Hi everyone-

After a few months of thinking about it, working on it, and thinking about it some more and then a little more working on it. I have finally started the process of creating a whole new web presence for Brian Bastinelli Photography.

The process has been started but of course is being held up by domain transfer, who would have thought that would be a problem (again)... Anyway as soon that fiasco is taken care of I'll really get moving on this and hopefully within a week or so we'll be ready for the big reveal.

In the mean time I'll continue to post and then this site will remain to redirect traffic to the new location.

Today I wanted to tell you all about a great photography workshop that my friend Bryan Allen is offering. The workshop is called Location People and it is one of the best learning and shooting experiences available for your photography dollar.

I took both Location People I and Location People II but the new class is being streamlined into a longer more intense offering called Location People.

All of the links you need to find out more are listed below as well as a few videos that will give you a feel for this great experience. Jameson Abart and Jerit Abart shot these great videos during the last Location People II workshop in Knoxville, TN.

Check them out and feel free to contact me with any questions you might have. As I said it's a great experience and Bryan is a fantastic instructor and person. If you enjoy shooting people and you like both location and lighting concepts this is for you.

Here is the info on where to register for the Location People workshop:

LOCATION PEOPLE 2010

BRYAN ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

THE MINDFUL EYE

Here are the videos:

Workshop Teaser Video


Workshop Feature Video


Interview with Bryan Allen Lead Instructor


Interview with Brian Bastinelli


Interview with Usha Vedula


Click on IMAGES FROM THE WORKSHOP in the lower right corner of the linked page to see some of the great images that participants created during the week.

Hi everyone-

Here is a quick post of an image that I shot this past October just outside of Gardiner Montana. The image was shot around 10pm.

Of course the camera was on a tripod and the exposure was somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds if I remember correctly.

The light on the clouds and mountains comes from two sources. The main source was a nearly full moon. The second was light from buildings along highway 89 north of Gardiner.

I have never had a camera before the D700 that shot high enough quality low light images to even consider doing this type of photography. Next summer and fall this will be something that I play around with when I am back out in Wyoming and Montana where there is a tad less unnatural light to deal with.

Heading to Nashville today for the PPA ImagingUSA conference and the DWF convention. I am really excited about some of the classes that I will be attending.

But I am also very excited to be working with Bryan Allen and Ted Van Der Linden on a photo project while we are there. We are going to be shooting something pretty cool at the DWF and the BB King Blues Club. I am not to sure what I can talk about and what I can't so that's it for now!!!

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

I hope you all had a great weekend. I was a bit under the weather but got to spend a lot of time with my girls so it ended up being a great weekend.

And for you gamers out there I also upgraded to Play Station 3 and got Modern Warfare 2. AWESOME!!!!!!!!

On Saturday afternoon Cree was getting her nails painted by her mom and I wanted to capture a few images. Cree wasn't overly excited about that idea. So actually capturing the images was quite a task which ended with me standing on the bathroom vanity with on leg and the other across the room against the wall shooting almost straight down on the two of them who were sitting on the floor.

Cree though that was just crazy so she loosened up a bit and a few of the images came out ok. During the process though I was able to catch a few other images that were a bit more serious.

These were taken at ground level with me in the bathroom and Cree in the doorway looking in. I just replaced the vanity lights with 4 100 watt incandescent soft white bulbs so the light was very bright and soft. It was camera left and up pretty high. It made for some bright but nice light falling onto Cree's face.

The resulting images were a complete departure from what I had set out to capture. I am not really sure how to characterize her expressions in these shots but they really moved me.

I darkened them up a bit in the background and added a few sight textures to bring out the mood that had developed in these images.

I might add a some more info about how this was all accomplished later but for now I have to end the post as the sun is moving and between now and 10:15 will be shining directly into my eyes as I sit at the computer... So for now its off to rake some leaves....

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Recently I traveled to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the first time. My experience was a bit different than I am used to. Thousands of people, traffic jams and areas that were closed at which you had to wait in long lines until they opened.

One of those areas was Cades Cove. On the morning this image was taken the Cove drive was closed longer than its normal over night hours due to fog. So we waited at the gate for about 45 minutes in a line of well over 100 cars. Not the nature experience I was hoping for here.

That being said there were little pockets of natures beauty there just waiting to be found. If you ventured just off the road often times something beautiful was waiting to be seen.

On this particular day the delay in opening the road allowed for me to pass through the area where this images was shot about an hour later than I would have. In the end It was one of my favorites from the day.

I am currently working on a larger panorama of several images stitched together from this same spot. I hope to have it done soon.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Today's post was shot just after we had wrapped up shooting what you saw yesterday. While we were shooting that image Josh Berardi had set up another area to shoot at. So when we were done we quickly went over to that set up and began shooting again.

