How’d You Do That – Jason Duchow Photography

2015 Senior Style Guide Hot 100

December 2, 2015/in Behind the Scenes, How'd You Do That, Senior Photos, Senior Style Guide /by Jason Duchow

Every year the the folks at Senior Style Guide put on the Hot 100 photo contest. This contest consists of 10 categories with 10 winning images selected from each category and the goal is to feature the very best of senior portraiture. This year 6,315 images were submitted from some of the best portrait artists around the globe and I am so pleased to announce that one of my submissions made the cut! It is truly an honor to have been selected for a second straight year. Last year my photo of Preston Cole was selected in the “Urban” category, you can find the blog post about that contest and how that image was made here.

Now, without further adieu I am glad to reveal that my sunset image of Class of 2016 Lake City High School Senior Grant Wade was selected in the “Off Camera Flash” category. Here is the final image:

Here is what the photo looks like straight out of the camera:

This image was made using four different strobes. The main light was camera right with a 47″ gridded octabox set to a position to give a Rembrandt style lighting pattern. The remaining three lights were used to light Grant’s Jeep which he restored himself by the way! I used two strobes with strip boxes camera right and camera left to light the front and sides of the jeep. Then as I always like to do when I photograph seniors with their automobiles I added a strobe to the inside of the jeep with a colored gel. Blue seemed appropriate as it would be a complimentary color, matches Grant’s shirt and also is one of his school colors. This image was captured with a Canon 1DX and 17-40 f4.0 lense set to 1/200 at f5.6 and ISO 100. Here is a behind the scenes look:

I want to thank Vickie Black, the crew at Senior Style Guide and the judges for the opportunity, I am truly honored and grateful! Now it’s time to get ready to make another run at it with the Class of 2017!

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work for www.idahosports.com, The Coeur d’Alene Press, The Bonner County Daily Bee, Priest River Times, Newport Miner, Living Local and a handful of other newspapers and publications.

How’d You do That? – Portrait with Motion Blurred Water

July 6, 2015/in Behind the Scenes, How'd You Do That /by Jason Duchow

2014 Senior Style Guide Hot 100

December 2, 2014/in Behind the Scenes, How'd You Do That, Senior Photos /by Jason Duchow

Every year Senior Style Guide accepts submissions from senior photo artists throughout the world. The contest has 10 categories and they choose 10 winning images per category for a total of 100 winning images. This year I entered the contest for the first time and was pleased to find out that I had a photo that made the final cut!

The image that was selected was of Sandpoint High School senior Preston Cole. The category for this photo was “Urban” and it was taken on the backside of an old warehouse near the loading docks. This was a slightly tricky photo to make as you will see in the behind the scenes photo of our lighting set up. Here is the finished image of Preston.

Here is what it looks like straight out of the camera:Now the lighting set up. This image was made using two strobes, one boomed directly above Preston with a 7″ reflector and a 30 degree grid. The point of this light was to light his shoulders and hair as well as the rail, stairs and a little spill on the door. The idea here was to mimic a light on the building above the door. For the main light I used a strobe with a 47″ gridded octa, the light was positioned to create a lighting pattern right between Rembrandt and Loop when he was looking at the camera. The photo was shot with a Canon 5DIII with a 24-70 f2.8 lense at f10.So now let me explain what was tricky about making this photo. If you look closely at my assistant Mark you will notice that the lip on the loading bay was very narrow. It was too narrow to fit the base of the c-stand so we had to use one of the rubber bumpers for the third leg. The bumpers, as you can see, are not level with the loading bay floor so left to itself the stand would not be stable. To solve this we used all of our weight bags on the back legs and had Mark putting his weight on the stand and NEVER letting go! Here is a close up for you.To close I just want to say thank you to Vickie Black and the crew at Senior Style Guide for putting together the Hot 100. I am grateful for the opportunity to enter the contest and very excited to be selected. I am excited to work with the upcoming class of 2016 and look forward to making more great images for them. Who knows maybe one of those will make the cut for next year’s contest!

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work for www.idahosports.com, The Coeur d’Alene Press, The Bonner County Daily Bee, Priest River Times, Newport Miner, Living Local and a handful of other newspapers and publications.

Archive for category: How’d You Do That