Guitar Legend George Lynch and 30 ESP Guitars!

The other week I was given the opportunity to shoot Rock Guitar Legend George Lynch. He was the original guitarist for the rock band Dokken and has since gone on to form the band Lynch Mob as well as start a line of custom, handmade guitars called "Mr. Scary"

For the shoot we wanted a rustic and gritty location. We found a great warehouse space that was exactly what we were looking for at The Charlotte Rescue Mission. Once we arrived at the location wee spent about 2.5 hours clearing out the space and setting up, as well as testing the lighting. The goal was to be completely set up and ready to shoot as soon as George arrived. He was coming to the shoot after driving up from their show in Atlanta the night before and right after sound check for that night's show, so he had very little time and was probably tired on top of all of it. We couldn't be adjusting the lighting once he got on set, we had to be ready to go.

So, when George finally arrived, he walked in greeting everyone. You could tell he was running behind schedule and was tight on time. Once we all said hello and he took some pictures with his iPhone of all the guitars (he seemed amazed at the collection), I stood him in the space we had prepared for him. He suggested some shots of him bending down by the guitars and we did those as well as him standing. He was a complete professional and nailed the shots extremely quick. The actual shooting time took less than 2 minutes. He then took a few pictures with some of the people on set, signed one of my guitars that I had brought and then headed back out the door to get ready for the show that night.
I was very impressed by how he acted and how nice he was to everyone, especially considering he was in a hurry and had a show to play that night and most likely was tired from 4 or 5 straight days of shows.

Here are a few of the shots from this shoot:

Campaign for Rack Room Shoes

A couple of months ago I had the fun experience of shooting for Rack Room shoes and Art Director Shara Knee. We shot for three days and got a lot of great images. Shara was great to work with. She knew what she wanted and we discussed options and angles to get the best images possible. I hope to work with her again soon.
TO achieve this look, we used one large Paul Buff parabolic umbrella  just off to the right as our main light and then we used two smaller umbrellas on the background, one on each side, pointed at the wall. We also had multiple V-flats to help reflect and block some of the light. We wanted to keep a very soft shadow on the floor and give a little depth and contour to the model and shoes. I think we achieved all of our goals.

Here is one of the images from that shoot: