When do you use models, and when don’t you use models? It’s a difficult question. Authenticity can be tricky to capture when you are staging a scene…especially if the subject matter is trend setting musicians and hipster youth culture, ala Santogold and Spank Rock. The shoot can easily go awry because of variables, such as, casting, styling, or art direction. Here are some images from a recent shoot gone right by The Smith Collection. The success of the shoot had much to do with the fact that the models cast are in a real band and already had their own personal style. To add a little more flavor, the photographer additionally hired a graffiti artist to create some original backgrounds for the group. The shoot also hits the mark because the subjects are performers and look natural and comfortable in what they are being asked to do.

Smith Collection/Getty Images

Smith Collection/Getty Images

Smith Collection/Getty Images

Smith Collection/Getty Images

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And improve your French ! France, land of better wine in the world, beautiful women, Tour de France, bling-bling president, Art of living. France which as a country can give birth to the better or worse.
Let’s talk about the better today, let’s open the JAK LAB #3 . Every quarter JAKLAB magazine offers a 360° vision about a theme or an aspirationnal trend. JAKLAB invites contributors and gives them room and time to explore and talk. Strategic planners, researchers, writers, artists, photographers, architects are creating an effervescent on line webzine. Monitored friendly by Just A Kiss  founders, a design, creative and strategic agency in Paris, JAKLAB is an open publication and platform.
After Desirable Sunstainability, Absolute Necessity , give a breath to your eyes and brain and involve your senses in Urbanity. If you want to contribute to the next issue, please feel free to “superpoke” this unique quartet on their Facebook group.  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11026998211 !  Have fun !  Brigitte Mantel .

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Stephen Schauer/Getty Images

We are all really busy right? There’s never enough time in the day to get stuff done. We are always rushed to meet that impossible deadline and it all seems to be moving faster and faster. Most of us have projects with time frames of a few hours to a few days. Some of us deal in weeks and months, and a handful of us may have a five year plan.

Recently, I was on a shoot with photographer Stephen Schauer at the Fuji Bonsai Gardens in Sylmar, California. We had had an idea that needed beautiful shots of Bonsai trees to be used as components in a composite image that will also rely on precise 3D imaging skills. But that’s another story…What struck me about Roy, the owner, was the fact that his business depended on foresight, planning and patience. Lots of patience.

Stephen Schauer/Getty Images

Imagine planning and working in ten, fifteen, twenty year cycles. He has trees that were planted when his father started the business 59 years ago. He has trees that are seedlings that will need to be clipped, bent, moulded and controlled for decades before they can be sold as Bonsai’s. Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the day was noticing a sad, gnarled, dried out specimen tucked away in a corner.

Stephen Schauer/Getty Images

“What happened?” I asked innocently.

“I killed it” Roy replied. “I was repotting it and the main root twisted slightly and cracked.”

“How old?”

Roy shrugged “Oh, it was about 30 years old.”

I cannot imagine investing thirty years in a labor intensive project and having it die. That has got to hurt.

The flip side to this is what happens when we rush.

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Competition closes TOMORROW, 14 May, 11:59pm PST!

It’s the Ultimate Pitch and it’s open to the world’s creative community. Send us an idea that makes a world of difference. If it’s judged to be the best, we’ll flaunt your work across the globe and on the beach at Cannes Lions 2008.

If you win, you’ll get to go too. Stepping into the shoes of world-renowned Executive Creative Director Bob Scarpelli – soaking up the finest creative and enjoying all his usual luxury perks at the festival.

And we’ll help you get the gig. Kick-start your brainstorm with our inspirational Catalyst search to land those “eureka!” moments. Then, tap into our big-budget clips, original music tracks and award-winning images to bring your ideas to life.

Play the video – Cannes awaits

Enter the Ultimate Pitch

Good luck.

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This is a question I have been frequently pondering as my head seems to be continuously stuck under the hood of the Macbook pro, tethered to the photographer, like some caped, Getty Images crusader, fighting the fight to sort out the good images from the bad.

