samdobrow.com » Commercial Photography Business

Purple Pansies Raises $56,000 to Fight Pancreatic Cancer

sam — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:17:34 +0000

“Purple Pansies 2011″ from samdobrow creative is best viewed in full screen mode.

Purple Pansies raised over $56,000 at their second annual fundraising dinner hosted by Casa Nuova Italian Restaurant in Alpharetta, GA on September 25, 2011. A full house and generous donations from numerous local businesses and individuals made for exciting silent and live auctions. Guests bid for items including rare wines, fine art, travel, and in-house dinner parties prepared on location by Chef Antonio Fundora of the Casa Nuova Italian Restaurant. All proceeds are for the benefit of the Joseph C Monastra Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.

The event was photographed and this book was designed/produced by samdobrow creative for Casa Nuova Italian Restaurant. Copies of the book will be printed as gifts and promotional items for guests and prospective corporate donors for the Third Annual Purple Pansies Fundraising Dinner scheduled for September 30, 2012.

My Photo Books on Exhibit at ACP Photobook Fair

sam — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:03:26 +0000

I’m excited to update everyone on the awards and recognitions I’ve received for my most recent body of work “A South Beach Experience” which is featured in my latest book “as i see it…”

A South Beach Experience debuted with a solo exhibit of 20 images at the Emerging Art Scene Gallery in Atlanta followed by a one month group exhibit of several popular prints during Atlanta’s month long Atlanta Celebrates Photography festival.
Five images from A South Beach Experience were selected by the judges for APA Atlanta’s “100 Beautiful Things” exhibit during “Flux”, the kickoff celebration for Atlanta Celebrates Photography.
Two of the images from A South Beach Experience were selected by the judges for Shoot Miami’s “Our Miami” photography exhibit of 55 fine art prints to be exhibited at the Palmetto Bay Community Center Office Complex for three months beginning with the opening reception on October 27, 2011.
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This is the third year I will have an exhibit at the Atlanta Celebrates Photography Photobook Fair.

I’ll be there with my newest book “as i see it…” and some of my older books including “France is not Italy”.

Drop by the exhibit in Piedmont Park on Saturday morning from 9 AM to Noon to see my latest fine art and commercial photography thoughtfully organized into a coffee table photobook, then order your own copy online.

INVITATION – OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

sam — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:36:27 +0000

Fashion Portfolio – February 2011

sam — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 11:07:51 +0000

Fashion Portfolio - Feb 2011

I finally got around to updating my fashion portfolio!

There is now a good collection of my on location photography as well as my studio photography. This collection of 37 images has a bit of an editorial slant but there are also samples of catalog and lifestyle shots.

Parsley-Sage Catalog Shoot

sam — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 08:59:15 +0000

Parsley-Sage

New line up of women’s casual wear from Parsley and Sage to launch in stores this Spring. These photos will be in the 48 page catalog sent to wholesalers and retail stores.

Models:
Sarah Blackman
Zafrina Gabanna
Lauren Mullis

Hair/Makeup: Kat Flynt and Kay Leanna Flynt
Photography, Post Processing, Retouching: Sam Dobrow
Photography Assistant: Luigi Ginosa

How much does Vogue pay super models?

sam — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 07:38:39 +0000

Anna Jagodzinska in Vogue Paris – September 2009.
PAY: $125 less expenses and commission.

The secret is out with new documents related to a lawsuit. It seems that 3 models are starting what could become a class action lawsuit against their former agency, Next. In the court papers alleging that Next failed to pay $750,000 in earnings a detailed statement of earnings for Polish supermodel Anna Jagodzinska lists just how much is paid and other expenses deducted from their earnings by the agency.

Since Vogue only pays $125 – $250 I feel pretty good about the small amount I pay models for an ACPC fashion shoot.

Parsley and Sage Catalogs are shipping!

sam — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 09:07:15 +0000

Parsley-Sage Catalogs

The Spring/Summer 2011 catalogs have arrived from the printer and are being mailed. 44 pages including forms and price list.

Photography: Sam Dobrow
Design: Shannon Dobrow
Layout: Sam and Shannon Dobrow
Models: Sara Blackman, Zafrina Gabanna, Lauren Mullis
Hair/Makeup: KayLeanne Flynt & Kat Flynt

Fashion Editorial: Jennifer Lexon

sam — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 07:20:06 +0000

Jennifer Lexon

Model: Jennifer Lexon
Location: samdobrow photography studio
Date: October 22, 2010

Notes: This was my first shoot using a tethered camera setup. I wanted to test my new technology in a high speed shoot situation to verify it was stable enough to use on a customer job. I was able to connect my camera to my notebook computer and import directly into Lightroom v3.2 using a custom camera color profile generated with the X-rite Color Checker Passport plug-in. I shot RAW+JPG and used Fling File Transfer to monitor the import folder for new JPG files which were immediately uploaded wireless via FTP to ShutterSnitch running on my iPad. At the end of the shoot, Jennifer was able to review the unedited proofs on the iPad while I exported color corrected, watermarked, small JPG proofs from Lightroom and burned them to a CD for her to take with her.

