My photography business Mike Newton Photography was recently hired to photograph the biggest-budget club and restaurant in my city of San Diego by the design firm Davis Ink LTD.  Davis Ink is a rad company who consistently creates the most incredible spaces for restaurants and clubs in Southern California and Hawaii.  Anytime the Co-Founder has a ton of tattoos, I know I’m going to get along with them great :)

They needed stand-out images of the space that took 2 years in planning, executing, and building to complete.  Needless to say, on a project of this scale the images needed to be flawless.

The challenge

The venue in question is Parq, a combination of restaurant and club.  The club portion was going to be tricky due to the lighting.

The contrast between bright highlights from one of the biggest LED screens in the US and pink tube lights, mixed with the extreme darkness of the rest of the space meant I was going to have to composite multiple images together to pull off the final image.

I called up my buddy Alex Taylor (dude has only been shooting for six months and is rediculously good) as he wanted to learn more about commercial shoots and lighting.  He was really helpful in being a voice-activated-light-stand (VALS) and also being a second set of eyes to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

The images used for the shoot

The base image

I had to shoot a base image to work from.  For this I exposed for the bright LED wall and ceiling tube lights.

The additional light-painted images

The obvious problem with the image above is that there is no detail in the booth because there are no lights in there.  I used 6 additional light-painting to bring out the details in these shadowy areas.

What took so long

Layer masks and blending them in

This image was time consuming because I had to create a layer mask for each light-painted area and blend it in smoothly.  Admittedly I’m not the fastest photo editor out there but I’m also not the slowest.

All the tiny details

The designer is meticulous in their attention to detail so there were many little items to fix in post.  Removing the glare from the exit sign, removing finger marks from the fabric on the rim of the booth, cleaning up little dust pieces on the booth, removing the doors in the back, etc.

Watch the timelapse edit video below to see exactly what went into this image:

Here are a few before/after images

This last one was tricky because the entire wall was a mirror and there was no way to get this composition without getting my camera in the shot.  Because of that, I had to edit out the camera, shadows from the tripod, and match up the lines in the tiles so it looked real – that took a long time.

Creating a great image isn’t just clicking the shutter

I wanted to write this post to show you the time that goes into a final advertising image and show my own photography clients the work and effort required to create the images I create.

Many clients have a misconception that the photo shoot ends when I stop shooting.  In reality, its only just begun.  Here is what goes into a shoot:

Pre-Pre-shoot

1. Communicate with client on concept and shoot goals
2. Work out a time for shoot
3. Send contract for signature and follow up to get it back with payment prior to shoot
4. Make a shoot schedule and shot list to follow on the shoot

Pre-shoot

1. Organize gear based on the shoot requirements
2. Clean lenses, check sensor for dust, format memory cards, charge batteries, etc.
3. Load the car with gear (this took 30 minutes for 5 strobes, 5 light stands, tripod, camera, lenses, modifiers, cords/cables, laptop/tethering gear)
4. Drive to venue and find parking
5. Unload the car (this took 20 minutes to unload from the car to the venue
6. Set up all the gear (20 minutes to set up all strobes onto light stands, attach camera to tripod, plug in lights to walls/battery packs, dial in the strobe triggers, etc)
7. Get laptop ready to tether the camera to Lightroom so client can see as we are shooting.

During the shoot

1. Compose each image.
2. Light each image.  Most of the images from this shoot required 5-7 images at varying exposures/light-painting to be composited later.  Some of this is trial and error when it comes to light-painting and positioning lights.  I was at this area for one hour shooting these 7 images to get them right and pre-plan how the composite would come together in the end.
3. Check out images in tethered laptop with client as we shoot to make sure we are on the same page.  If need be, recompose and start again if they want a few choices.
4. Each new shot requires moving all the gear around the space, recomposing, and starting all over again.  I was at this shoot for 8 hours to create 16 images, which was working pretty damn fast.

Post-shoot

1. Pack up gear (30 minutes) – repack lights, lenses, modifiers, break down light stands, boom stands, rewrap cables, pack laptop, etc.
2. Haul gear from venue to car and repack the car.
3. Drive back home.
4. Unpack the car and replace gear in storage.

Editing

1. Plug in memory card and import photos.
2. Create new folders and sub folders for image organization.
3. Retitle images, enter keywords, shoot dates, locations, clients involved, copyright info, etc. in metadata.
4. Upload all the RAW images to Lightroom (takes a while to upload due to file size – this timeline varies based on the number of images).
5. Create ‘image collection’ in Lightroom for future organization and quick reference
6. Flag/reject images to narrow down choices.
7. Upload flagged images to my website in a newly created gallery for the clients approval.  This can take quite a while depending on the number of images shot.
8. Send client an email with the gallery link so they can make choices.  Sometimes a little more time goes into making these private and creating/sending a password.
9. Once I receive final choices the editing begins.
10. Depending on the complexity of the image/composite, editing a single final image can take 5 minutes or it could take +2 hours.
11. Once the images are edited, I upload them to a new gallery for the client.
12. After I receive feedback from the client I might need to go in and make additional edits.  Add more time here.
13. I then need to create a new download link for the client.
14. I email the client the download link for the gallery.

Summing it up

As you can see, there is far more effort than showing up and clicking the shutter a few times.  Photographers charge what might seem like a large price for a small number of images because there is a lot of pre and post work that goes into the final creation of the image and running our businesses.