One example of my experimentation during this shoot was while photographing the riding photos. To get these photos, my assistant Dan was driving my truck while I was sitting in the far back area with the rear window rolled down. I was more or less hanging out the rear window in order to get some of the photos that I wanted. The road along Ocean Parkway that runs the south shore of Long Island isn’t exactly perfectly smooth either. So while we are driving at approximately 30-45 mph, depending on where we were on the parkway, the difficulty level increased a bit too. So, here I am, crammed into the back area of my truck, bumping up and down the parkway, and shooting with a shutter speed of around 1/15 – 1/30 to get the motion blur in the background. This wasn’t an easy task and required A LOT of shooting. I was lucky to get a few sharp frames from these. I honestly would have preferred to shoot the riding photos on a less traveled road where we could have drove much slower, which in turn would have made my life a lot easier. It is what it is.

A part of this assignment that made it a really good time and more interesting was traveling along the north shore of Long Island along Sound Avenue. Although eastern Long Island is pretty much farms, quiet towns, and more farms with the occasional shopping center, there are plenty of great locations to shoot at. The photo in the tear sheet below was created along Sound Avenue at Southold Beach. Chris (left) suggested that we check it out and see if there was anything we could get from that spot. I’m always open to suggestions, especially from people who know the area much better than I do, so we checked it out. This location worked perfectly, with the exception of high winds coming over the water, thanks to a very simple and minimalist feel to the portraits that I was able to create there. The photo below was shot with the Phase One and lit with the Elinchrom Ranger through a 69″ Elinchrom Octa.

Sometimes your client won’t always pick your particular favorite photos, which is fine, to each his own. With that in mind, below are a few of my favorites from the Motorcycle Diaries shoots.

Unfortunately for us, especially the models, the weather wasn’t exactly desirable with high winds and in the low 50′s. This also forced me to abandon my ideas of using large octabanks which would ultimately become sails and blow my assistant away pretty quickly. Working without a permit and in a “run & gun” kind of style does not allow us the luxury of using C-Stands and sandbags, which also caused some challenges. I decided to use a bare bulb and 7″ reflector on the Elinchrom Ranger for all of my lighting on this shoot. I was switching back and forth between the Phase One and Canon 5D Mark 2 throughout the shoot, all depending on how quickly I needed to shoot.

MMA Fighters Portfolio

Editorial Portfolio

I had the pleasure of working with Suzanne Sease again who took care of the new edits and putting this all together. I decided to work with a consultant because I find it very difficult to edit my own work and separating myself from the attachment that I have with my work. Since Suzanne helped put together my portfolio the first time around, which was about 6-7 months ago, I started getting more work based off my website portfolios alone. If you are having a hard time editing your portfolios, whether it is because you are too attached to your work and can’t decide which photos to use, or you just want to have an outside perspective, I would highly recommend Suzanne to anyone.

Lifestyle Portfolio 

Corporate Portfolio

Portrait Portfolio

Check out the website’s new portfolios.

Here are a few portraits from the series.

Ryan Needle – Long Island MMA – Amateur

Whitney “Da Bully” Jean-Francois – Brooklyn MMA – 2-2

Aldo Oranvil – Brooklyn MMA – Amateur

 Pat Defranco – Team Serra Longo – 1-1

 Pete “Drago” Sell – Team Serra Longo – 10-6

 Rafael “Sapo” Natal – Team Renzo Gracie – 14-3

 Ricardo “Cachorrao” Almeida – Team Renzo Gracie – 13-5

 Frankie “The Answer” Edgar – Former UFC Lightweight Champion – Ricardo Almeida Jiu Jitsu – 14-2

 Gian Villante – Bellmore Kickboxing – 9-3

 Andre Harrison – Bellmore Kickboxing – 2-0

 Juan Morales – Bellmore Kickboxing – Amateur

 Ryan LaFlare – Bellmore Kickboxing – 6-0

The portraits above have been my main focus in this project because they show a different side of these guys. With every shoot, I capture a few portraits before the ones above. Here are a few samples of those…

 Gregor Gracie – Team Renzo Gracie – 6-1

 LaRon McCravy – Bellmore Kickboxing – Amateur

 Mike Andrillo – Bellmore Kickboxing – Amateur

 Hugh McKenna – Long Island MMA – Amateur

 Whitney Jean-Francois – Brooklyn MMA – 2-2

 Pat Defranco – Team Serra Longo – 1-1

 James Jenkins – Team Serra Longo – 5-0

  Rafael “Sapo” Natal – Team Renzo Gracie – 14-3

 Ricardo “Cachorrao” Almeida – Team Renzo Gracie – 13-5

 Frankie “The Answer” Edgar – Former UFC Lightweight Champion – Ricardo Almeida Jiu Jitsu – 14-2

  Gian Villante – Bellmore Kickboxing – 9-3

STEPHEN GASSMAN

My assistant Dan and I were assigned to photograph lawyers in 7 different locations on two days of shooting. We were lucky with our scheduling on the first day of shooting as we only had two lawyers to photograph that day. We weren’t as lucky on the second day where we had the remaining 5 scheduled within 5-6 hours of each other. That’s just the way it goes I guess. Dan and I weren’t phased by it at all though…yea, right. Anyway, I’ll get into that later. Our first lawyer to photograph was Stephen Gassman (above). When Dan and I arrived at Mr. Gassman’s building in Garden City, NY I could almost immediately tell that this was going to be a fun shoot as far as the environmental portrait was concerned. Reason being that this seemed to be a very high end building (luxury offices) and  I could only assume that the office we were shooting in would be equally as nice. So, we lugged all our gear up to the 8th floor (thankful for elevators) and then toured Mr. Gassman’s law firm. I was immediately interested in using Gassman’s office for the environmental portrait, mostly due to the enormous windows that wrapped around his corner office, but I ultimately decided to shoot in the conference room instead. Although the office would have made for an equally as interesting portrait, I was really interested in the frosted glass window of the conference room.

SHOOT INFO

Lighting this portrait was kept pretty simple in order to keep the shoot quick and also to keep gear out of the way in the hallways. The Elincrhom 39″ Deep Octa was used for my key light, positioned high above and to camera left. An Elinchrom Ranger Quadra was positioned in the hallway, on the opposite side of the glass window, and aimed down the hallway to give a little bit of light through the unfrosted parts of the window. I used my new Phase One 645DF with a P40+ back and 80mm lens.

Above is the portrait of Mr. Gassman on a seamless background. This is another one of my favorites from this shoot. I just used the 39″ Deep Octa on the Ranger for this portrait.

ERNEST WRUCK

Later that afternoon we headed into Patchogue, NY to photograph Ernest Wruck. We arrived pretty early which worked out great for us in figuring out how and where the portraits would be done. It actually turned out that we would have a solid half hour or so with Mr. Wruck. This extra time with him was a blessing because I was able to photograph him in 3 different scenarios in his office building. We started in the conference room. The portraits at the conference table were “ok” and were good options for the magazine to choose from but I knew that with the extra time we were given (again, this was great), that I was going to be able to create something special with Mr. Wruck. We set up the seamless in the conference room as well, so we got those portraits done immediately after the table photos. The above photo is one of my favorites.

SHOOT INFO

Lighting for the above portrait is just the Elinchrom 39″ Deep Octa on the Elinchrom Ranger. I used the Phase One 645DF with a P40+ back and 150mm lens.

We then moved into Ernest’s office to photograph a few more environmental portraits. Although I shot all the typical (a.k.a. boring) portraits of him standing in front of his desk and sitting in the chair with his award in front of him (gotta give the client options) I was looking for something more interesting. As I got in close for a few shots I started to notice the reflection in the glass on top of his desk. I thought this looked pretty cool and was something different for a “corporate” style portrait. I checked the image on the back of the camera and knew that we got the shot. The shoot was a wrap immediately after a few more of these types of shots.

SHOOT INFO

I did not use any lighting for this portrait above, just available light. Wruck’s office had plenty of windows and skylights to fill in the room very nicely. I used the Canon 5D Mark 2 with a 35mm lens.

