Jason Christopher, LA Commercial & Fashion Photographer Bio

I have been asked many times why I choose a certain lens for the different photos I have shot whether the photos are for a campaign or a catalog or even a personal model portfolio shoot.

The answer isn’t so clear cut.  I can tell you that my most used lens is my Canon 85 1.8.  Why do I love this lens ?  For the reason that I can get full body shots to three quarter shots to half body shots, all with one lens.  And this lens is very light which does matter after you have been shooting for 5, 6, 7 , 10 hours.  The contrast and saturation is great and I always get sharp crisp images which is VERY important when shooting a clothing catalog.  When shooting clothing  you MUST capture the details in the fabric and I don’t care what kind of fabric it is, it is your job as a photographer to make sure every detail of the clothing is clear and well defined.  This is especially important now because of the internet.  A popular trend for designers is to show the model full body and when the user scrolls over the jacket, blouse, pants, jeans etc. a magnified image pops out that shows the incredible detail of the stitching or quality of the silk, denim etc.

So with just a little movement back and forth on my part I am able to give my client choices from full body all the way to half body shots.  Now granted, knowing that my client is going to include a pop out of tight close up of the fabric I will move in for a half body shot.  That brings me to my next favorite lens for shooting fashion. That lens is the Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro.

I can get as close as one inch to the garment and capture every little detail including the little fibers of each stitch !  At this point I would be on a tripod of course.  If I am shooting a beauty campaign which I just completed by the way, I will roll out this amazing lens.  I’m on sticks and got my 100 macro attached to my 5D Mark 2 and I can shoot away with full confidence.  I will even get in tight on one eye to show the clarity and quality of the eye shadow, nail polish, lip stick etc.   It’s not L glass but I will give you my opinion on L glass……… YOU DON’T FRIGGIN NEED “L” GLASS !!   Ok ?  Get over this crap that you have to have “L” glass to get great shots.  My God I get sooo irritated when I see that a photographer has just wet his pants because he just bought a new lens with “L” glass.  Do you think all the greats used “L” glass ?  No they didn’t.  Why ?  Because it didn’t exist and guess what ?  They were still hired to shoot the great campaigns and Vogue covers and their shit still looked amazing.  Helmut Newton, Herb Ritz, Sante D’ Orazio, Irving Penn, the list goes on, never shot with “L” glass and ummm well, they have gone down in history as some of the best shooters in history !

Ok enough ranting lol.  Seriously though, if you wanna waste your money and you have the money to waste and it makes you get a warm feeling all over then go for it !  Spend spend spend !!!! Canon still won’t sponsor you.. he he.

I will admit that I do own two lenses that are made with “L” glass, but that is not why I bought them.   So another favorite lens of mine is my Canon 28-70 2.8 L.  Many times when I’m shooting in a really cool location I like to capture the location and the model in the same shot to tell the story with a more dramatic effect.  So I will move in VERY close and zoom out to 28mm and capture that awesome sky in the desert or beautiful beach, blue water and blue sky and oh ya, the beautiful model as you can see in these two shots.

So there you have it.  These are the three lenses I shoot with most often.  If I want to REALLY compress my image and background I will break out my Canon 200mm 2.8 L and I ALWAYS put that on sticks.

So I’m sure some of you will disagree with my on the whole “L” series debate.  I wanna hear your side.  I would also love to know what some of your favorite lenses are and why.  And don’t forget to click the subscribe to my newsletter link.  It’s at the bottom of my LINKS section.

Cheers !!!

Follow my blog with bloglovin

Recently I photographed a beautiful fashion model for an editorial.  As you all know I like to keep my  fashion lighting very simple and raw concentrating more on the emotion and feeling of a photograph.  I decided to shoot in a hotel room on a bed with white sheets.  The only photo gear I brought was of course my camera, lenses and my Canon 580 EX II.

For this particular shot though I used the night stand lamp and  that’s it.  I took off the lamp shade which revealed two very bright energy efficient bulbs.  Then I put the lamp on an upside down trash can set just out of frame.  I wanted a really grainy look so I set my 5D Mark 2 ISO to 1000, put it on sticks and set my exposure to 1/25th @f/5.  If any of you “pros” out there think I am giving away a secret well you’re wrong.  You wanna know why you’re wrong ?  I learned this technique from Helmut Newton.  Now go take your secrets and ………

Ok I got that off my chest lol.  So now this is where the real seasoned photographer needs to come out.  I have a half naked 19 year old young girl on a hotel bed.  You think she feels really confident and secure ?  No, she doesn’t.  So it is my job to earn her trust, let me dig deep into her soul and capture her soul on film, well a CF card lol. I shot this in color and in post changed it to black and white.  If anyone has ANY questions please ask !

lingerie model photographed on bed

I decided to post this photo in the Lighting On Location section because location doesn’t just mean outdoors.  Many times I like to use the available light that is in the room.  In this instance it was a bathroom.  Now  this is something I learned from Helmut Newton.  When he first started shooting he couldn’t afford professional lighting.  He was very poor.  So he used the lamps in his house as his lighting source.  Of course back then he used film and did all his color correcting in the darkroom or used the correct film for such lighting conditions.  But I have come to like the warm color cast that results from NOT white balancing my camera.  This is the original shot.   I was on a tripod using

available indoor photography lighting

a very slow shutter speed and a high ISO.  The model has to keep very still OR even a little blur is ok.  It makes it more artistic.  Again, remember there is no right or wrong UNLESS the client doesn’t like it.  In this case my client, Deliverance Poker did like it.

Now I also wanted to try something else so I made the image black and white in Lightroom.  I also cropped it much tighter.  I like both versions.  I just want to show you how you don’t ALWAYS have to use additional lighting to capture a great shot.

This is the black and white cropped version.

black and white conversion photo

They both look great.  I would love to know your thoughts and opinions.

My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.

– Helmut Newton

Got this quote from a really cool site called photoquotes.com