Scott Martinez Photography

Picture of the Day Feb 20, 2011

Scott Martinez — 2011-02-20T00:25:42-08:00

Picture of the day Feb 20, 2011: Brian Ritter was testing the side light fixtures at the Spokane Youth Ballet's Dancing Princesses rehearsal. I managed to get a shot of the dancer for the split second before the sole light faded...

Ballet and Bubbly - Tech Rehearsal

Scott Martinez — 2011-01-12T23:59:12-08:00

I am a new Smugmug.com pro account holder and have been wanting to try out some of the new features. I have been going through and setting up a some different galleries. One of the first galleries are shots taken at tech rehearsal. Tech rehearsal is where the light, music and dance get all put together. -The only thing missing is the costumes for the performance. That come at dress rehearsal. Shooting pictures at tech will give me a better idea where I need to when shooting pictures at the dress rehearsal. There are a lot of images that (and a few duds) that should be seen and sometimes there are some special moments!

Stay tuned for the dress rehearsal!

2010 Ballet and Bubbly

Scott Martinez — 2011-01-14T23:55:32-08:00

Here are a few select images from the 2010 Ballet and Bubbly…
Update!: The Pictures are not linking back to the site they are posted too and I cannot fix it today. Here is the direct link to all the Ballet and Bubbly photos.

Opps! It looks like the last of Sara piece did not make it up to smugmug last night. I’ll fix that here in a bit. Check the website to see the rest of the photos!

Off Road Vixens in the Studio

Scott Martinez — 2011-01-31T23:50:17-08:00

I had Carey and Shari of Off Road Vixens if the studio last week for a photo shoot of thier clothing line of fun and cute tees, tanks tops and sweat shirts. We ended up using the different textures of the studio for backgrounds rather than brave the outdoors. I ended up shooting with a ring light to add to the edgy feel and it really made thing pop with a little bit of surreal. We had five great models, some of which do ride motocross and ATV’s. Jennifer Harvey did a great job on the hair and makeup. Carey did you own styling. All in all, we got some terrific pictures in just a short period of time. Here are some of the previews that will be in a upcoming catalog and will be going up on their website…

2011 High School Regional Gymanstics Meet

Scott Martinez — 2011-02-17T23:25:17-08:00

This is about the only sport I ever get to shoot now a days. I need to get out and do more football, soccer and baseball, but I at least get to shoot regionals about once a year. Gymnastics has a lot of similarities to ballet. The more the gymnast smiles and projects, the better the poses and pictures. Of course for me, the most sought after pictures are the ones of the moment in time where the gymnast is frozen upside down…
This post is a sort of a test. I am posting through Smugmug. -Sort of like Flikr, but better.
Thanks for reading, here is some photos!

Picture of the Day | Cheerleader Day

Scott Martinez — 2010-09-20T18:47:40-07:00

Here is a quick edit before I head off to home. I had the opportunity to take the Lewis and Clark cheerleaders team and individual pictures this year. I did a last minute trip to Toys R Us and picked up a 3 foot trampoline. I quickly put it together and threw a bunch of gear into my car and headed off to Cliff Park to meet the team. While the idea was there, the lack of shots with hair not in the face and limited time to shoot 14 individuals made it so we had to stop. I did get a few good frames for the website and portfolio. I can’t wait to try this again on a day with less wind and a little bit more time!

Griffin and Lauren Part Two

Scott Martinez — 2010-09-14T18:11:51-07:00

Here are parts one and two in one 2 minute video...

Enjoy!

Lauren and Griffin Wedding Movie Trailer

Scott Martinez — 2010-09-06T19:02:27-07:00

Here is a “just edited clip” I made as I was logging the wedding of Lauren and Griffin from last Saturday video shoot. The Davenport Hotel was as always, a great place to shoot. -Just video this time. Lauren and Griffin were an easy going couple the whole day. They were surrounded with love by a great family and tons of friends. The photography was done by Suwanee Lennon whom I had just met. She was a pleasure to work with. Thank you Lauren and Grffin and the best of luck to you.

This is part 1 and I intend to put up a part 2 in the next day or so.
Wedding_1

Picture of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2010-08-23T13:29:31-07:00

I am printing orders as they come in while shooting pictures just about every evening this week and next. This shot was passed over, but was a fun idea that I thought should see the light of day. Maddison brought lots of fun things on the shoot including a bike. Click here to see a few more shots from this and other shoots.

