Nathan Rigaud Lighting and Photography

Architectural Style

2009-09-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

I watched a Documentary today called "Visual Acoustics" about Julius Shulman and his work as an Architectural photographer. The film was excellently done and very motivating to watch. Anyone that knows or has seen the work of Julius Shulman can tell that the man was a creative genius with an eye for capture the story within each piece of architecture that he photographed.

I decided to take a little bit of time today, before a casting call I was needed at, to do some shooting of architecture and studying the lines and spaces of the areas around me. I tried to search for the best angles, where the leading lines would interesting and attention drawing.

Battleship

I was able to shoot for about 25 minutes until a security guard became unhappy of my presence and decided that my practice time was done. However, it was just enough time to get a handful of good photos.

Concrete

Bus Ticket

4th Floor Elevator

I'm going to be focusing on getting more architectural photo practice for awhile to expand my talents.

Thanks for stopping by!

Signed,
-)_-.

"Artsy"

2009-09-08T20:52:00.001-07:00

Some friends of mine are getting married and very excitedly asked me to take their wedding invitation photos. I immediately said yes, figuring it would be fun to do something nice for my friends on their special occasion, but not thinking the photos would be of too much interest. I asked my friends what they were looking for, expecting the classic arm around each other happily smiling pose in front of a tree, picture that is so common of such photos. To my surprise and excitement I was told they were looking for something "artsy" that showed who they were as people and their connection in their relationship.

Playing in the fountain

We ended up taking a day shooting around the downtown Denver area with some very fun results. It ended up being a great learning experience for myself as well to think creatively in showing the connection between the couple.At first they were a little nervous but soon became very comfortable and had a great time! Pair with great backgrounds and locations the day was a big success!

Personality

Together

We had such a good time that if schedules permit we may have another shoot soon!

Signed,
-)_-.

Harvest of Horrors

2009-08-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

"Something lurks in the fields at the Peterson Family Farm as the pumpkin patch revolts in a frenzied attack and threatens the very existence of an entire county. Estranged brothers must resolve their jealous feud to save the day, the family reputation, and make their mama proud – rest her soul!"

I wanted to post a link to the film that I am Assistant Director on, which is scheduled to shoot late fall of this year. The film is called, "Harvest of Horrors" and is sure to be a fun and exciting ride that everyone will enjoy!

Please visit our website www.harvestofhorrors-themovie.com and blog for sneak peaks and updates on the film!

Get ready for a "Action-Packed, Six-Gun-Slingin', Samurai-Sword Swingin', Orange Goo splattered, Punk-a-Billy romp through the pumpkin patch!"

Signed,
-)_-.

Summer Runways

2009-08-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

So Summer is coming to a close and its been a very busy season indeed! I've taken thousands of photos and have spent hours editing. Thus far all the hard work has been paying off with great looking photos! Here is a few samples from some runways I shot.

Urban Fashion

Standing Out

Holding the Pose

Elegance

Looking forward to next seasons shows!

Signed,
-)_-.

Depth of Field

2009-06-15T16:02:00.001-07:00

Green Eyes

These shots I took at an ISO of 400, F 1.8,and shutter speed 1/250 on my 50mm prime lens. They were lit with a single 100 watt bulb through diffusion gel to give a good contrast look. I decided to shoot at a higher ISO so that I could use a wide open aperture and get a super shallow Depth of field.

The shallow depth of field draws the eye to the focus point of the picture and creates a very nice effect on these photos.

Infected

Signed,
-)_-.

Group Shots

2009-06-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

Central Focus

When doing group pictures its really important to look at eye line. In pictures where the eye line of people in the photography are not focused on a certain point together or motivated to do otherwise there is a very distracting effect and the result is an unnatural feeling photo.If you do not wish for all your models eye lines to be together then give them reasons not to be together.

For example, you could have a picture of a couple, the man is looking at the camera and the woman is gently stroking his face while peacefully looking at him.
In bigger groups focus on giving everyone something to do and a character emotion which will help them all deliver more natural looks.

