you will most definitely not ever hear me even begin to complain about… hehe), and wanted a little break… I’ve had this idea for quite a while (taking a family portrait of my brother and I in this style), and finally went through with it.

Luckily, there were tons of clouds out, so the lighting was perfect!

And yes, the face/eye makeup was actually on us, and not added in photoshop, thanks to my amazing girlfriend, and her makeup skills… hehe

Thanks for looking!

www.mhoganphoto.com

Client Shoot: Stephen Tilmon

I forgot, after checking my Flickr stream, that I hadn’t yet uploaded any more shots from my shoot with Stephen from a few months back, so I figured hey, why not throw a few more online? And, while I’m at it, why not practice my amazing book narrative styled blog writing, for no apparent reason?

The setup to that day, narrative style…

It was rainy, and quite dreary; for it was the day before “the Chase” shoot.  We hadn’t yet known how it was to get trespassing charges, for we were young.  Stephen Tilmon needed promotional images for his solo acoustic project, so I, and my great friend Daniel, were called to help with his dilemma…

For the rest of this post, I’ll go back to regular, un-italicized English… We had a great time at that shoot, trying to get the fire to light both of the “spray cans” consecutively (which almost left Daniel, my daring and action-packed lighting assistant, totally without any hair on his arms), and finally, after roughly 30 attempts, got 1 take that worked.

Without any further waiting, here are 4 random shots from the shoot, including, of course, the one that almost melted my camera…

I can’t wait for you, the viewer, to get to see my new shoot with my band coming up this next week! It’ll be quite action-packed (my favorite word, as you’ll get to know), and I’m quite excited about it… I’ll give you two hints, to hold you over until then:

1) There’s a long vehicle involved

2) It’ll have a New York “fashion” type feel/look to the final image

Any ideas? Stay tuned for more on that shoot, mid next week…

Until then, thanks for looking everybody!

www.mhoganphoto.com

My 2 New Favorite Lenses…

Technical Info:
Olympus FL-50, left, 1/16th power
Nikon SB-28, right, 1/16th power

Are you all jealous of my amazing new “custom” lightbox? It’s made out of the highest quality cardboard shipping box ever. In all seriousness, check out Strobist for more info on making a light box for next to nothing!

I love these two lenses, very, very much… They cover everything from wide angle to semi-telephoto, and macro work, and are definitely quite versatile! I shot my last wedding using primarily these two lenses, and they were definitely quite the performers! Instead of attempting to give my own reviews of each lens, check out the following two, very in depth reviews of each (they’ve both received only the best reviews):

Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50mm F2.0 Macro Review
Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD Review

Thanks for looking!

www.mhoganphoto.com

Just to prove I’m still alive…

After the crazy storm, and after we lost power for 3 days, I’ve had quite a lot of catching up to do! Thus, you see I haven’t been able to post as often as I had originally planned to, because of the whole catching up thing.
With that being said, I figured I’d post a picture I took of myself tonight, just to prove that I do actually still exist. Here’s the technical info, for those who are interested:

Technical Info:
Nikon SB-28 at 1/16th, snooted, camera right
Olympus FL-50 at 1/16th, snooted, camera left

Had a great time setting this shot up… I got pretty bored tonight, so I ran to Wal-Mart (I spend all of my money there, at B&H, and Whataburger), bought me some red wrapping paper.

I then put up a black sheet, and tacked up a strip of the wrapping paper, to give it the red stripe.

I’ll be posting tons of new shoots coming up here pretty soon, since I’ve tackled most of the processing for them. Thanks for looking, and check back soon!

www.mhoganphoto.com

Ashley + Clint

We had a great time last Friday (09.05.08)  at Ashley and Clint’s wedding! It was quite the long day, but hey, that’s what we’re used to! hehe, great couple definitely, and great families… Here are a few of the shots from the bridal shoot, and the wedding:

Thanks for looking!

www.mhoganphoto.com

My New Blog

Welcome! I know things seem a little bare around here right now, but never fear! I’m currently in the process of getting this whole blog thing going, and up to date. What all will I have on here, you ask? Here’s what:

• Latest Client Shoots
• Funny/Interesting Stories
• Photography Tips/Reviews
• Much More

Within the next few days, I’ll start getting sample images from my last few shoots, including a wedding from last Friday. Until then, thanks for looking, and enjoy my story below about our trespassing charges!

www.mhoganphoto.com

Trespassing, The Chase, and The Image

A few months back, I came up with an idea for a photoshoot that I wanted to one day shoot… It entailed a train, with suited men in pursuit on top, with guns, and a briefcase, all at night. I wanted it to have a semi-animated look to it, and feel like a scene from a movie.

Fast forward about a month and a half, and there we are, walking through the woods, with one Alienbees strobe, stands, tripod, camera gear, and a battery pack, all in about 90 degree weather; we were all in suits too, which didn’t really help the heat/hiking situation all that much. After about a mile or so, we cut in to the tracks, and began setting up on one of the train cars. Daniel, my great friend, and daring assistant, handed me up my gear, and we started marking spots on top of the train car, as to where each person would end up being when they were shot, for later composite work.

After the first person was shot, we noticed the first cop, who walked up in a brisk fashion, yelling at us to get down. We, deciding that we didn’t feel like a real-life chase scene, got all of our gear off of the train, and followed the officer. Up a hill, there were 3 police vehicles, and a railway commisioner, who wanted to press charges, against all of us. As it turns out, I, who am a great friend, got 3 of my close friends, brother, and myself trespassing charges! The officers were quite nice through the whole ordeal, and even took us all the way back to our car.

A few weeks later, and after meeting with an attorney, we met in a parking lot, and re-setup the train scene, via duct tape on the parking lot’s surface. We then marked the same spots we had previously marked on the train’s top, and shot the scene there, and composited it all later in post. After about 15 hours of computer work, I, and everybody I’ve shown it to, think that the tickets were well worth the final image, and story. It was a fun experience, believe it or not, and, without further ado, here’s the final image, and a picture from our “celebration” dinner afterwards (click the images to see their full versions):

I hope you like it, and thanks for looking!

Moral of the story: Don’t trespass… *wink wink*

www.mhoganphoto.com