Picture of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2010-08-10T21:06:29-07:00

I have been a long time user of Red Giant Software in both video and photo editing. They have some great color correction tools as well as the “looks” software that is a great start toward creating unique and interesting images. I recently downloaded the iPhone app “Plastic Bullet” and its become my main camera app for images. I purchased it without reading a review or even reading the description of the of app. I have figured out that the “Plastic” part of the name come from the lens that its tries to replicate and the replicate it does. I found that if you get a good exposure it will lead to a Holga type image that will fool most people in to thinking that you’ve used expired film with all the light leakage of the legendary camera. I posted a bunch of these on facebook already, but if you are not a friend then you have not seen them...

All in all, a really good job getting vintage looks out of plain images and stellar images out of the better iPhone images. I would watch out for over exposed areas around your main subject. They tend to get washed out. Sometimes a cool effect, but other times, they get lost. Let me know what you think of the app in the comments section. Its only $1.99.

Portrait Shoot from Today

Scott Martinez — 2010-07-28T15:08:46-07:00

April dropped by today to get a new head shot for her organization Empowering Inc. Also, her daughter Sydney, with pointe shoes in hand ready to shoot her annual quick session. Her are a few quick shots as well as an improvised portrait of Sydney’s future sister. (Congrats April and Tom!)

Video of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2010-07-06T23:00:01-07:00

I’ve spent just about every free waking hour that I have had the last couple of weeks editing down the video for Sandra Olgard’s Studio of Dance spring recital. They did “Ballet to Broadway” this year with numbers from many different musicals including the Lion King, King and I, and just about everything in-between. I pretty much had all the editing down and needed to come up with a title. I remembered the video of the warming up I shot with the DSLR and looked to see if anything turned out. While I was hand holding (my tripod was out front ready to tape the show) a camera that is pretty much a manual focus, there was little bits of video that was not completely shaky. This is what I came up with....
ballet to broadway intro

It’s not perfect... It could be cut tighter, but I figured the parents want to see the rest of the videos after the intro anyway!

Cheers!

Congratulations Joseph and Ashley!

Scott Martinez — 2010-07-03T15:15:46-07:00

I woke up this morning to find my camera bag bedside with what the bride and groom would consider priceless images still in the camera. It’s a wonder I got any sleep at all because I never feel good about having these “priceless” images in only one place. -So I am in the studio downloading and backing up. While the last of the images are being moved to the server, I thought I would put a few up on the website...

The Taffetas

Scott Martinez — 2010-06-25T15:29:14-07:00

I pulled these from my old family scrapbook...
-Actually, these where shot at the tail end of a run of “The Taffetas” out at the Lake City Playhouse in Coeur d’Alene. If you missed this show, they will be back this December with “A Taffeta Christmas”. Check the 2010-2011 season’s schedule that and the several other great shows that are coming up.

Picture of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2010-06-23T15:44:19-07:00

This is one of the about 6500 images I took last month while shooting pictures in Ballet Arts for the recital slide show. I’ve been doing this for about 5 years now and am amazed to see the changes as the dancers grow up and change. At some point I need to figure out a way to sort the images by dancer to see the progression from 2005 on. That will be quite the project!

Josh and Ashley - Engagement and Wedding Photos

Scott Martinez — 2010-06-23T15:36:57-07:00

I wanted to post some images from a recent wedding but am having a heck of a time with Wordpress. I just want to upload some files, not make a slideshow and a flash gallery and make the images harder to view. So I’ll try this blogging software that’s built into Rapid Weaver and see how it goes.

Anyway, here are some of the recent images from Josh and Ashley’s engagement pictures and wedding. I hope you enjoy them.

Picture of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2010-03-01T16:07:40-08:00

Ali Vincent was in the studio the other day for a photo shoot for First Magazine. After it goes to the newsstands I will blog some of the behind the scenes images. Here are a couple of shots on the cyc wall (ok, white seamless) while I had it setup.

Revenge of the Space Pandas

Scott Martinez — 2010-02-25T11:39:54-08:00

Last Friday I stopped by Lewis and Clark High School to shoot the head shots for the upcoming play, Revenge of the Space Pandas. Space Pandas runs from March 4th to the 6th. Led by Greg Pschirrer, Tiger Drama is one of the leading drama programs in Spokane with students often continuing to study theater into college. I also got head shots for the spring’s musical, Urinetown. Enjoy the pictures...

Picture of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2010-02-16T19:07:43-08:00

Quinne and Helen stopped by the studio for a quick session on Quinne’s 15th birthday. ~~Only have time to post one, the same one~~ I e-mailed to her dad who is on tour in Florida with Phantom of the Opera

Happy birthday Quinne!
Feb 17th Updates

The Dancing Princesses

Scott Martinez — 2010-02-08T18:22:12-08:00

I had an opportunity to shoot the dress rehearsal for the newly reformed Spokane Youth Ballet. The sets were beautiful and the dancing was excellent. The venue was the Central Valley High School theatre. Enjoy the images...