STEPHEN SCARING 

The next day of shooting for LI Pulse was later in the week and brought us back into Nassau County (western Long Island) to photograph Stephen Scaring in Garden City, NY. This shoot turned out to be one of my favorites of the entire assignment, mostly due to Mr. Scaring’s interest in the shoot and his participation, even though he was scheduled to be in NYC an hour or so later for a court appearance. Dan and I arrived early for set up since we had no clue what we were walking into as far as what the office looked like, lighting conditions, and space allowance. We were pleasantly surprised with Scaring’s very large corner office with windows all around. We were able to set up the seamless and environmental portrait in his office which worked out great under our time constraints. The above portrait is one of many favorites of mine from working with Mr. Scaring. I had a hard time narrowing it down between this portrait and 4-5 others where he was looking straight into the camera with a serious face, scratching his chin with a big laugh, and a few others. I chose this one mainly because I feel it shows what I think of his personality, a kind and happy kind of guy.

SHOOT INFO

The key light in this portrait above is from an Elinchrom Ranger in the 39″ Deep Octa positioned high above and to camera right. There’s some fill coming in from available light. This portrait was created at 12:15pm and it was fairly bright in the room. I wanted to make it seem a little more like evening light in this portrait, which was no problem with the P40+ at ISO100. This was shot at 1/30th which forced me to use a tripod. I’m not a huge fan of using a tripod but you do what ya gotta do. I used the 80mm Schneider lens at f/16.

ANDREW THALER

This particular shoot with Andrew Thaler turned out to be also be one of my favorites from the assignment. We were scheduled to meet with Mr. Thaler later in the afternoon after a mid day shoot about 10 minutes or so away. We were definitely lucky with the close proximity of all the shoots. As usual, Dan and I arrived early to the shoot to do some location scouting. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to work with inside Thaler’s office except for the conference room where the seamless background was set up. We decided to go down to the main lobby which had plenty more options to work with such as the elevators area, a few meeting areas, marble walls, and enormous windows. I chose to photograph Thaler in the elevator area and the meeting area since they were only about 20 or so feet away from each other. We started by the elevators and got some nice portraits in there. I then asked Mr. Thaler to take a seat in the bright red chairs of the lobby and began shooting a few frames. What I liked most about this set up was the simplicity of the shot and the red chair contrasting against Thaler’s suit. Below is another favorite from this set up where we added in a few more chairs and removed the table in front of him.

SHOOT INFO

As with almost all of the portraits on this assignment, I was using the 39″ Deep Octa with the Elinchrom Ranger. Dan was holding the light on a C-Stand column high above in slightly in front of Mr. Thaler. Both of these portraits were shot with the Canon 5D Mark 2 with the 50mm 1.2L lens.

IVONE, JENSEN, & DEVINE

This was my last shoot for the assignment. I was working with another assistant, Luke, on this shoot. As always, we arrived early to look around and figure out the best way to photograph the three lawyers in this firm. As we walked around their office, I realized there really wasn’t much that I could work with so Luke and I began scouting the building’s hallways, lobby and cafeteria. We decided that we’d try to create an interesting portrait of the three men standing in front of their firm’s front door in the building with some very interesting sculptures that were handing from the ceiling of the 5 story building. This proved to be very difficult, lighting-wise, due to not have enough power from the Elinchrom Ranger Quadras. We tried to get this lighting scenario perfected for approximately 20 minutes or so and decided that we had to move on to Plan B, which was downstairs in the building’s cafeteria. We began to set up our lighting around one of the tables in front of a nice dark wood wall. I wanted to create a light set up here that would give a moody kind of feel. Unfortunately, we were asked to leave the cafeteria since we did not have permission from the building’s management before hand. Oh well, lesson learned. So, after 2 failed attempts for an interesting environmental portrait of the three men, I decided my last option was to shoot on the seamless background and possibly composite three portraits together, similar to my Dream Theater portrait. Although LI Pulse decided not to go with the composite idea I am very happy with many of the portraits that were created here.

