A quick California Lifestyle shoot with two teens in a vintage VW Bug

Some time in 2012, I stopped contributing to an agency I was with due to a lot of corporate bullshit that was going on. Sometimes you have to know when to collect your chips and walk away from the game. This was one of the last shoots I did at that time back in Sept of 2012. I accidentally ran across the folder with these images so I wanted to put a little BTS post since people love to see what goes on behind the scenes. 

My original goal for this shoot was to express the young California spirit of these teen girls. I thought an old school VW Bug would fit the bill right so that's what I went with. I asked a buddy of mine who collects vintage Vdubs and found some girls that my old assistant Lloyd knew from High School. 

Due to time restraints I had at the time, my goal was to shoot by the shop but try to pass it off as if we were somewhere that was not Pomona... lol. So shooting tight was mandatory. The girls at the time didn't have much modeling experience which many times is a double edged sword. Double edged because they have little experience and they need a lot of direction but at the same time they have genuine emotions so it feels more "real". 

Normally I didn't have people shooting behind the scenes but that day we had Paul (owner of the VW) out with his camera so that is the only BTS we have. We had the car parked right along the building so that we could utilize the shade as much as possible. The light outside the window were blown out but it ended up working for me since I was trying to make it seem we were closer to a "beachy" area. Is beachy even a word? IDK. Only other piece of gear we used was a large fan to replicate the car moving. Some of the shots are not as consistent with the wind but it worked for the most part. 

Shot with a Canon 5d Mark III, Canon 35L and shot mainly these settings: f/2.8, 1/200th and ISO 400. Easy breezy. This was a short shoot as I had a few other looks I needed to get. 

The images turned out well... this was quite some time ago and I will be bringing some new shoots up in the future that work on the Cali Lifestyle... so stay tuned with that.

Thanks for reading. Share and comment if you liked this post. Appreciate it!

Andrew Manley
Lifestyle Photographer

Olan Mills Styled Family Portrait... taking it way back

#tbt
So for the guys that know me well, know that I am not a "middle of the road" type of guy. Matter of fact, I usually like to do things way over board and I have little regard for other people's opinion. So hence why I created an image like this lol....

Every holiday season, my wife and I get holiday cards from friends and family but I wanted to do something different back in Christmas of 2013. I wanted to give people a good chuckle. 

One day as I was browsing for posing ideas, I saw this creepy ass family portrait. All of us who grew up in the 80's know exactly what I am talking about. I don't know how it became a trend but the entire 80's and early 90's was a big trip. So with this as my inspiration to replicate, I set forth in my conquest of an awesome but creepy family portrait. 

Had to get wardrobe down so I had my wife look for wardrobe at a thrift store. She found me a vanilla colored turtle neck that would be perfect. I was trying to find a wig to go with my 80's sweater but to no avail so I kept it OG. My wife found a velvet like sweater and we put my son in a vest with a turtle neck to match his old pops. 

When I was young, I hated taking photos... I would make stupid faces all the time. I had no care for photos so how does life repay me for all my bad deeds? My son does the same lol... but I had to bully him to cooperating. I guess it worked out since he wanted to make silly faces. Totally worked out in the last frame. (we did take more than 3 frames).

I used a black backdrop and board so that I can blend and hide myself into the tobacco texture. Used a simple two light setup with the key light being about 5 stops brighter than the fill. Just wanted subtle details on the right side of my face. Damn it was getting hot in that sweater, at least that's what I remembered... lol

Chimping... making sure it's all gravy.

Sat down for a quick edit to make sure that the composite is good and boom goes the dynamite. 

and just like that folks, I created magic. Sent it to all our friends and family where most of them died to mass hysteria. I have to give mad props to my beautiful wife for being down for the ride and thank you to my son for being who he is. This is my family, we are different and that's just normal to us. LOL.

Oh I totally forgot about these other two I did until Alec reminded me. I did a set with Lloyd on his scooter. He was so in love with her and that helmet. That hair doe... and then Alec and Mona were committed to the portrait. Look at all the fun these create! Life is all about being a G!

Hope you all enjoyed this one. 

Andrew Manley