Kari Pearson (art director), Jan Guy (model), Thomas Northcut (photographer), Heather Simchuk (stylist)

Recently I worked on a shoot in Fraser, Colorado with Thomas Northcut (photographer), Matt Wright (producer) and Emilie McKittrick (artist data quality specialist and connection to the locations we shot at – she traveled along and helped us with duties too numerous to mention), Seattle-based freelance stylist Heather Simchuk and rounding out the rest of the group was Mike Forster (first assistant), Ted Coster (second assistant), Pamela Chavez (props) and Beth Ryan (hair and make-up) all from Denver.

Looking at image after image rolling into the computer, gives one much opportunity to think. You think about how easily some images happen and how a lot of collaboration takes place on others. So I thought “hey, let’s do a little experiment, or a bit of an un-scientific survey, and take a look at a handful of images from the Colorado shoot and see how they sort out take-wise.” I selected a couple of images we spent a little more time on and a couple that I remembered coming fairly quickly (approx. times noted), wanting to keep this survey small, yet try to provide a sampling of images that are somewhat typical from your average shoot day.

Shot 1: 4 takes/a couple of minutes
*We were working on other variations within this scene and Heather (stylist) saw this shot and suggested that Thomas pull back to get the entire scene. I think Heather had ulterior motives and wanted to get a full body shot of her styling.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 2: 29 takes/approx 1/2 hour
*We probably had the shot around frame 20 and worked on variations of gloves on/gloves off, several body position changes and many attempts at fussing with hair while attempting to make the 12-year-old model look more serene than seductive while her father was on set.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 3: 4 takes/approx 1 minute
*This shot was from a breakfast scene that Thomas and crew lit so that we could set up the scene and Thomas could move around the table and capture various moments as they happened. This was a real moment and I thought Thomas captured it really well.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 4: 10 takes/approx 1/2 hour
*We tried variations of sitting up on the edge of the bed, laying down, messed with her hand position, played around with how her hand was positioned under her head to make her posture look more natural, fill, no fill…Since this shot was all about only using the available light source, we shot very slowly.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 5: 14 takes – approx 40 minutes
*Variations of vertical, horizontal, changed composition a few times, had model use various expletives to enhance the frustrated look on his face…Some downtime occurred while laughing at the second assistant who had fallen in the snow, managing to bury himself while still maintaining a tight grip of the light.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

And the survey says…

-5 shots/61 total takes/12 takes roughly on average/rounding up time-wise to about 1/2 hour per shot

I don’t know what that means exactly, other than completing this unofficial survey and me feeling somewhat relieved that the average number of takes wasn’t 150 or something like that. It did get me thinking that since this shoot was for LifeSize, I’d be interested in knowing how many shots on average it takes for say a Stone+ frame. Or even better, who is willing to document all of those shots that we sometimes spend way too much time on and way too many frames on, only to scratch them in the end?

I am thinking that may be better to blog about anonymously…

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Setting up shop

I just returned from completing one of the most fun and rewarding shoots I can remember in Park City, UT.

This project is the latest in a series of Olympic shoots I’m working on as we try to get updated, relevant imagery in time for the Olympic advertising push later this year. Last fall I got to work with athletes in 26 different summer Olympic sports and now it’s time to revisit some of the important winter sports.

Operation Snowflake was the working title of the project that would encompass skeleton, bobsled, speed skating, figure skating, and hockey. Our creative research showed just how important it is to have commercially salable images of these sports – bobsled in particular – as it so clearly portrays concepts of speed, teamwork, and intensity. One good recent example of winter sports’ commercial relevance is this spot from T. Rowe Price.

A little background on me: This project was right up my alley as sports played a big role in my youth. In addition to playing every sport I could, I was brought up as a child of the Wide World of Sports watching Jim McKay “span the globe” to show some very powerful sports imagery. Images of the “Agony of Defeat” Skier, John McEnroe’s first Wimbledon victory, and Franco Harris’ Immaculate reception are indelibly etched in my memory. Sports images have a special gravity for me now – so I jumped at the chance to tackle this project.

Bobsledding is a sport I have always enjoyed watching (albeit only every 4 years) so it’s an honor to have the opportunity to work with elite athletes making imagery that represent the sport at a global level.

