Portrait of an Air Force Second Lieutenant

My latest photography subject is fresh out of Officer Training School and brought a steeled focus to the shoot. Used to standing at attention for long periods of time, this guy was a breeze to photograph, as you can see from the photo below and in Launchpad’s portrait gallery.

For this portrait I wanted to convey a dark, dramatic ambiance. The background is black seamless and the lighting consists of two gelled rim lights and a large, feathered key light that rakes across the subject. During post I worked my basic retouching and color grading for a movie feel.

While shooting, Johnny recounted adventures from training and how rough military life can be. He had an MRE or meal, ready-to-eat in his duffle and was happy to let us have a sample. This one-day ration had a powdered sports drink that you mix in a bag, cinnamon roll, garlic toast, cheese spread, chicken pesto and patriotic cookies. I can tell you the cookies were exact replicas (minus the Hamburgler shape) of the cookies that were put in 1980s McDonald’s Happy Meals. The other cool thing about the MRE was a nitrogen-based heating unit. Just one drop of water will get the pack piping hot to heat up the chicken pesto. I also had a laugh when I learned every MRE comes with a laxative. While MREs are packed with a day’s worth of protein and other nutrients, it seems like the formula could still use some tweaking.

The Butcher

If only every photo shoot came with delicious food! We recently had the pleasure of taking portraits of Rusty Bowers owner of Pine Street Market in Avondale Estates, GA.

Rusty is a natural for creating the tastiest meat cuts you’ve ever had and his passion for his work comes across on the camera. We chose the shop’s iconic chalkboard as the backdrop and used a human-sized setup very similar to the recent pet photo shoot. The space was a little tight for all of our gear and at one point we had to actually put one of the light boxes outside an open window, which would have been fine if it hadn’t been for the pouring rain. Luckily our light box wears a poncho well.

We had a great time taking photos of Rusty and sure didn’t mind all the samples we got to try – like the most amazing soppressata and prosciutto. Really had a hard time keeping Elizabeth focused on holding a reflector while Rusty sliced 18 month aged prosciutto for one of the shots.

Make sure to check out the rest of the photos on www.LaunchpadPhoto.com. If you haven’t already visited Pine Street Market, you need to go because bacon jam will change your life!