SHOOT INFO

All three of these portraits were shot with the Phase One 645DF P40+ and 80mm lens. Lighting was my standard light set up with the 39″ Deep Octa on the Elinchrom Ranger.

SHOOT INFO

This cover photo is a composite of just two images. The first is obviously the portrait of the man holding the sign in front of his face. I shot this at Long Island Pulse’s headquarters in Patchogue, NY. A gray seamless background was used for easy compositing later in Photoshop. Lighting was a little more “complicated” than I usually use but it worked great for what I wanted to accomplish. The Elinchrom 39″ Deep Octa is flying high above and in front of the model as my key light. I then wanted to get the illusion of more daylight falling on the model’s clothing and hat. I used a bare Elinchrom Ranger Quadra high and behind the model to get some light on the hat and shoulders. Then lights were placed at almost 45 degree angles behind the model in small strip boxes for additional light. These lights were borrowed Alienbees that the art director had in the office. Finally, I used a hand held reflector just below the camera and in front of the model to fill in the shadows behind the sign. Below is a lighting diagram to give you a better idea of how this portrait was lit.

Here’s what the image looked like out of camera…

As I mentioned earlier, the composite consisted of just two images. The background landscape photo is from my personal library. I shot this landscape while on a cross country road trip with my wife a couple years ago. I honestly don’t remember exactly where we were but I’m thinking its Yellowstone National Park or in South Dakota. Here’s that background image…

After some time tweaking the two images and compositing them together in Photoshop, I was able to create the cover image. Although I don’t usually create these kinds of images, as it’s just not my typical style, I am still quite happy with the final results and honestly, how can I complain about getting my first cover?

Rick.

As you can see, there are a lot of people involved in this project to help get me access to some of these professional MMA fighters. Although I have worked with a lot of pro’s who I have been able to get access to with a simple phone call or email, some of these other guys are not as easy to get a hold of. You see, the higher you get in this sport of MMA, such as promotions you fight for (UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator, Ring Of Combat, etc.), the more celebrity you gain. For someone like Frankie Edgar, who is currently ranked #4 in the world (Sherdog.com), is one of the highest level celebrities in the sport of MMA.

I’m not 100% sure which one of these will be used for the final series, mainly because they each have something specific that I like about it, but I figured I’d show all three for now. Do you have one in particular you like? If so, leave a comment and let me know.

Ryan Needle – Long Island MMA

Ryan LaFlare – Long Island MMA – Ring Of Combat Welterweight Champion – 6-0

Dennis Bermudez – Long Island MMA – The Ultimate Fighter Finalist – 7-3

To get more information on the progress of legalizing MMA in New York, keep an eye on The Fight Lawyer and NY MMA Now – Coalition to Legalize Mixed Martial Arts in New York.

Our shoot started in James’ friend’s Brooklyn apartment. The light that poured into that room was simply beautiful, so I decided to only shoot available light with a little help from a silver reflector held by my assistant Dan. The portraits that were created in the apartment were to show natural and relaxed moments.

Our art director for James’ shoot kept an eye on us the entire shoot. Although she had four legs and drank water from a small bowl, she was proving to be hard to impress.

After our art director left the shoot to chase her toy around for a while, we decided it was time to head out to the back patio of the apartment. I really enjoyed shooting out there mainly because of the simple concrete and metal shapes the fencing created along with the buildings in the background. I asked James to bring along his coffee so that he can keep warm and also bring an extra element to his portraits. While I photographed James, Dan held the Elinchrom 39″ deep octabank just out of frame to get some light on James’ face.

In the portrait above, the light is being held over my head and in front of James’ face.

We then headed out to the streets of Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn for some more environmental portraits. Although it was very cold out, I’m quite happy with the above photo. I love the movement in the portrait with James trying to close his coat along with the smile and expression in his eyes. It’s simple and strong at the same time.

We spent about an hour or so outdoors, walking around Williamsburg in the freezing cold. Eventually we came across a small coffee shop and immediately headed in to warm up. This final portrait was captured just before we left the shop. I was getting ready to leave but saw some great reflections in the window of the shop. I simply asked James to sit near the window and I’ll take care of the rest.