Photo Meetup

Scott Martinez — 2010-02-01T13:45:11-08:00

I hosted a meet-up at the studio last Saturday with the challenge to the photographers and models that we will be shooting on green screens and drop in backgrounds. Here is a quick video. I’ll try to have some edits in the next few days. Stay tuned...
jan30meetup_sm

Short Video Tour of Studio

Scott Martinez — 2010-01-20T13:30:35-08:00

Here is a quick video I was trying to keep under 5 megs so I could email it to another photographer. It ended up being about 40 megs so I’ll post it here. It shows a simple setup for silhouettes on the white seamless. Also, I use my speedlights and monolights together and the video shows how I can focus the light, and make it more directional with the Honl snoot. I also show what a gel looks like and what I sometimes use them for. Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them. Sorry that the light level is so low... I’ll work on my production level in the future!

First the Video...
IMG_0616_2
The overhead light was a simple way to get a bunch of bright white to come off the paper and back to the camera. Its how I got the silhouette picture below.

or this one

The Honl snoot was aimed into Bella’s face to get a little light but yet leave the rest of her dark.

Adrienne

Lexi

The one needs a backlight to separate her from the background and make her pop, but I still like it.

Use your imagination and try some things after you get the fundamentals down. There is really no right way or wrong way. I have been a member of photo.net for years now and I always liked the critique system where half of the score is based on originality. Take an idea and make it into something new and unique.

The studio has a skylight, but had no light going through it last winter. I gaffed a Girl Scout cookie box to a Nikon SB-800 to focus the light on Anna from an old DJ both at Ballet Arts.

Update: I sort of mentioned that I gelled the Photoflex mono lights with CTO to get them more balanced with the halogen worklights. I made the following image B&W because the flash was way blue compared to the worklight. I post some new pictures like this in color with the lights corrected next week.

Picture of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2010-01-16T14:16:02-08:00

Sorry I am slow to update the site! Here are a few pictures taken during some SI audition session...

I shoot the 1st Arabesque pictures with two umbrellas and one monolight on a Avenger boom high, center, about 2 feet back, shooting down the backdrop. This is with just the backdrop light.

A Kelsey Jump

Bella was shot with the backdrop light and and one nikon speed light with a Honl snoot.

A couple of months in review...

Scott Martinez — 2009-12-22T18:16:04-08:00

It’s almost a month since I updated my blog. Sorry to the one or two of you that read it. The purpose of the blog when I started it was to put a lot of words and pictures on my web site for the search engines to crawl. This will help with the rankings of my web site and maybe have the site show up when someone types “Spokane Photographer” into the search engine box. My hope is it will turn into something more. I have to figure out what to put here and what will keep you coming back. Stay tuned...

I am still trying to balance my studio and also be a working stage hand with IATSE Local #93. The choice to work the run of Lion King, Nutcracker and LC’s Guys & Dolls was not that hard. I love the technical aspects of theater and sound and will continue to keep working these calls when I can. Many of the people I work with are my customers and so they go hand in hand. The Lion King was a huge time commitment and has left me a little bit behind. I will continue to balance these as best as I can.

Dancers

While I started shooting ballet to make a slide show for the spring recital at Ballet Arts, I quickly learned that my peak action skills that I picked up while shooting football and other sports also worked well for dance. The portraits that I take are usually a collaboration of the dancer and myself. When the dance brings something to the game, the pictures turn out to be unique, fun and original. This is the same thing with any portrait session really...

Please keep bringing your A-game to the studio or location session and I will continue to do what I can to pose, light and shoot great dance pictures.

High School Seniors!

Lets just say I am behind and should not even be typing this blog right now. -I will get the orders completely caught up the first couple of weeks in January. In 2010, I want to have an intern or possible a part time employee. Much of the work, like fielding phones calls and appointments to downloading the cards, backing up and sorting with the customers are a huge time commitment and don’t need to be done by me. The bulk of the help would be needed in July and August. I was shooting almost daily though September. Let me know if you are interested via email or a phone call.

Thank you parents and seniors for a stellar senior portrait season.

Audition Pictures

Please call and make an appointment ASAP to get the SI pictures done. I will make sure that we get the best arabesque we can with no pressure. Make sure you look like what you are going to look like at your audition. -This means hair up, black leo and pink tights for both the head shot and full body shots. Make sure they see “the you” in the photos that they saw in the audition.

Happy Holidays! See you in 2010!

