Fstop Studios News

Star Jockey

Bret Lucas — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:19:05 +0000

Chris Star Jockey - click to enlargeChris has been racing horses for the last 8 months. As we drove out to a shoot he was involved in we chatted about the pressure on him to perform. He told me that weight is a big issue for race day, and he often hits the sauna the morning of racing to rid himself of another kilogram. If you try that the night before racing, your body won’t let you sleep. He’s been on a roll for a while now, winning a good number of races. Lucky for me I get to head along to race day at the end of the month. Really looking forward to it.

Shooting a 1950s Power Boat

Bret Lucas — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:36:24 +0000

1950s Power Boat - click to enlargeI don’t often get the opportunity to shoot aerial. Here I rigged up the camera in the ceiling of the studio and shot vertically down on the scene. And used a number of lights in a composite image to capture both Lauren and the Boat placing specular light exactly where needed.

Lauren in Colour

Bret Lucas — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:25:06 +0000

Sandi Cutts did a wonderful job on colours for Lauren. The original concept was for Lauren to be made up like a mermaid. At the end of the shoot we decided to mix it up a bit and moved away from the mermaid look into something completey different by clipping Lauren’s hair up. The focus for the original shoot was also to use the boat as the main prop but once we got that nailed we decided to get some close up images of the finer detail.

Shooting Lauren

Bret Lucas — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:09:53 +0000

Model Lauren - click to enlargeOver the last couple of days I’ve been shooting Lauren. She’s unique in so many ways. Not your typical model. I used a 1950s Cresta Craft boat in studio as a background prop with Lauren as the star. Sandi Cutts did a wonderful job with hair and makeup. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be working on the final images.

Sandi spent a lot of time on body props and make up and it made a fantastic difference to the end result.

I captured a number of images similar to this one at the end of the shoot showing off Laurens intensity. Lauren has a number of looks up her sleeve and her repertoire continues to grow.

An Interview with NZ Prints Ltd

Bret Lucas — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:12:06 +0000

ioShutter for Hasselblad and Canon

Bret Lucas — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:43:58 +0000

I’m showing great interest in Time Lapse Photography and have decided to explore it in detail. I have a few jobs coming up and this unit will help with the commercial work involved. I have a number of iPhone apps that really work well and this App is one of the best.

After a bit of digging I came across Mr Madelin from Enlight Photo and he’s come up with a brilliant design that enables you to control your camera remotely with all sorts of useful stuff including, timer, bulb, timelapse, sound and shake control triggers.

The good news is that the ioShutter will work with your Hasselblad and Canon cameras. The Nikon unit is on its way soon, and later in the year a wireless plugin will be marketed that allows the current cable system to be used. Now that's smart.

The App offers fun features like “ClaptoSnap” which as the name suggests is a sound activated shutter, I imagine with a bit of tweaking you could use this to capture splash shots for example.

As mentioned above the ioShutter offers self timer and bulb settings and with the pro version, time lapse features, something that I see people looking for all the time.

Kodak Award 2011

Bret Lucas — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:04:52 +0000

After having this trophy for a year, it’s time it went back to Kodak. Last year at the National Exhibition I was awarded this trophy for peoples choice award for best image at the convention. The same image won a major national award at the same convention.

This year the convention is in Invercargill and I’ll be flying down to pick up a few more awards this time round. Looking forward to hitting the deep south…

Canon Online Winning Image

Bret Lucas — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 09:29:30 +0000

Got off to a great start in the first round of the PSNZ Canon Online National Comp for 2012. After winning the overall prize for 2011 my roll continues by winning round one in 2012.

Always Fun Shooting the Jucy Way

Bret Lucas — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:10:04 +0000

Jucy HQ - click to enlargeHeaded back to Jucy HQ to shoot more of the call staff. The Hotel is hot at the moment and often full. They have a wonderful green lounge area that suits perfectly for shooting people. Love the colours.

I decided to use clamshell lighting as I have been when shooting the call staff. It’s a very open friendly lighting that helps clients to engage with the call centre person.

Creating mood with Split Light

Bret Lucas — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:12:25 +0000

Split Lighting - click to enlargeA while back I was asked to shoot a brother and sister against a white background. Everything was high key, jeans and white t-shirts, all light and airy. It worked a treat. At the end of the shoot I changed it up a bit and turned the white background black and created a different mood with split lighting ending up with this image.