Keeping Everyone Motivated

Signed,
-)_-.

Think of the Product

2009-05-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

The other day I went out with my model friends to get some photo practice and work on various techniques. One of the things we worked on was the idea of selling a product. Fashion and advertising photography is not all about taking a pretty picture. The photo has to serve the purpose of making the viewer want or at least think about the product that is being displayed.

More Bars in More Places!

You have to first establish a mood that will best portray the product or lead to the product. Then you have to think of ways to bring out that mood in the character, surroundings, and photo style; establishing a common idea and theme for the photo and why one would want or need the product.

What to Wear in a Breeze

You don't have to be right in peoples faces with it, the best way to display your product is to incorporate it into the world around it.

Signed,
-)_-.

Prime Lens

2009-05-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

I tried out my new 50mm Prime lens the other night when I had some free time on a film shoot. We were in a dark alley that I had lit with two 800watt Kobold HMI's through a 6 by 6 Silk frame. I asked one of the actresses, when she had a spare moment, to come stand in front of the light and model for a few pictures so I could try out my new lens. I only had a few minutes so I gave a few instructions and went to snapping!

Dark Attraction

I was very happy with the results. The biggest plus to using a prime lens is the speed. Since there is lens glass in a prime lens versus a zoom lens, the lens is able to work at faster F-stops. This allows for two major pluses. First, you can shoot with a faster F-stop at a Slower ISO giving you more depth of field and secondly, you are able to shoot in lower light situations.

Reaching for shadows

I highly recommend investing in a prime lens if you have not yet. I'm very happy with mine thus far and I'm looking forward to getting plenty of use out of my new lens in the future!

signed,
-)_-.

Dancing With Light

2009-04-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight was pretty fun,I shot some pictures at a fashion show that show cased works from up and coming fashion design students.

Walking through Color

It was a difficult show to shoot since the lighting was very dark and the lenses I had were pretty slow. For the lighting they were using par cans with colored gels mounted to the ceiling and a spot light for back light as the models walked down the runway. However, the par cans were mostly only hitting in the middle of the runway making for a very small shooting window.The main photographer for the show had some very nice profoto strobes , but those only fired at the end of the runway when she took a picture of the models finishing pose.

Standing in the Darkness

The lighting did make for a few very interesting and creative photos however, and I had a very fun time trying to come up with creative shots in the lighting that was available.

Serendipity

Signed,
-)_-.

Cross Processing

2009-04-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

Process

I went to the film store a few weeks back looking for some fun film to play with. I ended up buying some 35mm vivid saturation Slide film which film takes a positive image instead of a negative image. I then decided to develop the pictures using "cross process". Slide film uses a different development process then normal color negative film, instead of developing the slide film with its process, I had it developed using a "cross process" in the normal color negative development process.

Moviola

This was the first time I had developed cross process and I noticed some very interesting and unique effects. By looking through the photos it is easy to see that cross processing throws the image in the green direction and picks up greens really well.I was aware of this green before shooting however I was surprised to see that it also raises the contrast of the image, bringing a strong distance between the whites and blacks.

Sliding

Another really interesting, and not very desirable, effect I found was bleeding in the deep blacks.In the dark shadows and areas in the image where there is deep blacks the image has a purple bleed, however, this is not consistent through all the pictures. It seems to be only on images where a shadow is moving, or there was a slight blur. This something I'll have to pay more attention too in the future.

Purple Bleed

Next film roll I'm shooting is expired!

Signed,
-)_-.

Shooting In The Basement

2009-04-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Originally I was going to take my model friend and go shoot outside at an outdoor concert amphitheater yesterday, however, upon checking the weather a few days prior I found that we would be in the midst of a winter storm where we could get up to 2 feet of snow that day. Slightly frustrated with the fact we would see so much snow in the middle of April, I decided to come up with another plan.

Staying inside

We ended up shooting at a friends house with just a couple lights in his basement. All and all it made for an interesting shoot! We came up with some unique make up ideas and themes by just looking through what we had available and where in the basement we had room enough to shoot.

