The project is a concept that arised after discovering an old abandoned building in the centre of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The building reflected a  strong sense of loss, architectural impediment and halted completition.  A grand structure that somehow lost its life after being given so much hard-work and care while being built. Now all that remains is a concrete mess of unfinished plans; a grey ending.

The unfinished building inspired me as a place to connect people who are in a similar grey situation. Those who have lost the attachment to something they always had, and felt the need to hold onto. I wanted to highlight that split second when one realises that they are alone in a grey structure that is detached from their past reality. As drepessing as it sounds it’s a feeling we all experience in our lives.

I thought it would be interesting to dive in more to find out the exact definition of the word abandoned. The dictionary gives us:

Beside the nature of the project, I also wanted to communicate with the viewer with the clothes that the models would wear. For this side of things, I am getting in touch with fashion students from Sao Paulo to discuss to potential designs and ideas.

I was actually inspired by Chase Jarvis’s latest ad campaign on his website, which can be viewed here.  His use of natural light, and especially making most of the flat light during the overcast day, is really quite inspiring. It’s time to drop those flash guns and pick up the reflectors.

At the moment I am looking for keen people who practice pretty much ANY sport. So, if you’re keen and willing to participate in the project please drop me a line and we’ll arrange some dates.

This time round we hit the streets of Bournemouth, a small town in the south of England, at two o’clock in the morning as part of a personal project focusing on people, or zombies as we called them, enjoying themselves as they left the busy clubs after having a couple or more drinks. Now, the main idea behind the crazy one was to light and edit the images as we would when covering a fashion brief. Only this time we weren’t shooting size 8 models; instead we turned our attention to the creatures of the night as they rose from the ground and created havoc.

As we set off we didn’t know what to expect. Obviously, for the lighting it meant we had to get nice and close when shooting; and timing was of the essence! A second too late and we’d miss the natural expression we were after.

We were a fearless team of three (video, light and camera), camouflaged with face paint as we didn’t want to look too serious while shooting on the streets. After all, people were only having fun and so were we.

With the equipment insured and the police notified we had no problems to deal with. Of course, there was always a risk of being attacked by the zombies themselves, but that didn’t happen as we scared them away with our flash-to-face-at-full-power technique! Ok, we did have some abusive words shouted at us but that didn’t affect us at all.

For those after the technical side of things: I often underexposed the ambient light by around 1 1/2 stops, shot wide at around 24mm from low down, ISO400 and generally around 1/125 of a second.

Now comes the fun part: To have a look at the video created for this project check out our Youtube channel

Quite simply, I think we should always embrace the technology around us and make most of it. The manipulation of an  image is nothing new. From the early plate cropping to the modern clone stamp on Photoshop, the essence of manipulating an image for whatever intention, be it commercial or political, has always been present. Nowadays though, we find easier ways to alter and enhance our original creative vision we capture in-camera.

I personally edit all my imagery because I think today’s tools enable me to further my ideas and create something even more unique. After all, that’s our goal as image makers.

Here’s a commercial example (click on image to enlarge):

You can see how I’ve cleaned the background and tweaked the general contrast. I also added more life to the image and gently smoothed out the skin.  I haven’t produced a new image, I simply pushed the boundaries to create something that would have been impossible during the shoot itself.

If you’d like to see more of the images we came back from this specific shoot, check out our new Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LuccaPhoto?feature=mhw5

The truth is that most of the time the location, studio, equipment, lighting, isn’t as fancy as you might imagine. But hey, that’s irrelevant! Good imagery is good imagery regardless of what happens in between. But still, we like to know how things work, and most importantly, we like to see the amount of work that’s been put in to fulfill a certain brief. Who said you need a big budget? Being effective and organised always proves to be more affordable when you come to offer a service to clients. That’s what we are trying to show during the making-of our projects.

Being inspired by top league Photographer Chase Jarvis, who with his Youtube channel has attracted a massive amount of viewers to his website, has led me to the route of creating something just as cool.

Having welcomed a new Video Producer to the team, we turn the eye behind the lens giving you the view of what happens ‘behind the scenes’.

The page: www.luccaphoto.com/how and our new Youtube Channel

I opted  for a brochure format with around 10 page. We started shooting the description spread, in the studio, showing all different types of androids available for purchase:

Next we headed on location to show the Androids at work. Here are the lighting diagrams:

Who knows I might pitch the campaign in 2050. That is, if I’m still around by then.

Now, inspiring work is one thing but becoming inspired is another. There are many proven sources of inspiration. Music for one, especially in my case, is an outstanding source of inspiration since it surrounds me everyday.  Music is made up of various creative elements, it gives us texture, pace, power, emotion, excitement and the endless list goes on… The work we produce is always based around those elements and so we draw up pictures in our minds which we then express through a certain mediums.

Although practically, it doesn’t matter how we become inspired – the most important thing is to make sure we’re open minded enough to accept what’s around us in our daily lives and make sure we absorb them, finding different sources of inspiration.

The composition, or the positioning of a subject within the frame is usually taken for granted. To make the most of any subject you must understand the basic principles of composition. How to arrange the scene within the frame to please the eye, grab attention and make a statement.

You can create visual balance and emphasis by arranging mass, texture, detail, shape, colour, etc. You can also structure your pictures with lines, perspective, and repeating elements, for example. A simple composition is usually the most effective – keep to one main subject, exclude distracting elements, and control other features to support your theme. Like they say, once you know the rules you can break them deliberately. Creating a style, for example, around the  way you place subjects within the frame can be a great way to shine against your competitors and earn yourself more recognition.

Try it yourself – find a solid subject and frame it in many different ways. Place it on a third, in the centre, in a corner and see which most appeals to you and others.

We’re going from black to white; moody to happy. Our new site is up and running!

After some tiring research I finally came to understand that a white backdrop would suit my imagery best. Maybe having the black wasn’t such a big mistake since I tend to hardly natural light and create my own lighting effects often dropping the background light by a stop or more.

Anyway, the new website now features bigger images with no sideshow. Each image has its own page (yep, everyone is feeling more special at the moment), making the viewer spend more time analyzing the great detail that has gone into the production of each portfolio image.

I’ve already heard some great feedback from our close friends who much prefer out new; more professional look.

So you’re off to shoot a Beauty head shot but always have trouble lighting the background? Well, how about using a diffused light source as your background? Yep, that’s right. You don’t have to worry about uneven whites nor dirty whites.

By using a softbox, the bigger the better quite simply, forces the light to wrap around the model’s face creating a very soft effect.

For the above image I used a 50″ softbox as the background, a 42cm Beauty dish as my main light source and two very large silver panels placed 45 degrees off either side of the model.