Havasu Falls Pictures

Scott Martinez — 2009-11-29T15:02:00-08:00

Ugh! I don’t have any pictures of the falls up yet! I so miss the beauty and warmth of the place. Like it or not, winter is here. At least I have the pictures and videos...

Some old mining equipment

Shay

Shaky iPhone video in the canyon

Water!

On the left is the Havasupai convenience store. Who would have though you would find a place with ice cold pop (God it was good!) and ice cream sanwiches 6 miles into a hike to nowhere. Actually, the village has another store, motel and a restaurant. There is also a school and post office.

The new Navaho Falls

A major flood came through last spring and did some major damage to the area.

Time to find a camp spot

Camp Martinez...

My brother Lee setting up camp

Orian and Shay at Havasu Falls

Havasu Falls

After a long hot hike, the cool spray of the water was so invigorating!

Next we’ll head down to Moonie Falls...

Picture of the Week Nov 24th

Scott Martinez — 2009-11-24T15:02:33-08:00

It’s been a long couple of weeks with Lion King in town and getting ready for Lewis and Clark High School’s production of Guys and Dolls. I saw the run through for Guys and Dolls last night and its looks killer with some big dance numbers. Guys and Doll will be playing Dec 4th-6th and Dec 10th-12th. Ticket prices and more info at the Tiger Drama website.

Instead of one picture this week, I have the head shots for the 2009-2010 Theatre Ballet Company. Swing by my Facebook page and have a look at all of them.

Another, just a quick note. I’ve been working with Dodie to put Ballet Arts Academy on the web. In the future, class schedules and other general information will get posted there. Check it out and offer me feedback as to what you might like to see and be of help to you.

Picture of the Week Nov 16th

Scott Martinez — 2009-11-16T18:03:24-08:00

Picture of the Week for November 16th 2009. A simple picture in the back alley. It always amazes me that the little sliver of weeds in the middle of downtown Spokane can look like a large field out in the Palouse.

And a bonus back alley picture...

More Havasu Falls (part 2)

Scott Martinez — 2009-11-09T19:46:50-08:00

Here are a few more pictures from the trip to Havasu Falls. I hope to use a few of the shots I took on the trip in backgrounds. Maybe in a week or two I will post up a few examples.

Old Route 66

The Havasu Hilltop was the base camp for the descent into the canyon. The Helicopter would fly in and out every once in a while.

Inacio and I were the last to head down. My brother Lee was racing down to get a good camp spot. I ended up going back up after a few hundred yards to get my GPS to get a map of the trail and record my time. I started back down the second time and wondered if I had locked my car doors. -So I headed back up again and they were locked. I took a while, but I caught back up with Sadie and Inacio.

Looking back up the hill. I believe the bulk of the descent was 2 miles.

I caught up to some people and had them shoot a picture with the beautiful canyon in the background.

Two or three miles in, there was a sign saying stay out of here during rain storms. It was a flash flood area.

The 1st Cactus

One last file for today. A movie of a mule train. Some of them fly up and down and you have to get the heck out of the way. I'll post more of the videos on my YouTube channel when I have more time.

Photo of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2009-11-02T22:09:24-08:00

I miss summer already. I miss the green grass at the park and even the sometimes excessive heat of the midday sun. Editing and print some of these high school senior portraits is not helping. Oh well, here is a picture of Lexi from a sunny, warmer day.

Halloween at Ballet Arts

Scott Martinez — 2009-11-01T12:57:14-08:00

Halloween at Ballet Arts!
Level 5's

A lamp, candy corn and at least two ballets dancers in the 3/4a class...

Set... Hike!

Candy corn was flying about!

Nothing good can come from three blind mice doing pirouettes...

Not sure about these two

look for Nemo

at least she said please

had to make an appearance

fairy tale ballet

Peggy, the keeper of the sugar.

Michael shows how its done!

Havasupai Falls Trip

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-28T21:03:30-07:00

I finally got a few minutes last weekend to look through some of the pictures and videos from the trip to Havasupai Falls by the Grand Canyon. It was a blast except for the 2500 miles of driving. Actually the drive south through Utah, Arizona and Nevada was beautiful. Most of the following pictures were taken with my iPhone.

The land looks like its out of a road runner cartoon

The Hoover Dam was a sight to see. Such a massive structure. They are building an overpass so that cars will no longer go over the dam.

Inacio, one of the hiking team. -Also an excellent brewer of beer.

We stayed at the Cavern Inn Motel the first night. We packed and repacked the backpacks. It was sort of a "do or die" on what we would take with us on the 10 mile hike into the canyon.

It's getting late so I will post more of the trip tomorrow...