There are a few small challenges with this setup:

(1) The computer keeps popping up the autoplay dialog every time the camera cycles through sleep mode which can be annoying to cancel. I’ll have to check into disabling this autoplay for the camera device.
(2) If I accidentally unplug the camera from the PC while files are downloading it can lock up the camera and Lightroom. I’ll need to find a way to secure the USB plug at both ends to make sure this does not happen during a shoot.
(3) The buffering in the camera is pretty good and rarely filled up to the point I had to slow down shooting. In fact, If I find myself shooting so fast as to fill up the buffer, it is a warning sign to slow down so as not to blow the fuse on the strobes or misfire.
(4) My Dell computer runs Windows XP which is the oldest OS supported under Lightroom 3. The computer lagged about 3-5 seconds per shot in importing the RAW files, converting them to DNG, displaying the color corrected image, and uploading the JPG file to the iPad. This isn’t much of a problem unless someone is trying to monitor the shots during a high speed shoot.
(5) The biggest bottleneck is exporting the post processed images. It took over an hour for Lightroom 3.2 to post process 460 21 MPX RAW files into small, watermarked JPG files and write them to the hard drive. Once the JPG files were created, it took only 2 minutes to burn the CD. I imaging an i7 processor with 64 bit multiprocessing capabilities would speed this step up immensely.
(6) It was a bit challenging to initially figure out how to set up a peer-to-peer (PTP) network with a static IP address on both my PC and iPad. The other magic link in the set up is Fling (Freeware) from NCH Software which monitors PC folders and uses rules to upload files to FTP servers like ShutterSnitch. I configured Fling to upload only JPG files and to ignore the large RAW files being written by Lightroom to the destination folder. Once that was configured and the PTP was manually started on the PC, ShutterSnitch worked like a charm.

Overall I am quite satisfied with the setup. Shooting tethered via USB cable is a little cumbersome but I believe it will handle the large image files much better and faster than some of the more expensive wireless solutions such as the Canon WFT-4 or the Eye-Fi which are discussed in most of the forums on tethered shooting. Next week, I’ll put this system to work on a catalog shoot.

Beauty Photography: Beyond the Camera

sam — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 06:48:26 +0000

I work with aspiring and experienced models to help them build their portfolios. One common theme I hear is their frustration with poor photography. Once a shot is set up, clicking the shutter requires an instinct to capture a split second of time; but good photography is and always has been more than point and shoot. Darkroom skills, whether traditional or digital, ultimately separate the hobbyist from the true photographer. This is especially true when it comes to beauty photography. What the public sees in magazines, catalogs, and on billboards is anything other than straight from the camera. It is a process that begins with a visualized concept brought to life on the set with the help of several creatives and finished in the digital darkroom.

Beauty is conceptual. It is something we see and recognize but there is no formula for it. Some people have features that are decisively more “attractive” than others but everyone young and old has beauty that can be captured and presented glamorously. Part of beauty comes from within, part comes from physical features, and part comes from the eye of a photographer. Once a model or “subject” is selected, the skills of a makeup artist and hairstylist are key to defining a look that is alluring. Not only is the cosmetic application important in a beauty shot but the makeup artist and hairstylist are key in building the confidence of the model. Models spend hours with these creatives preparing for the shoot. Professional photographers expect makeup artists and hair stylists to pump up a model’s confidence before she walks onto the set. The wardrobe stylist is also key to defining a look of beauty with fashion that makes a statement. The model, once she is on the set, must internalize the look, engage the photographer, and project her internal beauty. The photographer’s style plays a big part in evoking the moods and emotions needed for the shoot.

Photography conveys moods and emotion with light. The photographer must decide how the images will be post processed, how to create the desired mood, and how the images will be organized into a visual story. The photographer must light the subject so the wardrobe, makeup, and hair all make a statement of beauty. The lighting setup is critical to achieving images that can be digitally processed in a specific way. Lighting may be bright and crisp (high key), it may be contrasty with deep shadows (low key), it may be soft and romantic, or hard and stark. Every photography assignment has a specific objective and an intended audience. Advertising campaigns may entail a single image or a series of related images to be used in a cohesive campaign. Fashion editorials convey a story of fashion and beauty in a contextual framework. The photographer is at the center of the creative team and must communicate the objectives of the shoot to the other contributors.

Click to display full size images.

The concept for this beauty shot for a hair salon was to portray an independent, self assured woman dressed for an evening on the town. A wardrobe stylist selected the attire, jewelry and accessories. The hairstylist applied a rich red color to contrast and compliment the model’s fair skin tones. The makeup artist provided a very smooth foundation for the face and emphasized the model’s full lips with a color to match the hair pigments. Dark eyeliner and subtle eyeshadow brought attention to the natural green eyes.

As photographer, I lit this scene with two large softboxes for even light on the face and a beauty dish to add specular highlights. The lighting was clean and even to further fill in the texture of the model’s skin but it was shot in camera raw with low contrast (left image) to provide detail in the highlights and shadows. In Adobe Lightroom, I sharpened the image, adjusted the color temperature to add warmth to the image and increased the brightness and contrast to the fullest range possible without loosing detail (middle image). At this level of contrast some skin imperfections start to pop so I edited the image in Adobe Photoshop to soften the skin texture and further bumped the contrast and saturation to give the skin an almost porcelain look with rich color. Detail retouching removed small blemishes and fly away hair. The final image is again sharpened with a two stage sharpening process. The result is an image of classic beauty – one imagined in the eye of the photographer and brought to life in the digital darkroom.

As an upstart model, next time you decide to invest your time with a photographer to develop your portfolio, look at his portfolio to see if he knows how to light a set and post process the image. You’ll get a better portfolio and that will help you get you the better paying jobs.

credits
Model: Leslie Sale
Hair: Andrea Hess – Salon Verde of Roswell
Makeup: Kat Flynt
Wardrobe: Carmen Cruz of Capricious
Photographer: Sam Dobrow, samdobrow photography

Photographing Kids

sam — Wed, 05 May 2010 07:24:59 +0000

Today I photographed the children of a friend. Kids can be a lot of fun to photograph because of their unguarded personalities. It is fun to see just how they will interact with me and with the camera.

Kids - Boy with Balloon

Kids - Aspiring Girl Model