Tear

It really is amazing how many different feels you can get in a basement! I talked with the model a lot and bounced around ideas to keep pushing for different feels, which she was able to pull of beautifully! We had a small crew built up of friends and we kept to a very casual shooting schedule which made for a very comfortable shooting environment open to creative ideas. While it may not of worked for some bigger more strict themed shoots, it made for a great way to kill some time on a snow day, get some more practice, and take some great photos!

Smile

Signed,
-)_-.

Take The Moment

2009-04-11T22:21:00.000-07:00

There have been many times in my life where I have seen something I wanted to take a picture of and didn't. I either didn't have my camera with me, or I thought, "eh it is probably not interesting enough". I have since found a lot of these moments to be wasted opportunities.

On one hand, if I had taken the picture I thought to but didn't, I may just end up with a really great picture. On the other hand, if the picture wasn't a good picture, I would be able to look and understand why; leaving with gained knowledge.

Over Colorado

In the world of digital photography there is rarely a wasted shot. You have the space on the card, if something caught your eye then take the picture. If you don't like the picture try to figure out why and how you could perhaps make it better.

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
Albert Einstien

Signed,
-)_-.

Just Something About It

2009-04-07T16:48:00.001-07:00

Forgotten

I got some Black and White 35mm film developed today. I borrowed a friends old Pentax manual camera a few weeks back to shoot the roll. Just finally got around to developing it and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Watching the Snow Flakes

You can debate the film and digital difference all you want, but there is something about film that is special. Its a pure chemical reaction of light physically hitting silver alkaloids, instead of light hitting a chip. It gives a certain softness and a unique feel; something I enjoy very much.

Sat in Time

Hopefully I'll be able to shoot some more film soon.

Signed,
-)_-.

Without Stands

2009-04-03T00:22:00.001-07:00

I tend to find it very irritating to light scenes on film sets with light stands. They can take up valuable room on smaller sets, create road blocks, find their way into shots that they aren't suppose to be in, and are be a bear to move back and forth. I try to do the majority of my lighting on set with clamps, pigeon plates, and practicles(lights that can be seen in the shot itself).

Maffer the Cabinet

The biggest advantage to lighting this way is there is very little changing after the initial master set up is complete. It can take more time to set up, but in the end it saves time because you don't have to worry about moving a stand out of the shot,then try to set it up somewhere else with the same lighting continuity.

On the set of "The Brig" I was Gaffing for a scene in a club. It required many lights of many different colors. Many of the blocking points needed to have their own feel and this required very specific placement of the lights. I noticed on the tech scout that the ceiling had truss mounted above the majority of the dance floor. This made setting up the lighting very easy because I could simply maffer clamp all the lights onto the truss then run power to the strips and circuits that were for the house lighting grid. After my lights were in place I was then able to pick a few of the house circuit lights that I liked and use them as well.

Make Your Order

It would have been very difficult to do the sets ups without using claps to set up the lights. We had many large master shots, and with the lighting schemes it would have been difficult to avoid mixing the colors. With my set up I could avoid these problems and then if I needed some extra fill for close ups it was easy for me to bring in a LED On a stand close for the shot and tear down for the next one.

The Close Up

Signed,
-)_-.

The Beauty of Still Photography

2009-03-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

Contemplation

I shot my first "Fashion Photography" shoot Wednesday night. Its amazing the differences between motion picture and still photography. With Motion picture you have many different elements and 24 frames per second that can go about to make a good shot.Two big elements that can be used to draw out emotion in cinematography are the motion of the camera and the motion of the actor, or subject if there is any.

With Still photography you have 1 frame and 1 chance to get the composition, framing, lighting, look from the model,and pose of the model to be perfect! Sometimes in motion picture films you make use of an offset composition or strange lighting to have some effect later in the shot,novelty moves that you don't have with stills.

Its for some of these reasons that leads me to feel that still photography is harder then motion picture cinematography. However this means that still photography can be a great way to train your eye for motion picture work because of how small the margin between a good photo and a bad photo is. A margin I'm still learning how to hit every time, but that is what practice is for.

