When Mark and Candice Brooke contacted Lan and I about shooting a promo video for their photography website we were totally stoked. Their photography is top notch and they are definitely a force to be reckoned with amongst the wedding photographers we know.
Part of our video called for some unique shots of them that we were going to incorporate into the intro… a way to quickly and without words show their personality and fun demeanor. Luckily we all chose an awesome spot to shoot the video… so we decided to do the photos right there as well.
Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot… you can see the rest when you watch their video (which Lan did an amazing editing job on) here!
That was some seriously awesome work you guys did. Loved it.
How did you get everything so perfectly exposed? HDR? Seriously. Awesome job.
C+D =
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Vu Bui reply on May 30, 2008 3:16 pm:
Hey David,
Actually I shot it in RAW but didn’t do HDR or even mock HDR. The exposure was done with my Alien Bees studio strobes and ringflash with a battery pack. I overpowered the sun by about a stop and a half… that and the wrap-around lighting gave it the look it has.
This was actually done with very minimal adustments, I did them all in Lightroom and only used PS to clone out some dust and resize/sharpen for web.
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Very cool shots. Love the lighting… Glad to hear you can do this with lighting vs. Photoshop.
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Dude! Nice job. Really digging the RING BEE… Woop Woop for RAW!
Cheers!
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My God Vu, you just keep on getting better and better each time.
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we loved working with you both! you are soooo amazing!!!! Thank you Thank You Thank You! -candice and mark
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Hi Vu,
Newbie here.
What’s HDR?
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Lan Bui reply on June 8, 2008 10:07 pm:
Hey Ellie, I’m Lan, Vu’s brother.
HDR is High Dynamic Range. You can read up on it here.
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I love this lighting. I am going to have to come there for a week and be a intern
I would love to learn how you are doing this. I also need to invest in LIGHTING. It’s the one area that I have always been weak in. Got any suggestions as to where I can learn more by reading up on it or maybe even a website?
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Vu Bui reply on June 21, 2008 11:09 am:
To purchase I have to highly recommend Alien Bees lights… http://alienbees.com. They are awesome… both in the quality of the product and in their service.
As for learning resources… strobist.com is a great place to start. Their focus is on off-camera strobes… but the same principles and techniques apply to studio lighting as well. The local bookstore or even used bookstore… or heck even the library… is going to be full of great books about lighting. Nothing new is worth learning first… the basics haven’t changed in years… so you’ll be good with anything you choose.
Or, come to Orange County and just hang out!
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