Behind the Scenes with Christa Meola

The week of February 6-12 I had the great honor to meet and work with one of my favorite photographers, Christa Meola, as she presented a boudoir photography workshop for creativeLIVE.

 

It all began on Monday night when Kim and I picked up Christa from the airport and brought her to Seattle. From there we did a couple of photo sessions in preparation for the workshop. These included the Mercedes Benz that you might have seen in my iphone blog post yesterday.

Christa Meola with stand-in model, Nikko

Thursday found us in a downtown Seattle hotel doing photo sessions for Celeste and Kenna. Sorry, no photos to show you of those sessions. We'll have to wait and see if Christa or one of the ladies posts their photos. I just helped out with lighting and set up and then ducked out of the room to help make them feel more comfortable. I do have some behind the scenes photos though...

Rachel, Celeste, Kenna, and Christa

Gray seamless gaffer taped to wall
with Westcott Apollo Orb soft box

Thursday afternoon Christa and I went over the notes and 5 or 6 photo setups for the workshop. I was pretty busy from here out and didn't get a lot of photos, but here are a few of the sets.

 

Students get their turns photographing

We finished up on Sunday with a fan dance performance and a few more photo sessions.

And that was a wrap. Makeup and hair was provided by Rachel Olson from Hollywood and Lindsey Watkins from Seattle. Set design and building was done by Kaleo Quenzer of Seattle.

Actual photos by Christa are available on her blog.

Some behind the scenes reflections from creativeLIVE students:
B Allan Stewart
Michelle Coppini

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For the gear folks, here is what we used over the week:
Canon 5D mkII camera
Canon 24-70 f/2.8L, Canon 50mm f/1.2L, Canon 85mm f/1.2L lenses
Pocket Wizard Multimax wireless triggers
Alien Bees AB800 strobe heads
SPSystems Excalibur 1600 strobe head
Westcott Apollo Orb soft box
Westcott 12x50 strip soft box
Chimera Medium soft box
Interfit 24x24 softbox (used without a diffuser as a hair light for the dancers)
Photek 60" Softlighter II
LitePanels 1x1 LED light
BlowItFans 3-speed fan

If you have questions about the gear used in the workshop you can post them in the creativeLIVE blog.

John and Charly of the Cabiri

It is always fun and exciting to get a call from Charly asking me to work on a new concept photo for the Cabiri performance group.

John and Charly preparing for the photo session

We've done some fun underwater photos, we've gone to Mt Rainier in the snow, and we've documented shows. And now we get to work in the "studio" (the studio being the SANCA workspace, but I got to bring in lights and treat it as a location studio).

John Murphy

Charly McCreary

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Tech info: Speedotron strobes with a Westcott Apollo Orb and 12x50 Strip Light. First photo (overhead applying makeup) taken with an iPhone and ambient light in the studio. Big thanks to the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts (SANCA) for providing the space to work in.

Recent iPhone photos

To help ease back into the blog I start with some recent iPhone photos.

Seattle Sky

Shadows at the Locks

Trees

Mercedes

Mercedes 220S

Super Spies Being Spied On

I'll be adding some of these to my next book of iPhone Photography. The current book is now available for purchase.

Thanks for taking a look!

Getting Back Into It

Did you miss me? It has been over a month since I last posted a blog entry. But I think I'm ready to be back!

It's been quite a month since you saw me do my class on creativeLIVE. Leading up to that I was just worried about getting sick the day before. That didn't happen. But a week or so later I was down with a lung infection and nasty cough. Doctors thought it might be pneumonia, but the x-rays were clear. Luckily, it didn't hurt (no sinus infection or sore throat), but man, it was annoying. And still lingers on a bit.

Besides my health, Mom tried to give us a scare. Complaining of tightness in her chest, and pain in her arms. I tried to tell her it was indigestion, but we called 911 and had her in the emergency room for tests. She passed with flying colors. Good numbers on the stress tests and we got her home. Seems like the doctors agreed with me and put her on a new acid reducer.

I could tell she was starting to feel better already

Throw in a trip to California to meet with my day job cohorts, and a few photo sessions here and there and a fantastic creativeLIVE workshop with Christa Meola, I find myself itching to get back to the blog. Look for some new posts over the next few days.

Thanks for your patience. It feels great to be back!

John