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Photography

Damn Ugly Photography – Brad Trent



Don’t get confused by the title. I really don’t think any of these photographs are ugly. Quite the opposite actually.

Damn Ugly Photography is the website of a New York based photographer with a great sense of humor – Brad Trent. Growing up in Western Canada he, like many great photographers, began shooting at an early age and later moved to NYC where he started shooting for the Life magazine at the age of 25. Since then he’s done work for major magazines like Time, Newsweek, Esquire, The New York Times and photographed everyone from Barack Obama to Steven Spielberg to CEOs of some of the largest corporations in the US.

Over time as he started shooting with more complex lighting setups, he began a great series he calls “The Artificial Portraits” where he shoots his subjects together with the lights and all gear to show the unreality of the portraits we all see every day. In another series called the Light Tests he shoots his subjects with gray cards and color checkers. Absolutely love these ideas. He also documents some of his shoots on his blog, some of which I will be covering later in the future. Be sure to check out his website for higher res images. More photos inside the post.

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Photography

Breakfest Interrupted by Bruton Stroube


Breakfast Interrupted is a video shoot created for Marlin Network’s annual breakfast event by the talented folks at Bruton Stroube – a still and motion studio based in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Their specialty is (delicious) food photography although they shoot everything from animals through food & beverages to portraits and landscapes.

In this piece, shot mostly with the Phantom Gold HD at 1000 fps, they tried to “showcase food in a beautiful and unusual way”. Capturing thrown and spilled food in super slow motion certainly looks mesmerizing and it also looks like they had a blast doing it. Be sure to check out their portfolio for more great images and motion work. BTS video and more photos after the break.

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Photography

Nike Women Make Yourself Campaign


Make Yourself is an ad campaign for Nike Women shot by two great photographers Annie Leibovitz and Melissa Rodwell. Annie was hired to shoot the actual ad campaign, while Melissa was hired to shoot the Look Book.

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Photography

Chmil. for Phase One

This video is part of a series of promotional videos for Phase One. In this particular one they show the making of a BMW campaign shot by Erik Chmil who is a car photographer based in Cologne, Germany.

I’ve always been fascinated by the amount of work that goes into shooting cars. It usually looks more like a production of a Hollywood movie than a photo shoot. The amount of lights, specialty railings and all kind of equipment is just staggering.

I remember seeing a lighting setup that was used for a car shoot a while ago (can’t remember the name of the photographer unfortunately). It was a night shot, they closed off the whole street, brought in a small crane, sprinkled the whole road so it looked as if it was raining and I think they used around 15 different lights to get the shot they were after. Crazy stuff.

On a side note if anyone knows the name of the second song in this video, be sure to let me know.

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Photography

Tim Tadder Spotlight by Adobe



Adobe has recently added a nice behind the scenes shoot from photographer Tim Tadder to their showcase.

I’ve been a fan of his work for a long time and while I personally think that this sort of edgy lighting and composite based images have been a bit overdone in the past year or so, as far as I know, he was one of the first photographers to apply this style in commercial campaigns and has certainly mastered the look over the years.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is a promo video by Adobe so you’ll hear a lot of how great Photoshop is, but it is a rare look behind Tim Tadder’s photoshoots which in my opinion is quite worth the trade off.

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