iStockalypse Tokyo #6

This guy was a terrible model - this was about all I could do with him so he wouldn't mess up the shot.

iStockalypse Tokyo Portrait of Me

Take in the last hour on the last day by a stellar photographer in our group (Steve Cole), this photo exhibits why his $40,000 camera is better than mine.  If I had taken this photo without a reflector, the backlighting would have destroyed any detail on the front side of Rina and me.  But his awesome 40mp sensor (which produces 120mb files) has high dynamic range, so it can process both the highlights and the shadows very well.

Rina is just my friend, but this would be sort of an awesome 'couple' shot.

iStockalypse Tokyo #5

[Momo, the other friend we photographed on the last day.  It probably won't sell much, but it's a technically good shot]

iStockalypse Tokyo #4

Probably my favorite shot from the whole trip, there was a 30-minute process to get this picture and required five people to put it together.  We had an afternoon at a park but one of our on-assignment photographers got priority (extra time) because this was his assignment.  That left the rest of us to fill in split the remaining time.  Being the clear amateur I volunteered to go last, which ended up producing the crux (vanishing light) to this image idea.  The on-assignment photographer (Nuno) helped me out with this as his shooting was over.  I brought him down to the area to show him my idea - the girl jumping between blocks - then he flipped it backwards to include the fall-colored tree and mud puddle reflection.  He described this is a potential Vetta shot, which is a reference to iStock's high-end (for "peak creative talent") collection, which sells for higher prices and thus higher royalties.


The girl was quite cold, but a real sport for the shoot.  She hadn't brought pants, but between jumps (maybe 25 of them total?) and during the setup of lights all the adults bundled her up in 4 jackets.  We had a light behind her on the left for rim lighting and another behind me on the right for fill.  It took awhile to get those settings right then I had to manually focus my camera right where I wanted her positioned (because my auto-focus couldn't keep up) then time my shutter release when she was in the air.


It was a really fun shoot and I am very pleased with the results.  It won't sell as well as most of my other pictures, but it was a good learning experience and also fun to concentrate so many resources on just one capture.  Also, I got her mother's email address so I can send this photo along to her.

iStockalypse Tokyo #3

This my friend, Rina, who works at an English school in Tokyo.  She brought a group of students to Zamami last spring and we have kept in touch.  Realizing that photos with models are the ones which sell, another friend on her free day invited a Japanese friend willing to sign a model release and I invited Rina.  We got a bonus day in a park with two first-time models.  They did pretty well!

iStockalypse Tokyo #2

[click to enlarge]

This is one of the few that I am especially proud of because the idea was all mine.  Stock photography is very different than art, wedding, or portrait photography.  The key is to come up with a concept that will sell as stock, then nail it.  I don't know if this concept will sell, but it's certainly better than some of the stuff I shot (see: first day (ugh..)).  I took our group leader with me on this one and he helped with a reflector, but otherwise I photographed this exactly how I envisioned it, which rarely happens.

iStockalypse Tokyo

I've been in Tokyo taking pictures for the last week as part of iStockalypse Japan through iStockphoto.  It's been amazing and I've taken some good pictures, but more importantly I've learned a lot. I'll sample some of my photos over the next week or two.  Unfortunately for the blog Photoshop is just as important in the end result for stock photos as the initial capture and while I've learned a lot on the photography end of things, I'm just scratching the surface of PS. So some, like the one below, will be straight out of the camera.  Fortunately this one needs very little PS work: