Jason Christopher, LA Commercial & Fashion Photographer Bio

Just an update about my private fashion photography workshops for you all.  They are going great !  I just had the pleasure of working with Jeff Corzine.  Jeff is from Malibu and we spent two days with a great model and make up artist.  We went over certain lighting techniques and when I taught him how to properly use the Canon 580EX II he was blown away by all the great features this flash has to offer and the amazing images one can achieve with it.

Jeff also learned how to direct a fashion model to achieve amazing results just by talking to your model and choosing the right words so she can act out a situation and a feeling in her head which translates to film, or in this case the final digital image.

I will post some images from our workshop very soon !  If you would like to know more about my photography workshops please contact me via phone or email  and I will be happy to discuss details with you.

Ok here are a couple images from our workshop. This first shot the model is dressed in a long beautiful form fitting gray dress. I didn’t want to light the whole dress from top to bottom. I wanted her brighter at the top and gradually get darker as the light falls lower. So I feathered the medium soft box. It was raised high above the model and tilted down so that the bottom part of the soft box hits from the middle just barely enough down to the bottom. I didn’t want the bottom of the dress to go totally black. I directed the model to keep her poses towards her key light. And in this case there was only one light anyway. That is also how you see that HER LEFT side goes a bit darker. I placed the light slightly in front of her so that it wraps around her but not too much. If I had put the soft box directly on her right side the left side of her would go completely dark which I didn’t want.  The second photo shows how to use fill flash without getting that harsh look.  I explained how I achieved this in the previous post in the gear review of the Canon 580 EX II.  Again, any questions please ask.

Cheers,

Jason

Hi everyone !  I just revamped my personal section on my site.  I uploaded a bunch of lifestyle photos.  Some are posed and some are candid.  The candid lifestyle shots with the mother and children were a challenge to shoot.  You’ve got to watch for everything.  It’s the little moments that are special which also happen so fast that you just cannot miss those moments.  You’re camera and eye have always got to be ready !  Here are some of those photos that capture the special moments.

Being on such a high treacherous cliff I couldn’t bring an assortment of lighting gear so I used by trusty Canon 580 EXII just enough to give them a little fill.  In Photoshop I added a bit of vignette and bumped the saturation a little.  Other than that no other post production was done.   I just told them to forget I’m there, just forget a photographer is even near you and do what you want.  So everything I captured was very natural.  Another good thing about not bringing a bunch of lighting gear is that the less invasive I am, the more natural reactions I will get from my subject.  Imagine having two strobes set up with umbrellas and sand bags right in front of them.  LOL  that would be invasive.

I love this next photo.  It just says so much.  Look at their faces and what they are saying to each other.  What I get from this photo when looking at the mother’s face is how much she loves him and what they have been through just in every day life.  She shows how much she really appreciates him as a son.  THAT is what makes a great photo.  When your subjects are speaking through their emotions.  When I am shooting and I get that from my subjects or models it’s an electricity that just runs through my blood like a flood of energy !

Again, I used my Canon 580 EXII to add a little fill and to over power the sun.  These lifestyle photos and more can be found here which also demonstrate many different lighting techniques.

I am a true photographer, especially a fashion photographer.  How many of you can HONESTLY say this ?  Think really hard because I am willing to bet that the majority of this new breed of photographers who have never shot film have no clue what the basic fundamentals of photography are .  Now I know you are all out there calling me an asshole and every other name in the book but the proof is in the photos.

I spoke to a photographer today who has only been shooting for about a year.  He told me how much he loves digital. I asked him why.  Get ready to fall back in your seats because his answer made me cringe.  He told me he loves digital photography because he doesn’t know the basic fundamental lighting techniques and he just fixes his photos in Photoshop.  If he needs an extra light he just pops it in where he needs it.  I was so thrown back I couldn’t even gather my thoughts to say anything back. Think about what this person said.  It’s SAD and PATHETIC ! And I am so damn sick of it !  Don’t get me wrong, he is a friend and a good person but it’s guys like this that are hurting the business and hurting true professionals like me and many others.

So now we have the business of photography to be concerned with. If he doesn’t know the basic fundamentals of photography do you think he knows anything about how to run a photography business ?  Hell friggin no he doesn’t !

This brings me to my main reason for writing this post.   Just because we are now shooting digital, does not give you an excuse to lose your discipline which is exactly what has happened with everyone today !  With the advent of digital, photographers have gotten LAZY and don’t even know how to connect with their subject, which is what makes a great photograph.  Richard Avedon was amazing at this.   I highly suggest you all go out and get the DVD Richard Avedon – Darkness and Light by American Masters Productions.   What you will see is he used a Rolleiflex camera.  The Rollei as most call it for short is actually my favorite camera and it only cost me $250 used of course.  They aren’t made anymore.  The camera is medium format, 6×6 cm and can take 120 or 220 film. There is no meter in it, no electronics, no batteries, no auto focus and no zoom lens.  You must crank to advance to the next frame and to achieve focus you line up the diagonal line in the focus prism.  You must hold it very steady and to make it even more challenging the image you see when you look down is reversed !  So lets say you are using 120 film, you have only 12 chances to get the shot you need/ want.  That’s right you heard me, 12 chances ! That’s it !  You don’t get 1,000 chances.  So you must take your time with your subject and this gives you the opportunity to actually connect !  There’s none of this taking the shot, looking at it to see if you got your exposure correct  wile the model sits there thinking about what a moron you are.

Meet the Rolleiflex !  Click the image to make it larger.  I labeled all the elements for you.  I still shoot with this camera on tests to keep my chops up.  It slows me down, relaxes me which relaxes the model.  I have to think about the shot and if I REALLY want to push the shutter, which btw is almost silent.  What I find very ironic is this post really can apply to everyone in any business and even in family life.  We all need to slow down, think, then react.  We need to reconnect with each other and remember why the person you are photographing is so special.  Why is your wife so special when you come home and give her a kiss ?  When you put your kids to bed at night look at them, talk to them, cherish them. Slow down and tell them you love them.  Ask them if they are happy.  Tell them how happy you are.

You could ask the same questions, say the same things to your subject as they sit in front of you letting you inside their soul to see everything.  And because you took the time to really look at them, get to know them, they are going to give you all they have, just lke your wife and kids or girlfriend will give you more and appreciate you more.  Life is all connected.  It’s one big giant circle and everything is interrelated.  Trust me…… try this….. you can’t go wrong.

So who do you think got me to start shooting the Rollei ?  My mentor and great friend celebrity fashion photographer Jerry Avenaim. He has taught me what Avedon taught him, Demarchelier taught him.  The fact that I am following in the footsteps of some of the greatest photographers to ever grace this planet makes me feel so special and I thank the universe everyday for this.

Here is another view of the great Rolleiflex.  You can see the viewing lens and taking lens.  You can also see how to set the shutter speed and aperture.  Look at this camera and think about how much discipline a photographer has to have to use it.  Remember, newspaper photographers  used this, photo journalists who had to be able to get “the shot” !  PHOTOGRAPHIC DISCIPLINE  ! PHOTOGRAPHIC DISCIPLINE  ! PHOTOGRAPHIC DISCIPLINE  !  Please get this in your head and practice it.  You will be a better photographer as well as a better person.

Looking down into the Rolleiflex viewfinder you see the image is reversed.  Yes this is my living room.  The image is reversed  however, your thinking will become so clear and concise.  Your photographs will become breathtaking and you will leave your mark on this world when you leave it.  That is something I am very proud to say I have done many times and it is a feeling that you will always cherish just as you will cherish the memories of the subjects you photographed because you slowed down, stopped, listened, looked and then…….. you reacted.

I wanna hear your thoughts and experiences.

Ok so your  client tells you that you will be shooting their fashion look book or ad campaign on location and you naturally assume it will be an outdoor location.  Ahhhhh lest we forget that location also means indoors and not just in studio .  This photo shoot for my client’s look book was pretty cool.  It was inside club Elevate and even during the day it was pretty dark inside.   So I hit her with a key light with a 40 degree grid.  Behind the pebbled glass were two lights at full power.  Remember that I wanted to create a heavenly look and my vision was to have bright white light around her.

High Key Lighting

So here is an instance where I had to light on location but it was indoors.  Something about this picture to me is special.  Remember me telling everyone that you should never let that camera out of your hands as long as there is a model in front of your lens ?  Well while my assistants were tweaking the lights I kept my eye on the model.  She just happened to look down for whatever reason and just the way her arms were positioned and her legs and the way her hair fell I saw it and shot it.  I think it’s the best shot from that series.  No we can’t clearly see her face but that is ok.

Never forget, as a photographer we are creating a mood, a fantasy, a feeling. We do this so our client can sell their clothes.  It’s not always about the model’s face.  Keep your eyes on the model and your camera ready to shoot just like you would do if you were holding a gun in war !!  This photo btw is right out of my camera.  It hasn’t gone through post yet except for removing the metal seam connecting the glass panel that was going right through her body from head to toe and it looks great!

Get it right IN CAMERA !  My mentor and good friend celebrity fashion photographer Jerry Avenaim taught me this a long time ago.  Always be ready !  Photographers have eyes in the back of their head and we also notice EVERYTHING around us even when other people don’t think we can see what is going on on the other side of the set or in the make up room etc. but we do know.  Good photographers are good observers.  When I am at the store, in a restaurant, at my nephew’s football game, the bank… you get my point.  I am always observing.  Develop that quality and perfect it.  I guarantee you will gain by leaps and bounds in your photography.

A photographer friend of mine recently came to me very frustrated.  He is very good at shooting lifestyle, commercial, weddings and let’s call it commercial fashion.  On his website he had all these sections up.  He asked for my advice and opinion on what I thought.  I told him to narrow down to two – three categories of photography that you really love.  Don’t think about how much they pay, or how much they don’t pay, just shoot what you love.

I told him this is something we all go through in the beginning of our careers.  He was concerned and insecure because he doesn’t know what he loves the most.  Eventually I told him you will know what you love the most.  It took me three years to finally know in my heart that I love shooting fashion and beauty.  But not just fashion and beauty, fashion and beauty advertising.  It all works out.  When we first start shooting, we literally have to get to know ourselves again, but this time we have to get to know ourselves as a creative.  We go through growing pains, emotional let downs, the highs and the lows.  Trust me, every single photographer out there who is working has gone through this process.  It’s a friggin roller coaster and you know what ?  It sucks !  It really does.  I mean come on, can you really say in your heart that you loved your teen years as a kid ?  Hell no ! But eventually we grow up, well MOST of us do lol.  And we find our way.  The path opens up right before our inner eyes and heart.  Sometimes it takes a road trip all by yourself and just shoot.  Shoot whatever you think is cool, beautiful, weird or whatever !  Just shoot !  Take at least three days and just drive.  No destination in mind, no preconceived notions.  Just drive and stop when you want to and shoot.  If it’s a stupid cactus or a stupid wood fence and you think they look cool, shoot them !  Take your digital camera but also take a film camera.  Yes that’s right a film camera.  It’s time to grow up !  I can guarantee that when you return from your little trip, you will feel totally different.  Will you have found yourself ? I don’t know.  But if you don’t, take another road trip.

The voyage of self discovery is something that every creative goes through and listen to this, you will go through ANOTHER voyage of self discovery again in your career and probably another time too !  That’s ok though.  As creatives we don’t ever want to get stuck in a rut.  We feel stale and useless.  I will mention my very good close friend and celebrity fashion photographer Jerry Avenaim who coined the phrase voyage of self discovery.  He had his own voyage of self discovery early in his photography career.   To this day he still goes through discoveries here and there.  I do, my other colleagues do, actors do, you name it.  If you are a creative you will always continue to develop.

The reason I am talking about this is that as photographers you MUST shoot what you love.  If through your own voyage of self discovery you find that you have changed, then go with it.  Never forget this though; clients will hire you because they love your style.  It could be your lighting style, the way you pose your models, the emotion you evoke from your models or it could be that they don’t even know.  All they do know is that when they look at your portfolio, it grabs them and never lets go !  And that is the photographer they want to shoot their next campaign, look book, catalog or whatever.  Your passion for what you shoot does show in the photo.  The photo that you produce is in some way an extension of you !  Yes !  It’s true !

So as I leave you with these words of wisdom, don’t make growing up complicated.  Trust your own gut.  I will be 41 Dec. 6th and I can tell you that my guy has NEVER ONCE been wrong, NEVER !

I want to know your thoughts on this.  I want to hear all your voyages of self discovery.

This photo by the way was one of my first photos I ever shot with a real model.  It isn’t really fashion but it is by far the most popular photo I have ever taken.  It is a photo that gets me very much work because you FEEL when you look at it !

Beautiful Ballerina

I recently got the chance to use a Photoflex 5 foot Octabank and am very pleased with the results.  In this photo I attached an egg crate fabric grid on the front ( not visible in this pic) and boy do I love it.  The grid directs light only on to your model and keeps it off the background.  I put a 30 degree grid on the back light aiming it right at the model as well as into the lens so I could get some flair for effect.  Now I wanted to show you this because this is in my condo.  It’s not a huge place.  The shooting space is about 500 square feet. You don’t always need a huge professional studio to create photographs.

Photoflex Octabank

Fashion Photography Workshop

The photo below shows the result.  Notice in the first photo you can see I am using gray background paper.  With the grid attached to the octabank it keeps all the light on your model.  It’s a much more dramatic look.

So this is the lighting diagram I promised to show you for this image of our model laying back on the log.

Photo that demonstrates lighting for photo shoot on the beach

This is a lighting diagram of my lighting

So as I said in a previous post I was right under the soft box and sometimes I was standing with my legs really wide to capture her at the perfect angle.  The soft box was roughly 8 feet up on a C-stand and tilted up so I didn’t blow out the log and also to throw some light on the beach sand in the background.

So as you can see a one light set up is all that was needed.  Pretty friggin easy.

Another successful fashion photography workshop. This time photographer Ken Davie came up from San Diego ! Super nice guy and very eager to learn. I LOVE when I get photographers in here who want to learn ! So with Ken his main issue was that he was intimidated when directing the model, make up artist and wardrobe stylist. Basically he needed to learn how to take charge of his own shoot which is not as easy as one might think.

We started off day one with Ken just observing me. He observed how I handled the photo shoot from start to finish. Started off with the make up process, discussing concepts for wardrobe and lighting.

We shot in studio and outdoors on location. Day two of the workshop I took Ken to an outdoor location. Obviously the best time to shoot outdoors is the last couple hours of the day. Well, when shooting an assignment you don’t have that luxury to only shoot in the last two hours of the day. When you have to shoot a catalog, editorial or advertisement you shoot all day. So I showed Ken how to shoot great photos at anytime of the day including mid day when the sun is at the worst possible position. By using scrims and placing the model in certain areas you can achieve great lighting at any time of the day.

Ken had come from a background of shooting product and he wants to make the switch to shooting people, a MUCH different process. Here are some results of Ken’s workshop. I have video but I am trying to learn how to edit it. If anyone would be willing to offer their service to edit please contact me.

