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January 3, 2009
On the Set with Archimedes
photo © Kat Caverly 2009
A month in the making, the set of my latest portrait is a tribute to my husband and partner, Thomas Hudson Reeve. Besides bringing Archimedes to life, Tom built the set and did the special effects, and was my lighting assistant.
Using Barbarino's print as our inspiration, our goal was to capture the deep thought of the great Archimedes, as well as the dramatic lighting and feeling of space and place.
Starting with an overall super-soft fill of only f4 (8 foot Octodome behind me), we built the lighting. The main light is a Speedotron beauty dish with a 20 degree honeycomb grid set to f16. The background light is flagged to throw a window shape, f22. Finally we bounced a softened 102 head off a show card as a fill for the foreground, f8. Exposure was set at f18 at 1/15th of a second (for the fire in the torche).
I am using a Nikon D700, white balance set for 5700ºK, post processed in Photoshop CS4.
I did the character styling; wardrobe, make-up and hair. Tom was the decorator and did the shopping for all of the props including a magnificent chair. He has was the prop master and custom built the fire effect for the torche.
The results are very exciting! We make a great team and with all of the skills and experience Tom has with stage craft and photography, I have a team equal to many many professionals all wrapped up into a dynamic duo!
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
December 29, 2008
White Christmas Dreams Do Come True!
photo © Kat Caverly 2008
We had the whitest of Christmases and the snow was magical. You could actually see individual SNOWFLAKES in the drifts!
The image above is a micro photograph of a miniature ornament on a live baby pine tree. The tree was naturally flocked by our second snowstorm 2 days later. Again there was the magic of a snow light enough that you could see individual snowflakes with the naked eye. That made last minute Christmas shopping even merrier and bright!
We decorated the BIG TREE on Christmas Eve. Unwrapping each of the ornaments in my collection is like opening endless presents. It takes about 4 man-hours, or maybe a bit longer. I take the opportunity t really look at and feel each of my prizes. And this year we spent a day lighting and doing a beauty photo of this tree.
I never thought about how hard it is to photograph a Christmas Tree and capture its personality and how it looks to the mind's eye, how the tree feels to my heart as much as it looks to my eyes.
Next, how do we capture the start of a new year?
Posted by photocartoonist at 8:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 7, 2008
From our House to Yours
photograph © Kat Caverly 2008
Click the photo to see our holiday e-card!
We have been working since October on our holiday e-greeting for 2008. Tom wrote the script and we called upon the character designers and the animator who helped us bring these characters to life.
I am the voice of Sweetdream and Tom voiced Nightmare in this Christmas tale. And working with composer/arranger Rob Morrison, I produced the soundtrack. It will be released as an online greeting just in time for this season. And today we shot out holiday family portrait. As you can see we really are Santa's elves!!
Special thanks to Gloria Caballe and Chris Leap who created these characters, and Carl Sowerby who brought them to life with his delightful animations. This is a very special holiday gift to me, and my perrsoanl favorite Christmas design of all times.
Click HERE to see Sweetdream or Nightmare Christmas
Posted by photocartoonist at 7:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 15, 2008
Open for Business
KAT CAVERLY, photographer
The studio is ready; check! Have MINI, will travel, check! We are ready for location shoots! And for the last two weeks I have been preparing the new website!
After much deliberation and remembering the advice that Victor Skrebneski gave me while I was working in Chicago, "only show your best work". I think this is excellent advice and so far I have only included 6 photos and one is from my last project. I must admit that I am doing my best work ever now!
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 29, 2008
KAT CAVERLY Beauté
Thomas Hudson Reeve photographed by Kat Caverly
Looking beautiful is all about the lighting. Looking ugly is all about the lighting too. BEing funny as Tom shows us in the test above, well is all about personality!
When we have a choice we choose beauty lighting. And now we can bring the studio with us on location with the right equipment (and the right assistant).
I worked on the specifics of the equipment and the lighting ratio for a couple of weeks and then discovered Lastolite! lastolite has come out with the HiLite which is a softbox that can be used as a background making a High Key beauty lighting a bit easier and totally portable. The 6'x7' version folds down to a 40" circle. WOW. It takes a bit to master the folding back up but thanks to the brilliance of my esteemed colleague Thomas Hudson Reeve, he was able to get it done in under 3 attempts with just a bit of practice.
The key here (excuse the pun) is SOFT. I chose a extra large softbox 48"x72" for the fill light and after much testing I chose a Speedotron beauty dish shooting through an ultra white umbrella (for the shape on the eyes) for the Key light. the key to the Key is soft soft soft.
The HiLite serves as the background in this scenario and gives an fabulous cleanliness to the whole look and I only needed 48" between the background and the model. Overall I just needed 20 feet of space to setup and get a studio look while shooting outdoors!
Special thanks to international make-up artist Susan Sterling who achieved that perfect young, fresh and beautiful make-up, and I couldn't do any of this with grace without Tom Reeve.
Posted by photocartoonist at 2:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