When Things Come Together

Signed,
-)_-.

The Problem of White Walls.

2009-03-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

I was Gaffing on set this last weekend on a set for a short film which was filled with dream sequences. For one of the scenes the character wonders into a room to find his now dead friend waiting there for him. The room we had to shoot in was a small square room which was completely empty with white walls. Upon first glance I was terrified to shoot in such a room! Then I was given one of my favorite instructions of all time "Light this however the **** you want, and don't let it make since" After looking back at the white walled room I pictured it as a blank canvas waiting to be painted and went to grab my things.

There are a few reasons why white walls can be monsters to deal with on set. The biggest being that they are uninteresting and very flat. When you are shooting a film or taking a picture you are creating a world. Everything within your world has to go together to make it believable, or people will reject the matrix which you created. Another big issue with white walls is that they can overexpose very easily making it hard to get good separation between your characters and your background.

To fix my white wall problem was easy. Since it was a dream sequence I could get away with a very easy trick to fix the wall. I simply started by changing the color of the wall all together by using a Fresnel light with a magenta gel. I then decided to break up the color by cutting a cookie and shining a green gelled light at the wall. Green is the contrasting color to magenta so it provided and interesting mix.I also shined a moving water light, which changed colors, into a mirror which bounced into the corner of the wall providing some extra jazz. Finally I lit the actor with a separate white light to bring exposure to his face. Top it off with a keep out sign and some zombie make up from the art director and you got yourself a pretty interesting scene!

Bad Dream

The lighting was a big hit among the crew and the room got tagged the name "70s Dance Room". Now wasn't that more interesting then a white wall?

Signed,
-)_-.

Frustration

2009-03-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

Its very difficult to stay motivated. I tend to jump at opportunities and projects quickly, in hopes that I'll shoot something really great or be able to acquire some new skill. This isn't always the case and occasionally I'll find myself burnt out and frustrated.

The best way I've found to fix the problem is to just push through it. I'm rarely completely thrilled with things that I've shot, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from them. That doesn't mean its completely worthless. We have to take everything in stride and remember to look ahead, keeping our mistakes in the past and our frustrations under our feet as we climb our way through.

You can't ever let frustration defeat you! Besides, you never know when you will come across a happy accident.

Lack of Contrast

Signed,
-)_-.

Competing with the Sun

2008-10-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

Awhile back we were shooting for a short film outside in a parking lot on a bright and very hot day. Our character was stuck in a traffic looking through his rear view mirror at the girl of his dreams. It was a simple shot from outside of the car looking in on him as he gazed at the girl. However, the windshield of the car the character was in, blocked the majority of the light from the sun going into the car, leaving his face dark.

The dark face, but bright outside, created difficulty and frustration. If we exposed for the characters face the outside light would be blown out, but if we exposed for the outside light the characters face was dark. Our best option was to try and raise the characters face enough to get us proper exposure while the camera was properly exposed for the outside light.

Making due

This was easier said then done. We only had small tungsten production lights on set , and no flex fills or HMIs. We had some small poster boards whiched helped bounce a little light when used as bounce cards, but weren't strong enough alone. When using the tungsten lights we found that they had to be as close to the character as possible and could not be balanced to daylight with gels due to the loss of light. This combination brought the face of the actor up the few stops we really needed. We were able to get a better looking image, but still not optimal.

In some situations you just have to make due with the equipment you have.

Signed,
-)_-.

Speed Racer

2008-10-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

I recently watched Speed Racer, a movie based off the old Japanse cartoon. The movie is filled with bright colors and bright lighting. I noticed the filmmakers used strong key light, which put out soft bright white light on the characters and locations.

Speed

This strong white light is used throughout Speed Racer to bring out the bold colors, contrast, and emotion in the scenes.They also used bright light to create strong reflections off the cars to make them look sleek and fast.

Racer X

The creativity of the lighting and cinematogrophy in Speed Racer makes the movie fun and enjoyable to watch.

