Surfing with Strand _ Environmental Portraits
This last week I was able to connect with surfer Matt Strand through some mutual friends. Matt is sponsored by Fear to Faith Clothing and so we wanted to get some neat environmental portrait shots of him. The alarm at 4:30am came too soon, but we got up and headed down to Laguna/Newport area and found this rocky section which is just want I was envisioning.
We got there and setup as the sun crested the hill literally just before I'd even taken the first shot. My hope originally was actually to use strobe lighting (I really enjoy on-location lighting, but don't push myself to do it often. This was my chance... but...). Since the sun came up a bit sooner than I wanted/we got to the beach slightly later than I wanted, I rolled with the punches and just used the beautiful morning light instead. Something I've learned about doing photo and video production is that being able to be flexible, adjust, and problem solve quickly is a top skill requirement for this creative industry. There is always something that messes up your plan and you've got to make the most of it.
As you can see, I made the most of the lighting change and nailed some awesome portrait shots with Matt. We were only there about 20-30 minutes in total (setup and teardown included), so I'm pretty pleased that I got so many shots I love for such a short amount of time. I suppose it helped that he's such a natural model. lol.
Check the images out, leave comments, share them (with credit please) and do what ever you do. If you're a fellow photographer, get out there and have you're own photo shoot. If you're a surfer, get out there and have someone (or me) take pictures of you. It boosts the confidence seeing yourself looking like a boss!
We also had to get out and enjoy the water too since the waves were killer that day at both Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. So Matt went out and showed me how it's done. Photos weren't nearly as unique since I couldn't get out in the water this day, but still good fun was had by all.