High fashion photography

Beauty photo from my fashion photography workshop

My recent fashion swimsuit photography shoot at the beach was amazing.  I happened to get my hands on some behind the scenes photos taken with a cheap point and shoot but they give you the idea.   Now when I say we had a 100 foot RV I didn’t measure it but as you can see it was damn long !  We had the art directors, model, make up and hair artists, crew etc. all fit in quite nicely.  When shooting on location where you know it will be uncomfortable for the models, your crew and everyone you really need to rent an RV.   A well fed and warm crew is a happy crew !  In one of the photos you see me standing there with a stand in while the model stayed warm in the RV.   Unfortunately no one took any photos of me shooting        LOL  the story of my life.

RV used for our night photo shoot

Art Directors for the photo shoot

fashion model getting her make up applied

When planning a photo shoot the art director and photographer will make a story board of each scene to be shot.  In this story board you see a photo of the location, the swimsuits that the model will wear and the accessories such as jewelry.  Everything is planned out days before the photo shoot so everyone knows exactly what is going to happen.  You end up with a photo shoot that runs smooth with hopefully very little problems.

storyboard for night swimwear photo shoot

Then when it comes time to set up the lighting you need to have a stand in.  A stand in is very helpful because you can get your light set up pretty close to perfect while the model is getting her make up changed and changing clothes.

Stand in used for setting up the lighting

Just remember the more prepared you are the smoother your photo shoot will go.  The end result is a very pleased client that will call you back for another photo shoot.  If you like this post and think other photographers or anyone else associated with the photography business would find this helpful please click on the share buttons

Ahhhh yes photographing a beautiful fashion model on the beach and getting paid for it.  The ultimate dream for most beginning photographers.  I mean come on, you’re at a beautiful beach, warm sun and beautiful women right in front of you.    Well yes that is awesome.  So when I got the call from my client I was stoked UNTIL she said she wants to shoot at night.  My mind raced with every possible problem that I would face which of course the client has no clue about  because that isn’t their job to know what problems could arise.

So we have fourteen swimsuits to photograph and five different locations at Sycamore Cove up in Ventura County.  Call time was 8pm and we would shoot until 3:30am !  Ok so yes it is summer here in Los Angeles but at night especially the later it gets on the beach the temperature drops very low.  I don’t know what the temp was exactly but it was friggin cold !

Yes the model was wearing pretty much nothing, the bikini’s are VERY small but I needed my fingers to work and needed my mind to function lol.  I wore a skull cap to keep my bald head warm and a couple of sweatshirts.

Ok so enough of my bitching.  Shooting on the beach during the day is a challenge but at night it is even more challenging. We had to calculate what night and time low tide would be and schedule the shoot accordingly. We got lucky as it was a full moon so we weren’t working in pitch blackness but it was dark.  Flashlights were a must.  I had two assistants, make up, hair etc. the whole shabang.

Now of course there is no electricity down on the beach so we rented a Profoto 7B pack, two heads and some grids.  My key light had a large 4 x 6 foot Pro Foto soft box coming from camera left and up high angled down a bit. My f stop was f/8.  The light you see on the rocks behind our model  was bare bulb with the standard reflector attached and my first assistant hand held it at just the right spot.  The tide would come in and sometimes the water was too high so we had to sit there and wait until I decided was the perfect time to pull the trigger.  You can’t tell but Morgan our model was freezing her ass off .  To make matters worse this was around 2:30 am !   It was VERY VERY cold.  So here she is not moving a muscle waiting for me to fire the shot.  This shoot was definitely a challenge.  You know what’s cool ? You can’t even tell how difficult it was because the final image looks like it was a breeze.  But that is what separates the men from the boys    I would love to get some questions and comments on this post.  There is much more info I have to offer.  How in the world did I lock focus ?  But I want you guys to ask and I also want you to think about not just the technical aspects of the shoot but the psychology and how as a photographer I had to keep my model feeling beautiful even though she was freezing and wet.

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