"Real Rant" Music Video Shoot
Hello friends. Juicebeats here.
This past Saturday was a busy day for me. It took over four hours to shoot Corvette Polo's "Real Rant" music video downtown in the hot sun. I was able to work with York of Quality Vision Films for the cinematography. We talked about each scene and how we wanted to capture it from each camera. It was great to speak with someone with the same technical mind and knowledge of capturing a vision on film. We mapped out our locations for each shot, the first being the alleyway covered in graffiti behind Market Square. Next, we headed to the top of the Locust Street garage; luckily, no one was up there at this time. We also shot just behind the Market Square stage by the water fountains. There was a play going on while we were shooting, but I think with all of our camera equipment, we were getting more attention than the play was. Look for the music video "Real Rant" coming soon. Here are a few images from the set...
Heather and PJ Engagement Shoot
Hello friends. Juicebeats here.
I am so excited to share with you this Knoxville couple's engagement photos. Saturday, May 31st, I was able to photograph Heather and PJ for their engagement. Heather and PJ have been friends of mine for several years now, and I was excited by the opportunity to photograph them. They are such a great couple, and you can tell that they are so in love.
We decided to do their photo shoot at Volunteer Landing Marina in order to take some beautiful and unique shots at one of Knoxville's most interesting sites. By visiting the marina's bridges, docks, trails, and railroad tracks, we were able to capture some sweet moments.
Heather and PJ are to be wed this December in Cancun, Mexico, and I am looking forward to traveling with them to celebrate their special day.
Kids by The Cove
Hello friends. Juicebeats here.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of photographing the Witmer & Davis kids at "The Cove" off Northshore in Farragut. The kids all wore white shirts and blue jeans to match. One of the challenges of the photo session was making sure all the kids expressions fit what I wanted to capture. Everything may appear great at first, but I noticed that sometimes when everyone else was smiling perfectly, one kid might have an eye half closed or be looking in a different direction. Despite all the challenges of getting 5 children to cooperate at the same time, it was a fun session with all of the trees and the lake in the background. This scenery created some beautiful and colorful backdrops for the photos.
Great session with some really great kids!
Juicebeats
Acting Career?
Hello friends! Juicebeats here.
When I was in 5th grade, an adult theater group came into our school to put on a play for the lower grades. The play was called Charlotte's Web, and I was asked out of everyone in the 5th grade to help with the play by staring as Wilbur. The reason I was asked was because there is a point in the play that Charlotte the spider asks Wilbur to do some athletic things, splits being one of them, and at the time, I could do a split. I had to put on a fuzzy pink outfit and do everything that the adults told me to do. I didn't have to recite any lines for this part. The woman who played Charlotte was really surprised when I did my split in front of everybody. I surprised her so much that she couldn't recite her lines after that. After the play was over, the theatre group thanked me and told me I did such a great job. This was one of my first experiences with acting. I have done numerous plays and voice overs and I've been behind the scene with the camera since then. I have even modeled clothing and tuxedos. My friend, Marc Curry, in comparison, has done numerous music videos, a TV show called Fatal Attraction, and several other ads and publications. We both have recently put our names in at Gage Talent Agency. Maybe you will see us in the next blockbuster...
Here are a few of our head shots:
Contact me at juicebeats@juicebeatsphotography.com for your professional headshots. Most employers are looking at your Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and maybe even your Instagram photos, and they want to see a professional person. A professional headshot can sometimes more easily land you the position you want.
Let me help you take your acting career to the next level. Get your acting career on the right foot with a visual compilation of your best acting work. Juicebeats Productions can create the perfect acting reel to give you the edge in this competitive field.
Also, we have some great summer deals for your next portrait session. Receive a $50 print credit with your next individual or couple session and $75 with your next family session. Mini sessions are also available.
Juicebeats
How to Photograph Art & Lighting Techniques
Hello friends and photography enthusiasts,
This past week I was asked to photograph some paintings for a friend. This would be my first experience with art photography, but I already knew that I would need a good lighting set up to do it. Luckily my uncle, Michael Messing of Michael Messing Photography, was available to help with the lighting set up. We used 2 strobe lights set up at a 45 degree angle from the paintings with the camera placed in the center.
Diagrams of the set up:
To make sure we had the correct amount of light hitting the paintings, we tested each corner of the painting to see if the light was evenly hitting the picture. The light meter showed us what aperture to set the camera to for best results.
Setup: For these shots of the paintings we used the sync speed of my camera to the flash which was 1/200 shutter speed. The aperture was set at f10 and ISO at 100 for best results without introducing digital noise. My camera, the Nikon D610 with the 24-70mm f2.8 was zoomed all the way to 70mm to flatten the image as much as possible. You could even go higher using a 70-200mm lens to further the flattening.
