MICHAELSCHULZ|PHOTOGRAPHY

If you enjoy behind the scenes videos from photographers then this is the right post for you.
Heath Morton over at her blog asked people to send in links to videos so she can put them all
on your blog. Of course yours truly followed the call and there’s a great list of videos that
are great to watch. Check them all out.
Big thanks to Heather for posting them all. I enjoyed watching them.

The Lounge: Your Behind-the-Scenes Videos: “

I’m not going to recap our little discussion of last week re: BTS videos but I will encourage you to go back and read the posts and the subsequent comments if you haven’t already. Suffice it to say that they are generally considered a good thing by Art Buyers but don’t let producing them distract you from what you’re really here to accomplish.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request to see your Behind-the-Scenes Videos- these run the gamut: from simple time-lapse to sophisticated marketing tool to instructional video to best-of compilation. In some cases they come complete with fancy editing and music (that’s been cleared for use I’m sure- ’cause if it wasn’t properly licensed that would be kinda hypocritical woudn’t it?).

Let’s do this in the order in which they were received:

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Jason Wallis:

Concept to Completion: Mandi Mapes from Jason Wallis on Vimeo.

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Tony Fouhse has done a series of portraits of Crack addicts (which I discussed before here), it’s called USER and he had this to say about it:

I believe that it’s important to show BTS videos that aren’t all about big production and how many lights you use.

My photography is still very much about discovery and the magic of human connection. I believe that these two videos speak to that.

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Ryan Schude’s final image will actually be showing as a large scale print in Toronto this October as part of the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward 2009 exhibit.

Ryan Schude - The Diner from SAYER DAN4TH on Vimeo.

The final image:

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Andreas Chudowski from Berlin:

Making Of ‘Mann am Meer’ from Andreas on Vimeo.

The final image:

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Erik Wahlstrom, Electrolux Designlab 2009.
In Erik’s words:

This one is quite special because the BTS-video is part of the whole campaign here.

Electrolux Designlab 2009 from Erik Wåhlström Fotograf on Vimeo.

The final image:

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Steve Buchanan:

My BTS video, although it’s geared more towards the uninitiated client than towards professionals, but it was fun all the same. Enjoy.

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David Wright

These are super lower production BTS videos that I’ve started to make with a Canon G9. Photographing a safari in Uganda:

David Wright Photography - Murchison Falls National Park - Uganda from David Wright on Vimeo.

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Brook Pifer

We have have been doing behind the scenes videos for years. The majority of our client base is celebrity/music/entertainment and we just put together a behind the scenes video mix for our fall marketing:

BEHIND THE LENS: Photo Shoot Master Mix from Brook Pifer on Vimeo.

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Ryan Robinson

The final image:

And this one:

This is a compilation of every RAW capture from a promo shoot for The Magical Exploding Boy by Dean Evans. None of the images have been retouched (obviously) therefore, you’re getting a glimpse into how I work with options for lighting, props, themes and talent during a shoot. Enjoy!

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Peter Schafrick:

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Christopher Kilkus sent this note and a link:

Check out our BTS here. The watershed moment for us was when the Canon 5dMarkII came out. We bought it as a back up camera for our standard kit, but all of a sudden we had an amazing video camera on every shoot to play around with. I think if we had to hire a cameraman with a pro level video camera, we never would have gotten around to doing BTS videos. And our clients love it! Now on about 25% of our jobs we are being paid extra to film and cut BTS videos.

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Michael Schultz:

We shot one recently on a shoot to not only of course show my fancy face but more or less to show other people how we do things and explain a little bit:

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Rep Melissa Hennessey sent this note and a link:

We starting posting them earlier this year & found it does help give the AD a little bit of insight of what it’s like to work with a photographer. We have a few on my site & we also post them on my blog.

Here’s a recent one that we still need to add a few credits to:
http://www.jasonlindsey.com/Carhartt3.mov

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From Wonderful Machine, Stephen Voss and a BTS entitled 90 Seconds with Mikhail Gorbachev:

And Bill Cramer dumping Gatorade on a TV host:

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Eric Doggett:

KLBJ FM Morning Show from Eric Doggett on Vimeo.

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The fantastic Dana Neibert (more on his site):

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Jeremy Bales:

Behind the scenes with The Baldwins from Jeremy Bales on Vimeo.

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Tyler Grey:

See the whole stop motion short film that Tyler did for Polaroid POGO here. This is the BTS of part of that shoot:

Polaroid POGO from Tyler Gray on Vimeo.

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Evaan Kheraj:

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Nicholas Henri:

NICOLAS HENRI: PAPER FASHION - Behind the scenes from Nicolas Henri on Vimeo.

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Doug McGoldrick:

I did a stop action of a recent shoot recently not exactly behind the scences but you might dig it.

big shoot from doug mcgoldrick on Vimeo.

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Michael Lee:

Just-for-fun video from a road trip shooting CGI backgrounds in Iceland.

Michael Lee Iceland Behind-The-Scenes Video from Michael Lee on Vimeo.

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Thanks.

“

(Via HeatherMortonArt buyer.)

About a week ago a friend of mine at an agency and I had a conversation that went like this:

me: Hey, how you’re doing

her: Doing great, working on this campaign for water bottles. Do you have something like this in your portfolio?
me: Uhm .. no, not really I’m more a people shooter
her: Well .. whhy don’t you shoot some and send them over.
me: Uhm .. ok

So there I was. I shot some still life before but wouldn’t really consider me an expert. However, I’m a photographer in the first place and then come categories I like to shoot. So I took on the challenge
to shoot water bottles which I never had done before but had a rough idea on what I wanted to go for in
terms of looks. I set out to get some bottles, glycerin and set up my studio.
I spend the whole night ’til 5 am in the morning getting these shots but learned a lot. So was it worth
it? Absolutely. Not only did I learn something new but it allowed me again to push my own envelope and
step outside of my own comfort zone. Yes, I’m primarily a people shooter but why not step outside, do
something different and maybe pick up something along the way that also helps me shoot people?

The point here really is that just because you’re a ___________photographer (insert your favorite box here) doesn’t mean you should not shoot something else once in a while. I hear so many photographers say they only do this or that and only in that style or they need a ton of light before they even consider picking up the camera etc. That doesn’t make you a better shooter nor does it allow you to really touch on what should come first: the love and passion for photography no matter what.

So here they are, my bottle experiments. Not too shabby for a first try, eh?

… and oh so true for everybody.

A few backs I had the chance to start my new project of which I will share about more on this
blog going forward. I teamed up with the National MS Society to finally start this.
During 2009 I’ll be shooting portraits of people that have and live with MS and battle it’s
effects every day. The goal is to raise more awareness and of course hopefully also money for
the National MS Society. At this point it will be people from all over Texas.

It was a privilege to work with Ilona. When she was diagnosed it surely was a change in her
life and meeting her was truly inspiring. She’s full of energy and definitely won’t stop
moving anytime soon. Thank you so much for being part of this project. More to come …

If you live in Texas and are diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and would like to be part of this project please feel free to contact me.

One of the greatest photographers of our times and somebody who I truly admire and always have been inspired by.