I don't seem to have an image of the exact set up here But I believe it was shot with just one very large parabolic umbrella as the key light.

There was a backdrop, which was essentially a piece of fabric hung in the back ground. They picked this fabric because it complimented Dora's dress. I included a wider shot to show you how the backdrop was set up.

Hi everyone-

So one of the things I hoped to accomplish in last weeks Location People II workshop was to push the limits of my photography. And the workshop did not disappoint on opportunities to do so. Bryan Allen and his crew delivered each and every day.

On Friday night we shot at two different locations, the Time Warp Tea Room and the Body Graffix Tattoo shop. I'll post some images from the Tea Room in the future.

So going into shooting at the shop I excited about what we might be able to do. When we got there we found we were limited in where we could shoot and in how long we could shoot. Because this was a working shop there were areas that were cleaned that we were not allowed to touch. This created a bit of difficulty in how to shoot in the small tattooing booth.

Also there were a lot of people in the area we were shooting making it tough to move around.

When we first started shooting I was using a 10-20mm lens but quickly found that it was not accomplishing what I had hoped and switched to the only other lens I had available the 50mm 1.4.

This limited me to tighter shots at closer range but I think in the end it really worked out pretty well. In these images are Ryann and Cesar as well as the tattoo artist.

Initially we used a beauty dish as the key light but because of the limitations on where we could use it we abandoned it for the ambient fluorescent light. This too was a good reason to switch to the 50 1.4 as I picked up a few stops of light.

We shot for about 15 min and wrapped up. The last 5 min of the shoot were the most productive after everyone dialed into what they should be doing and shooting. It went fast but was very cool.

Have a great weekend!

Hi everyone-

Well the day I have been kinda not looking forward to has arrived. Today I go back to work at the FD. I have been off since the middle of September and it has been GREAT! But all good things come to an end I suppose...

So I thought this series of images would go along good with today, it's kind of how I feel. :0)

These images are of Alec Johnson, a fantastic photographer and all around amazing person. I am so glad that I finally got to meet him, learn from him, shoot with him and just hang out. I had a great time.

I'm sure he is going to be thrilled with these images (lol) but I thought the series was pretty cool. They were shot against a white backdrop and were lit with a ring flash and a big octabox.

The ring flash was the key light and was directly facing Alec at the same height as his head. The octabox was slightly camera left and higher than Alec with a downward angle to help fill in any shadow that was created by the ring light.

Then of course a few texture layers were added to add to the interesting vibe of these images.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Last night I arrived back from Knoxville or Knox Vegas as they like to call it. The trip was amazing! started out in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with my family and then traveled to Knoxville to attend the Bryan Allen Location People II workshop.

It was fantastic. Hands down THE best workshop experience I have ever had. Bryan worked his tail off to make sure that we not only had everything we needed, but got the most out of the week possible. As well you couldn't help but be effected by his kind nature and giving spirit.

If you ever get the opportunity to attend one of Bryan's workshops you have to do it. They are fantastic! More about them in coming posts.

Today's image was shot on our first night while we were doing some single light studio work. The image is of Vincent a fantastic model and super nice guy.

I am trying to figure out how to present the images from the work shop over the next few days but check back as there will definitely be lots more to come!

Have a great day!



Oh, here's a diagram of how the lighting was set up....

Hi everyone-

Well the big day has arrived for Carolyn and Floyd. Today I will be shooting their wedding and reception. I am really excited to shoot with them because not only are they friends but because they have such cool attitude towards the photography and have chosen such a cool venue for their reception.

We'll be shooting at the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey, PA. This is a really cool location for a shoot and I can't wait!

So today's image was shot at the train station in Harrisburg, PA. Another very cool spot to shoot at. In this image Floyd is working his mojo on Carolyn. It was lit with a single beauty dish and ambient light. Post processing involved cleaning up unneeded details and local contrast boosting as well as a slight color bump.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Well its raining here and my sister said they might get up to 5 inches of snow in some areas of PA today! Crazy.

Today's image was shot during Carolyn and Floyd's engagement session. For part of the day they dressed up in period attire and shot at locations that fit into the period.

This image was shot in front of the PA Capital building. Floyd came up with the idea to simulate a broken down car while on a date. I think Carolyn's expression says it all!

The image was lit with one beauty dish and ambient light.

Don't forget to check out all of the cool SKYWATCH action by clicking the link: SKYWATCH BOG
Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Today's image is one more from the e-shoot with Carolyn and Floyd this past week. I wanted to try something a little different so this image was a long exposure coupled with a little light painting.

But it didn't end there I also shot a few other long exposure images of the scene and incorporated those into the final image to "fix" some problem areas.

Have a great day and a great weekend!




Here's one more...

This was shot on our way into the city for an evening of shooting. We're crossing the State Street Bridge with the Pennsylvania Capitol Building in the background...

Hi everyone-

Today's post was shot on Tuesday during Carolyn and Floyd's e-shoot. We had a great time and shot at a bunch of different locations. There will be a ton of images to come from this shoot so stay tuned! Don't forget to check out the SKYWATCH BLOG and see great skies from around the world.

In the comments from the post yesterday Larry asked me to talk a little about how the image was created. So here is a bit of information on how it was created.

First off here is the SOOC image:



This is a diagram of the basic set up:



So here is the story- Over the past three years Floyd purchased and restored this vehicle. So while we were shooting he asked if I would shoot some images of him and the car. We were at the Harrisburg Train and Bus Station which is a fantastic location to shoot.

The car was parked outside of the main entrance of the building. As you can see in the images there are a lot of lights that hang under the canopy. I wanted the light that I was going to use to look natural like it might be coming from one of those lights.

To do that I used a beauty dish with a diffuser on it to soften it up a bit. I had my assistant Kayla hold it up as high as she could so it would kinda of shine down on the car. She was at about a 45 degree angle from the passenger side front corner of the car.

That was it. We took several shots and adjusted the location and intensity of the light.

Once I got the image back and on the computer I went to work created the look I wanted. It had to have a vintagey feel to it so I altered the color a bit by desaturating and warming it up slightly.

Once that was done I removed some of the background objects that I didn't like. The rest of the work was local contrast adjustments to bring out the details.

It ended up being a pretty simple image to pull off and finish.

Here is the final image (which is different than yesterday's image.)

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Thanks for all the feedback yesterday on the series of thunderstorm images. They were great fun to create and post. I thought since this week has had a series of dark images that I would end on a brighter more uplifting image of the girls.

This image was shot in the Priest Butte area just outside of town. There is a really cool old grain elevator, which you can see there and some railroad tracks and great scenery in any direction.

We shot these images around 3 in the afternoon and used a large scrim and a few reflectors to control the lighting. Post processing on this image was basically cleaning up the image, playing with local contrast, adjusting the colors and then adding the textures.

Hope you enjoy, have a great day and a better weekend!!

Hi everyone-

I am rounding out the thunderstorm shoot with Savanah and Shay today with something I think they're going to like. They're big fans of the movie Twilight, which was a big influence in this shoot, so I thought I'd up the game and make their very own Twilight poster.

In today's post there are three images. The SOOC raw image, the fully edited image and then the movie poster shot. The fully edited image took me about 3 hours to complete.

Its not that hard to create just very time consuming because of all the detail work that must go into it. I have a few presets that I have created or found that I like to use in Lightroom. Basically similar to an action in Photoshop, its a quick way to make a batch of images look the same with a file that tells the program what to make it look like. Thats probably not a great explanation.

So first I crop the iamge to what I like, then I clean it up. Remove dust, dirt, objects I don't like etc. Once that is done then I retouch the main subjects. That is the easy part.

The next step is what is time consuming. I basically do a few layers (at least) of local contrast enhancement. There is a ton of detail work to be done here so it takes a while.

Once that is done I play around with color and anything else I would like to change in the image. In this case I added lightning. Once that is done then I might have to go back and revisit some of the earlier steps again to blend the added elements nicely.

Once the editing is done I'll go back and look at it again and fix anything that doesn't look right, then I might add some textures or try to create an over all look or feel to the image. That could be another big project. but in these images it was pretty simple.

I hope that racks the surface of how these images were created.

Also today is the Skywatch Friday post so be sure to click the link and visit all the blogs for more great images involving the skies! Click here:----> SKYWATCH FRIDAY

Have a great day!

This is straight out of the camera:



This is the edited version:



And finally, the movie poster:

Hi everyone-

I hope everyone is doing well this morning. If your in our neck of the woods...stay inside! it is hazy, hot and humid here and when I say hot were talking 90's...no time to be outside...lol I'm taking advantage of the weather to try and get a bit caught up on editing and posting today.

So on to today's image...

I am continuing with the shoot we did with Savanah and Shay along the Rocky Mountain Front west of Choteau, MT. As I said yesterday we rushed to get to this spot in time to get some shots before the sunset went away and we got clobbered with a thunderstorm.

Initially we were looking to shoot the girls with a nice sunset in the background, but as the weather rapidly developed we realized it wouldn't be the case. As a matter of fact if we didn't do something quickly we wouldn't get any more images that night period.