Production commenced after the usual approval process. Amy Uratsu, the producer, did an extraordinary job of pulling it all together. Where do you shoot bobsledding? Tough one. Well, turns out there are only 3 tracks in North America, Calgary, Lake Placid and Salt Lake City. It’s tough to stage and make look real and it necessitates renting the entire facility and staging a real competition. After a hitting a lot of dead ends, we decided to shoot at the track in Salt Lake City on the last possible day of the season – Easter Sunday.

My mandate was to come back with images of these sliding sports that would work in 2 distinct ways: as a literal representation of the professional sports as viewed in the Olympic competition and as conceptually driven imagery that foregrounds relevant commercial themes, allowing for a more stylized end image.

Watch the team take off by clicking here.

With the exception of the photographer, Ryan McVay, who I knew I could rely on to nail the project, nearly every single component of the production had an element of uncertainty. Where do you find a bobsled team on Easter Sunday? Where do you find actual sleds that meet the criteria of commercial photography without logos, etc? Can you find a crew on Easter?

With help from some truly generous people, namely Jeremy Holm and Steve Revelli, it all finally came together. Once we had confirmed access to the track, we locked in talent and crew, had 2 bobsleds custom wrapped blue and red, and booked the travel.

We got to the track a day early to do a tech scout to select locations, POV’s and timings. Then we got a real taste of the sport. After an orientation and signing the scariest liability waiver I’ve ever seen:

we all got to take a run in a bobsled with the 4 time world champion named Stefan. Words simply cannot express what you feel in a four man bobsled. On TV it always looked so smooth. Before this project I secretly thought that bobsledding would be one of the easiest Olympic sports to do – I mean, all you do is sit in a little sled for a minute or two, right? Well, it was the single most extraordinary physical experience I have ever had.

SLC is the fastest track in the world. The track record was 47 seconds and change. We did a 51 second run reaching 80 mph in the turns and pulling in excess of 5 G’s. That meant my head with a helmet ended up weighing about 75lbs! You are bounced around the inside of the sled like a ragdoll. Halfway down I realized that I could barely breath and I couldn’t stop my head from slamming back and forth uncontrollably. Within the first 20 seconds we were going 80mph. Again, words just fail to communicate the magnitude or intensity of that experience. I instantly had a new appreciation for the sport and respect for the athletes.

Here we are – anxious to take a run…

It can’t be hard when we look this good…

After – trying to get out of the sled…

We arrived to the location at 8:00am to meet our athletes and get the shoot rolling. I was happy to discover that we’d cast 8 truly remarkable people for the project. As intense as the athletes were about their chosen discipline, they were all really witty and light hearted. Release photos were taken. Jokes were made. Nicknames established. We had a great rapport from the get go.

Our models getting ready to work

We started shooting as soon as paperwork was sorted and talent got fed. Since each run was so demanding on the athletes, we were given a limited number of runs. Five to be exact. To make the #’s work we ended having 5 cameras up on the action shots. It’s tough to catch; you blink and they’re gone. Check out how it looks from the photographer’s angle by clicking here.

The first run went off around 9:15 we waited for them in turn 14 and listened for them as they came down the track. The facility’s crew consisted of about 12 people in total. They operated more like a team of air traffic control or NASA than a group of ski lift operators – it was all done by the book. The athletes’ safety was paramount. Every single component of the shoot was orchestrated, called over radios, and confirmed.

We broke for lunch, gave the athletes a much-needed break, got warm and reviewed some of the morning’s images. I was happy to know that we had lots of good stuff in the bag and that it opened the day up to a little more experimentation. Ryan shot some really gorgeous, reverent, carefully lit images of the athletes on a black background:

Ryan McVay/Getty Images

Click here to watch the team in action!

Ryan McVay/Getty Images

Then it was back to the action to make sure everyone could get all their runs in before we wrapped. In the end the whole shoot went off without a hitch; We made beautiful pictures, forged friendships with the athletes and crew, and came back with a really good feeling of accomplishment having not only nailed the photos, but returned to LA re-energized from a truly exceptional shoot.

Special Thanks to : Jeremy Holm, Steve Revelli, Donnie Osmond Jr (that’s right), Matt “Big Sexy” Storm, Brad Welch, Joe Sisson, Nick Venneau, Tracey Anderson, Matt “Professor” Griff, Preston and his team at the bobsled track, Rennie Solis, and Jake Campos.

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