ellipsis…

IMPACT Magazine is celebrating their 20th anniversary this month. i had the pleasure of shooting the workout feature for their anniversary issue, Sept/Oct 2011. it’s a pleasure to have been working with Elaine and her team for over the past four years. a huge congratulations goes out to them on this 20th anniversary.

the workout featured the expertise and incredible body of Rob Williams, president of the Williams Health Group in Vancouver. i must say this was the most involved shoot i have done for IMPACT so far. Rob had sent me a few ideas of what he was thinking for the shoot, and i was fully on board with them; darker and contrasty to define the muscles and body shape. Rob is probably one of the most ripped athletes i’ve photographed, i joked with him that his muscles were casting their own shadows and that they were giving me a hard time.

[images, tear sheets and lighting setup after the jump]

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Plan A was good. the article Jon wrote for IMPACT magazine centered around gaining better posture for cyclist. the workout described seemed most suited for a gym stretch area, maybe after a weight session. Plan A involved a small workout area, strobes, softboxes; well thought out, planned, ready to go. what i didn’t count on when i arrived on location was how small the workout area was. the shoot was scheduled in the evening, and the rain had not let up for weeks it seemed. shooting inside was my best chance to get the images shot for the deadline.

after about half an hour of pondering the small crowded workout area, the thought of rescheduling the shoot for the next day in a larger area was becoming reality. Plan B, what was Plan B? Plan B was staring at me from across the street in the rain; a stadium. looking from a second story window the huge flood lights gave the stadium a nice glow against the dark sky. and because it was raining, the wet bleachers reflected the light right back into the stadium. i took a quick run over to see if it was open to the public and to do a quick scout. it looked good. Plan B involved bagging my speedlights and Pocketwizards, putting my hood up and making sure i didn’t short-circuit anything.

[lighting setup and tear sheets after the jump]

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the new May issue of V-rag just hit the shelves. i had the pleasure of collaborating with makeup artists Eman Aziz on producing and photographing the cover and fashion editorial. my first cover actually! we worked with the 2010 Vancouver Gay Top Model winner Fraser, and fabulous fashion stylist Peter Hoang of thestarvingstylist.com. my good friend and amazing assistant for this shoot, Georgia, took it upon herself to take behind-the-scene photos, which is always great.

for you strobists out there, this shoot was almost 100% natural light. for the most part a reflector was all that was used to create fill, and on the last set in the alley a SB900 was fired behind the model to create some separation when shooting against the dark wall (which were left out of the editorial).

here’s a quick behind-the-scenes video of my shoot with John Fluevog.

about a month ago i collaborated with makeup artist Ella Bak and fashion designer & stylist Krista Brown on an amazing beauty shoot. we shot 6 looks in 8 hours, kudos to the full team for making it all happen. this first round of images were shot with a single over head strobe with a beauty dish and a black reflector to suck up some of the light and create more contrast. super simple setup, but really effective.

i’m also finally on the video bandwagon! with all of the retouching i’ve been doing, i thought i might as well record my work and put together a little workflow and technique video. basically condensed 5 and a half hours of editing into just under 6 minutes. it’s a bit of a manic video, but i bring you through 2 techniques for retouching skin so that it’s perfect and maintains detail.

IAN SHEH VID: beauty retouching

The Wheat Pool released their sophomore album, Hauntario, back on October 6th and just released the music video for This Is It. Glen called me up back this summer to do their press-pack images when i was back in Edmonton. i also was able to catch them filming their video here in Vancouver. Hauntario has been getting some rave reviews as well. my favourite song is probably Two Far Apart (the 2nd version). pick it up on iTunes.

i shot this a couple of weeks ago for a Vancouver fashion event called Spend On Trend. the event is a weekend show and sale of local Vancouver designers and boutiques, running from August 21-23. these posters will be around the city as well as a whole bunch of handouts that look similar.

here are a couple of behind-the-scenes pictures from the shoot.