Kip Beelman | Photography

Yervant and Joe Buissink

Kip — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:40:55 +0000

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Two Views Seminar with Yervant and Joe Buissink while in San Francisco, CA. Also representing was none other than Bambi Cantrell.

Joe and Yervant covered a lot of ground about marketing, presentation, shooting, Photoshop and passion. Passion was the underlying message of the whole day.

We did a live shoot with a model bride and groom and took the files back for processing. It was really, really cool to both see and hear the two completely different approaches from these very accomplished photographers in regards to just about everything.

Also in the house was Bay Area-based photographer and Brit ex-pat Peter Atherton. He demonstrated Yervant’s Page Gallery software for page layouts and displayed some of his work. Phenomenal.

Yervant in the scrum

Joe Buissink capturing real moments

Joe, Yervant and Bambi Cantrell shooting the shooters

Joe Buissink in action

Yours truly in front and attentive

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Justin

Kip — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:17:53 +0000

This weekend I headed out with the very nice Mr. Justin Johnson as we grabbed some shots around his home in the Renton/Maple Valley Highway area and down by the tracks of SODO. I can’t wait to make his album along with one of my 24 x 36″ Art Mounts. Cool dude… Fun session.

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Bellies and Babies - Sandy Puc’

Kip — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:26:13 +0000

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Bellies and Babies tour stop in the Seattle area at the Embassy Suites in Lynnwood, WA. Taught by master photographer Sandy “Sam” Puc’ of the hyper-successful Expressions Photos in Littleton, Colorado, it was an action-packed 6 hours of marketing, photographic, and philosophical advice that I can’t wait to apply.

And in a small world moment, the person sitting next to me was none other than Mimi Jung, correspondent and anchor for King 5 news. She is an amazing natural light photographer of children and has an incredible portfolio at her site. She’s even prettier in person than on television.

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Highway 99 Blues Club

Kip — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:26:11 +0000

Tonight I was commissioned to head down to the Highway 99 Blues Club and photograph up and coming Blues band The Dudley Taft Blues Overkill. Lead by the fine fingered fretwork of Mr. Taft, the band is rounded out by Evan Sheely on bass, Scott Vogel on drums and Patrick Napper on vocals, percussion and trumpet.

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Kerrin and Alli

Kip — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 05:15:59 +0000

I recently shot expectant mother Kerrin and partner Alli in their Renton, WA home. At the time of the shoot, Kerrin was about 30 weeks pregnant with baby Jackson and was the perfect combination of comfortably mobile while showing a BIG bump!

The session was a combination of lenses (50mm f/1.4, 17mm-55mm f/2.8, and 70mm-200 f/2.8) and a mix of natural light and strobe provided by my Alien Bees AB-800 and the Softlighter II. Both Kerrin and Alli were incredibly open to trying out ideas and very patient throughout the entire session.

As their due date approaches, I would like to wish them the best and thank them for the opportunity to capture this amazing moment in their lives. Smooches gals!

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Fitz in the Morning

Kip — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:47:08 +0000

Today’s shoot brought me to the Metropolitan Park West building for a quick session with big time radio personality Fitz of 100.7 The Wolf’s Fitz in the Morning show. I was working alone and we were on a relatively tight time frame, so we worked in one basic location that made itself evident during a quick preliminary scout of the location.

Fitz is a very easy going guy and has no problem engaging the camera. This shoot was pure natural light and the beauty of my Nikon D300 and a flawless Nikkor 105mm f/2.8.

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Robert Rodriguez: Lighting on the Cheap

Kip — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:41:58 +0000

I originally found this over on Strobist and wanted to share it here too.

Who is Robert Rodriguez? Oh, just the guy that made the film “El Mariachi” for $7,000 before eventually going on to gross $2,000,000, become a cult classic and favorite of mine. He’s since gone on to make “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” and “Sin City” among other things, but I’m inspired by his sensible, cheap and low-tech way of producing his first film all by his lonesome.

I’ve edited a few short movies on iTunes before and still have a difficult time telling a concise story even with tons of stills and a fair amount of video. It’s amazing to me how the vision and confidence of Rodriguez coalesce into a low-budget film that is unique, tells a great story and has very high production value.

David Hobby at Strobist has been harping on The Big Orange store as the photographer’s greatest resource for a long time, but it’s never rung more true than here… Check out more from Robert Rodriguez as he shares the methods used in the lighting of “El Mariachi”.

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LBC Radio

Kip — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:27:04 +0000

Awhile back I posted some images about shooting a symphony at Seattle’s Studio X. The project that the recording was for is about to go on-air Monday, February 4th and they’ve posted an image of mine as a tease. Coverage of the new package, including my images, is also found here. Pretty cool.

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Brenna and A.J.

Kip — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:36:25 +0000

Valentine’s Day is coming and Brenna and A.J.’s mommy wants to send out some photo cards of her beautiful daughters. Our shoot was piggybacked onto the headshot/portrait session with Jeff Anderson, so I was using my portable Botero background with one Alien Bees B800 through a 60″ Photek Softlighter II. The light was positioned straight-on for a simple butterfly look. The time between the first capture and the final frame was 118 seconds. This is what you call a quickie.

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Jeff Anderson

Kip — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:36:22 +0000

Local entrepreneur Jeff Anderson of Issaquah Trophy and Award, Trophies2Go.com, PokerTrophies.com and found in the blogosphere as the Awards Guru needed some head shots and knew exactly who to call. The gig was for one casual look, one formal set-up and then another of my choice.

The casual look. I wanted a mixed light look, so I did not gel my strobe to match the tungsten light in the background. This is one Alien Bees B800 through a 60″ Photek Softlighter II.

The formal look. An Alien Bees B800 through a 60″ Photek Softlighter II against my portable Botero background.

Loosely inspired by the look of Platon that dons so many magazine covers these days, I conceived this next look as if it were for the cover of a magazine. Same basic set-up as the previous image, but with the light in more of a butterfly position.

And with a few clicks using the magazine cover creator at Big Huge Labs and a bit of Photoshop, this is what you get for a laugh.

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