So initially we set out with a beauty dish as our light source and me shooting a 70-200mm 2.8 on my D700. We used pocket wizards to trigger the light.

My initial intention was to get the girls walking along a prairie road with a dramatic sunset behind them. But several factors just weren't working out. The skies were rapidly changing, the distance was to great and made the girls look way to small in the image and the light wasn't really believable.

Since I had initially been shooting from on top of a vehicle We moved the vehicle closer to keep the leading lines of the two tracks that made up the 'road'. But it just wasn't working.

After abandoning the vehicle I was shooting down at the level of the girls and things were looking a bit better. The shot was still just not looking right.

At that point Bryan suggested switching to his camera. He was shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II with a 24-105 lens. I switched over, set the lens to 24mm, got the exposure dialed in and we suddenly had a much better image.

We now had the girls as the main subject and not the sky, which was the case the original set up.

We finished out the shoot this way and I am really happy we did. Tomorrow I'll talk more about the actual set up and lighting set up.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Just a quick post today. Leaving to go visit with my father and family. He is having a hip replacement today.

This image was shot this summer at the North American Indian Days on the Blackfeet Nation, MT.

As you know great light is really important for creating a good portrait. Well, at this location lighting and access with an unobstructed view are a bit tough.

But if you hit it at the right time there is a perfect spot that where the light is just right as the sun begins to set. Depending on the weather and what is going on around the area it might not last for long but when its good, its very good.

I try to get that spot every year and have been pretty successful most of the time.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Today I am writing from the lobby of our hotel in Missoula, MT. We came down here yesterday for a fun day with the kids. Missoula is a great town and there are a ton of things to do with or without the kids.

But we hit a few kid friendly spots, had a great Mexican lunch and then after a much needed nap we hit the water slides.
They, well we all had a blast.

Today we are heading to the Elk Country Visitor Center to let them check out all the animals and displays. We secretly checked it out yesterday during nap time.

Then I am not sure where we will head after that. But we have to be at my cousin's house at 7 for a picnic.


So today's post was shot back in May while I was in Choteau, MT. In these images are my cousins Freda and Bobby. The images were shot on their property just after sunset.

They live in a very cool little spot at the mouth of a canyon leading back into the Bob Marshal Wilderness. It is surrounded by mountains and the Teton River. I am not sure it gets much better!!

Bobby owns and operates a masonry company that specializes in great (real) stone work. What they can do with stone is really amazing. Freda works in "guest services" for a local ranch.

I lit these images with a single softbox and a reflector to fill in the shadows a bit. The camera was a D700 with 70-200 2.8vr handheld. The strobe was tripped with pocket wizards.

I hope you enjoy them, have a great day!

Oh don't forgett o check out the skywatch blog by clicking here: skywatch

Hi everyone-

Today's image was shot back in September while in Savannah. It was a bit more difficult of a shot to pull off as we were coordinating Abby and three assistants all moving down a sidewalk.

Abby was walking and when she hit her mark was to turn around as if someone had actually called out her name. The three assistants were waking a long side in the grass. One had an SB800, one a SunBounce reflector to which the flash was aimed, and one a large scrim to hold back the real sun a bit.

It was a fun shot to create and pull off and we had a fun time doing so.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Hope you are all having a great Friday! I am really excited for the weekend to arrive because it's the first in a long time that we do not have any plans. How nice it'll be to catch up on things around the house and just hang out with the family.

Today's images are the final shots from the bridal shoot I did in Atlantic City this past weekend. I wanted to try out some new skills I learned from John Michael Cooper last month in Las Vegas.

This is a single flash multiple exposure technique that John has been using quite successfully. In the end it creates a very cool somewhat surreal look. This shot is actually a compilation of 16 different images that I shot while exposing different parts of the scene with the flash. The best parts were then blended together in Photoshop. After that a little more post and ta-da a cool new image.



The other cool part about creating shots this way is it can be done at any time of the day and under any lighting conditions. The next image was shot as we were setting up for the main photograph. I wanted to get an idea of the composition and get the set up correct before we started shooting. and of course Beth was standing in 30 degree temperatures and wind so she wanted me to get it right the first time too.

As I was downloading images I found the next shot and thought I would post it so you could have a reference for the time of day and lighting conditions when we were shooting.

These are a lot of fun and I hope to be shooting more over the next few weeks.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

I'm going to finish out the week with two really cool images of Chad and Erin Fuller, of Fuller Edge Photography. These images were shot inside The Downtown a very hip cocktail lounge in downtown Las Vegas Freemont Street area.



Not only are these guys fantastic photographers but also great models. They knew just how to move and pose for the best shots.



The lighting and art work in The Downtown were very nice and added the perfect dramatic background for these images.

Have a great weekend!