This is my first post here in Photography Lovers community. I am a photographer and film maker based in Phuket, Thailand. Last year I embarked on a little project with some friends that own a small furniture factory. We decided to try our hand at making beautiful, hand-crafted longboards (the skate variety). My role in the project was to create the imagery that we would use to market the boards.
So how to do that? I scoured the internet for inspiration and soon an idea started to take shape - I wanted to create a photo style that took the viewer back to the 50's and 60s when longboards were first being seen cruising the boardwalks of California and Hawaii. Following are some of my fave pics with a little explanation about each one. I hope you like them and please feel free to ask me any questions.
This my buddy Kimmo who we convinced to be our male model...:) The Chevy truck belongs to an eccentric car collector here in Phuket and he kindly let us use it for a day of shooting. We realised afterward that you could clearly see his mobile phone in the pocket of his pants which really annoyed me afterwards as I felt it spoilt many of the pics. But nobody to blame except myself - I was too busy with the big picture that I forgot the details - a mistake I still make after decades of shooting.
Next up is my good friend Annie. She is actually a sponsored surfer and an expert skater. We borrowed a bunch of "boho" (Bohemian) style clothes and jewellery for her and gave her the board for a few days prior to shooting so we would be super comfortable on it.
For these pics we borrowed another cool car - a convertible VW beetle. Im not sure if the cool car takes away from the boards and models but I just thought it was too cool to say no. We found a quiet road in the rubber farming areas of Phuket in the morning light and shot for an hour or so.
You have probably realised by now that the some of pics are heavily filtered in Photoshop. I am torn when it comes to applying filters as I know often people go overboard and I feel it can take away from the core skill behind framing a nice photo. But these days there so many actions available for free that I cant help but play around with them. Heres a few that I filtered - what do you think? too much or nice effect?
The boards themselves for anyone who is interested are made of Norwegian Birch with the top veneer in different kinds of wood including walnut, oak and maple. Perhaps if this post gets some interest I will show u more of the boards...:) Here's a product shot we did at the factory - on a piece of black tinted glass with a matt black backdrop....
So thats all for now - We ended up with 1000s of photos as we shot for several days in different locations with different props and outfits. I think in the end we achieved more or less what we aimed for without spending a fortune. I guess in summary for these kinds of shoots the most important thing is to put in some planning and forethought and think about props, costumes and lighting.
