The "Dave Hill" style...

A couple weeks ago Airika and I got to hang out with a few of our photographer friends at Ella Blue's house along with Sarah Rhoads and Yuriy Manchik. We had an absolute blast eating dinner, playing games and of course talking shop. One of the topics of discussion that evening was Dave Hill. He's photographer with a unique style of photography which I can only describe as illustrative; that is, they almost look like cartoons. You should really check out his stuff, it's very original, something which is very hard to come by with the saturation of photographers out there. I've been pretty intrigued by his work ever since I was introduced--mostly because I wanted to figure out how he does it. One thing is for sure, it's not a simple process! From what I can tell, the two main components are the lighting and the post-processing. The lighting is typically a fairly complex studio setup that essentially surrounds the subject with light from every angle. The postprocessing however, seems to be a very closely held secret. A search on the internet will quickly reveal nothing but a lot of other people asking the same question as you.


Anyway, I had a chance to play around with some studio lights that I use at the PRO Sports Club (working on ideas for a future cover shot for the magazine) to see what I could come up with. I actually got with some pretty interesting results--as long as you can get over the goofy look on my face, my silly work uniform, and the fact that I am leaning way forward to trip the shutter on my own. I hope you get a good laugh at my expense. Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot of the lighting setup... I will do that next time!





Gerald