When creating digital prints of paintings, you want them to to look exactly like the originals with no glare from the flash, and the color has to be on point.White balance is key! I shot in RAW format so I could make any changes necessary later if needed, but if I was shooting in JPEG format, I would have to make sure that everything was exact. Before taking the first shot, I used my white balance cards and had Michael hold them up in front if the painting.
I took a test shot of the cards in the frame, so I could use this shot later to correct white balance in Lightroom when cropping the paintings and correcting the color.
Once we had everything where we needed it, it was time to take the photos of the paintings. Every shot was framed so that the focus point was in the middle of the picture with little surrounding area. The way to do this is to keep the lens zoomed in but move the Tripod forward or backward depending on how much you are trying to take out. This makes it so that you will not have much cropping to do later on.
Here are a few examples of Maria Walker's Art. If you like her work and would like to purchase a print copy of the art, please leave a comment below, and I will get you in touch with her.
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Juicebeats
Newborn Photography Techniques
Hello friends and fellow photography enthusiasts,
My name is Jason (Juicebeats) Messing, I am a portrait photographer living in Knoxville Tennessee. Today I would like to talk to you all about my new venture into newborn photography.
Newborn photography is one of the hardest forms of photography to master because it can be incredibly tedious. You are working with newborn babies who don't often cooperate with you when you try to take their photograph. Newborn photography requires some patience and can take hours to finish. In doing my research to learn more about newborn photography, I found that most photographers that schedule newborn sessions will not schedule anything else for that day because of how long it can take. You have to worry about props, toys, blankets, hats, clothes, messes, etc., just to take a few shots. The photos are the easiest part of the session.
After researching some poses I liked on the internet, I put my creativity to work behind the camera. The first thing you have to worry about is lighting. In this case, I used the natural sunlight coming from the window in my son's room. Next, I set the white balance using a grey card. For this lighting situation, it can be a little tricky when you are not in a studio setting and do not have umbrellas, soft boxes, or even a high powered bounce flash. It was sunny outside, and the sun gave enough light in the room for me to work with. If you don't have a grey card, you can set your white balance to shade setting when using natural light from the window. It will give the room a warm tone, and it will be close to what a grey card will set your camera white balance to. The reason to set it to shade and not sunshine is because while the room received sunlight through the window, it still will not light the room like a truly bright sunny day. If you are shooting RAW rather than JPEG, the white balance doesn't make much of a difference because you can change it later on in your favorite editing software. The next thing I needed to set was my ISO and shutter speeds. I wanted the photos to look bright and clear so I set my ISO to 200 and set my shutter speed to as low as it would go without my highlights clipping in my histogram. This also gives me more detail to work with in post productions in Lightroom. I knew I was going to using a fast aperture at f2.8 on a 50mm lens, so I modeled the rest of my set up around that. My second camera was also set up the same way, but the lens is not as fast at f3.5. I set it at 35mm f4.5, ISO the same, and shutter speed even slower to compensate for the aperture speed difference.
Make sure your newborn is asleep or sleepy; if not they will squirm, cry, and be uncooperative. It was funny because the second time I tried to do the newborn shoot, my son was asleep when we started but woke up as soon as we got him into position. He did not want to take any pictures. I was lucky that I have a fast trigger finger and caught him just as he was about to throw a fit or as he closed his eyes for a second.
Basically what I can tell you to make sure you get the best out of the shoot is to make sure you do the newborn shoot in a 2 week window from the time they are born. This will be the best time for newborns because they stay asleep most of the day during this time. Also, make them as comfortable as possible--blankets, pillows, rubs, anything to keep them calm and sleepy. Newborns are also really flexible at this stage, so if you can get them to sleep, you will be able to put them in different positions. Just make sure you are there to catch them just in case they move.
Equipment I used for the shoot: The first shoot was shot with my NEX 5R and NEX 5N crop sensor system. I used a Nikon 50mm f1.8 E-series lens on the NEX 5N, which is a manual focus lens. On the NEX 5R I used the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens. During the second shoot I used my Nikon D610 full frame sensor camera with the 50mm f1.8 G lens.
Here are some before and after shots of how I edited the photos using natural light.
Before
After
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After
After
After
I use Lightroom for 99% of my editing. All of these were edited in Lightroom except I exported the black and white one in Photoshop to do some of the darkening effects then imported back into Lightroom for the final edits. I used a combination of color correction techniques and some adjustment brushes to clean up the images. If you have any questions about any of the editing, feel free to comment below or contact me juicebeats1@gmail.com.
Juicebeats