Signed,
-)_-.

It Comes From Below

2008-10-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

The direction of light on the character is very important and plays a large role in the emotion and subtext of a shot. If the direction of light is not motivated or comes from a strange angle, it can throw off the audience. Sometimes this is used by the filmmaker to envoke a certain feelings in the audience.

When the filmmaker wishes his character to appear evil or extremely angry they will sometimes position the light directly below the character. This is similar to the effect of placing the camera at a low angle. The character feels big, and since we rarely see light coming from the ground it feels unnatural and frightening. This type of lighting is also generally used when depicting the Devil.

Just something to keep in mind I guess.

Signed,
-)_-.

LEDs

2008-10-13T22:25:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing more and more LED (Light emitting diode) Lights recently. Their small size and efficient output are making them very popular in flash lights, decorational lighting, and even film production.

There are many advantages for using LED lights on film productions.The first advantage is the fact that LEDs have a very efficient output.A large LED light panel can run off of very little energy.LED lights burn at a tempurature of 5600K, the color tempurature of daylight, making them sutable to use with HMIs and in outdoor lighting situations. LED lights are also very long lasting and durable, which is a big advantage over HMI's and Tungsten lights.

One of the disadvantages to using LED lights is they produce a soft light. This soft light can be hard to control and only appropriate for certain situations. However, given the right circumstances an LED can be the perfect light to have on set.

My small LED flashlight

Signed,
-)_-.

Painters Drop Cloth

2008-10-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

When setting up the lighting for some of the scenes in Mental house I used the natural light coming through a window as my key. There are positives and negatives to doing this. The big negative is it can be very hard to control and will change as time passes through the day.

For the closing scene of the film we had a shot of the Jesus character looking out the window and turning to address the other patients. The lighting on him was almost entirely provided from the window and was originally too harsh. We wanted lighting on Jesus to be soft to make his character comforting so I came up with a simple solution.

I cut a piece of painters drop cloth and taped it to the window. Painters drop cloth works very well for diffusing lights and I have used it frequently to tape on windows that are providing too much light. It softens the harsh light coming through the window and helps bring a smoother feel characters faces. You just have to be careful that it is not seen in the shot.

Painters drop cloth taped to the window in front of Jesus

Signed,
-)_-.

Overhead Solution

2008-10-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Shooting for Mental house continued early Sunday as we arrived on set ready for another day of hard work. Our first shot was a long glidecam shot down the hallway following the nurse character as she walked to the room.

Preparing to shoot

This hallway shot was complicated to light for and took about 3 hours. We wanted the light from the doorway and window to be the strongest source and provide the key for the nurse when she hit her final mark. The hard part was getting enough ambient light in the rest of the hallway to have proper exposure through the rest of the shot. We used Kino flows and a 1k into a chimera hidden in some doorways to provide extra ambient light, but this left us with a gap about halfway down the hallway.

To fix the problem I had my gaffer rig up a 1k overhead to bounce the light off the ceiling over the underexposed area. After some careful rigging we had our light in place and the shot looked much better.

A big part of lighting is problem solving. There will be many unaccounted for issues that you won't notice at first. It takes time and creative ideas come up with the solution thats makes the shot perfect.

Gaffer rigging it up

Signed,
-)_-.

Just A Little Bit Of Baby Powder Goes A Long Way!

2008-10-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today we started shooting for Mental House, a short film about a group of people who think they are famous actors being held against their will in an insain asylum. The lighting for the film uses a unique blend of natural and production lighting which brings some unique ideas and emotions to the scenes.

For the first scene we wanted a muddy and dingy sort of feel for the enviorment. We used the sun coming in from the windows as our key light and an HMI, as well as a few other lights to provide some fill on the actors and extras faces.

What really brought character to the lighting was the addition of baby powder in the air. Before each take two guys ran through with baby powder covered shirts, fluffing them in the air to catch the rays of light from the sun.

Zach powdering the shot

This gave the perfect dusty and dingy feeling to the lighting that we wanted. The baby powder that acumulated on the floor also added to the set design, making the room feel as though it hadn't been cleaned in some time. It was a great technique and really brought up the production quality of our shot. Although I'm starting to feel the effects of breathing baby powder for 2 hours...*cough*

Taking the first shot for Mental House

Signed,
-)_-.

Big Ugly Diffusion Monsters.

2008-10-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

It was a gloomy overcast day today, which will soon become coming as we go further and further into the fall and winter months. As I was driving up to school I was thinking about how gloomy overcast days effect shoots.

Whenever you have a cloudy sky, the light outside if very soft and there is little to no shadow. This lack of shadow kills much of the contrast when shooting,making shots look flat, an effect that can be possitive or negative depending on the mood wanted for the scene.

If the scene you are shooting depicts a man who is sad or depressed, cloudy overcast skys could be just the thing to bring out the underlying theme for the shots. The character will be lit very evenly, soft, and will blend in with the background due to the lack of contrast. The shot will feel dark and gloomy, a feeling that will also be mimicked by the light on the characters face as well.

However, if you wish for your character to be in a situation that is menacing, hopeful, frustrating, happy, heroic, ect, then you will need contrast and shadows in your shots.

Its a good idea to keep track of the weather forcasts before shoots so you have an idea of what to expect and can plan accordinly. If the weather seems like it will be perfect for a particular scene then rearange the scedual and try to take advantage of the opportunity.

What do we do if we need to shoot on a cloudy overcast day but don't want our characters to feel sad? Well,you will need to light! Get the bigest lights you can, and put them as close to the actors as you see fit. Even flex fills and bounce cards won't really cut it on really overcast days because you won't be able to get the punch out of them you will require. The big thing is trying to get some shadow back into the shots.

Shooting on a gloomy day

Signed,
-)_-.

Exposure

2008-09-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

We Recently shot in a movie theater for a commercial that involved a few people enjoying a movie while food was brought out to them. Upon first scouting the location I knew that we would have to bring in a good amount of lighting due to how dark it was inside of the theater. However, I found that I needed even more lighting then I had originally planned for.

To light inside of the theater I used a 1k open face light into a small sized chimera(also called a soft box), bringing board ambient light to the room. I then placed a 650 fresnel with a diffussion gel to bring soft light to the side of the theater where our character entered from. Once those were in place, we set up a 150 fresnel with diffusion for the actor's faces and a 300 fresnel with half CTB behind the characters to mimic the projector light.

It looked as though we had more then enough light to our human eyes,however, the camera thought otherwise. With the gain on, the camara was able to get normal exposure, but it was as grainy as a sand box! I had to move all the lights as close to the actors as possible, remove the chimera from the 1k, and bounce the light from the 1k off the cealing above the actors to have enough light for the camera to get correct exposure for the shot.

Cameras are not as good as our eyes and need more light to be able to pick up an image.This is always an interesting thing for me to observe. My lighting idea worked fine, it was the amount of light I needed that I miscalculated for. Next time I'll be better prepared.

Travis looking at a reel of Film.

Signed,
-)_-.

Magic Hour

2008-09-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

We arrived on our film set last week late in the afternoon as the sun was begining to set. The setting of the sun gave off a warm bright light, which we wanted to mimic for our shoot.

The sun shining on our set

Since we were shooting out doors with tungsten lights, which give off a warm colored light when used outside, we had just what we needed to create the effect. We set up our key light at the same angle and direction as the sun, to punch up the light on the subject. Then we used a smaller light to bring exposure to the grill itself. After those lights were placed we put up a fill with full CTB, to balance the tungsten light to day light temperature, and a smaller light with diffusion to bring soft light to the subject's face.

Our lighting setup

This lighting brought the scene the warm, early evening feeling we were going for. I enjoy using "magic hour" type lighting for my scenes because it brings more character to the shots then just broad ambient light. Warm, magic hour style lighting also brings about a feeling of comfort which can connect the audience to the character better.

Joe grilling

Signed,
-)_-.