My New Blog

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-18T13:12:34-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I am not sure where I will take this. I've never been much of a writer, so maybe I'll just post a bunch of pictures with a little bit of text you don't have to read... This could be a sounding board where I can throw out some of my ideas in picture form and see what you guys like. Leave some comments and click on the little RSS button in the address bar. We'll see what happens...

-Scott

Photo of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-19T15:52:01-07:00

Ashley wanted to get some pictures with her best friend a few weeks ago. While I usually avoid shooting at River Front Park, I got a chance to ride the carousel.

I found out that I am a little prone to montion siickness when riding a carousel shooting from a horse over the shoulder while going up and down and round and round... Set the camera in manual mode or shutter priority at 1/30th of a second. The flash from the camera is set to rear sync and will freeze what it hits, while everything else will blur. The camera flash was in TTL mode to automatically set the power to expose and freeze the two subjects.

Photo.net Photo of the Week

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-26T13:44:21-07:00

I got a short email from the administrators at photo.net that I got the photo of the week. This is kinda of cool in that I have seen some stunning POW's and always wished I could have just a little bit of the skill-set of the many talented photogs on that great site.
This was a shot taken in the middle of getting some portfolio and audition pictures for Jaimi McGuire. I remember the idea came when she was putting on her pointe shoes and was sort of shoving her toes in while holding herself up with her hands. -It is really only possible to ballance for a second or so. Jaimi pulled it off by looking relaxed for that split second.

Ryan Callan was off to the side handholding a mono light with a medium softbox low to the ground. The white seamless had some water drip on it from a leaky roof the night before so the lower left has some bad haphazard photoshop done to it.

The Ideas in my Head

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-24T19:23:35-07:00

This was an idea I had rolling around my brain for possible dance portraits for the Theatre Ballet Company. While we eventually opted for a simpler head shot instead of going with the silhouette theme, it was a fun learning experience.

The first ideas was to try to make you do a double take and with a mirrored version of the main dancer. Is that how a shadow works? Is this Photoshop? Or would it be subtle and the viewer would go "cool photo!"

My main light was a large softbox overhead and another monolight to the left, high and behind to get a little separation. I used a Nikon SB-900 speed light and fired it way off to my right placed on the ground with a snoot to keep it from spilling all over the background. I gelled it with a 1/2 CTO.

It was harder then I thought to get good consistent results in camera. The shadow subject needs to face straight on to the light (SB900) and not the camera. The light needed to go way back. -About 25 feet. The closer the subject to the wall, the smaller and more defined the shadow of the dancer. To get the timing for jumps I framed the shadow dancer so I could see them in the view finder and clicked at the peak action, cropping them out in the final image.

Thanks Adrienne, Ashley and Mackenzie for you patience and the smiles.

6 Pro Photographers Share Their Most Guarded Digital Secrets

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-24T11:53:36-07:00

Here is a cool article on maclife.com. I always find it interesting what plug-ins others use. I am a big fan of the Imagenomic Portraiture plug in. Its has saved me a ton of time. Mike Sweeney has a great point about plug-ins in general. You should set it where you think it looks good, and then back it off a little. I try to practices this with most corrections and even with adjustment masks.

Taylor does his best Hendrix

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-22T09:02:00-07:00

Taylor was great! Like a lot of my portrait sessions, I start out simple and easy. Get the yearbook shot and make mom happy. From there, who knows what will happen. He brought his guitar to the shoot and we left it in its case to get the obligatory yearbook photo. After a bit we pulled out the guitar and got some nice shots.

I was already looking around for some lighter fluid though after seeing a shot of Jimi Hendrix the other day dousing his guitar while on stage. "Hey Taylor, are you game?" Doesn't matter... I was already setting up the lights. After a couple of tweaks I came up with this...

I was trying to create a stage feel with a couple of mono lights, I left them ungelled thinking that I would make the final image black and white. Stage lights tend to have gels or color filters in front of the lights to add color effects to change the look or feel of a concert. This shot was taken at Ballet Arts Academy across the street from my studio when it was the Fat Tuesdays club...

After Taylor shot down my idea of actually lighting his guitar on fire, I took the shot I had in the can and googled around for flame tutorials on the web. After five minutes I made this simple flame pattern...

Added it to the original file

I changed the flame layer's adjustment mask to "screen" which dropped the black background.

The flames needed some boost in contrast. I duplicated that layer a few times and played with a couple of the layers with a curve adjustment. I added some lens blur to the foreground and background to give a shallower depth of field.

The shot I saw recently was in black and white. Added some noise and tweaked the black and white conversion to hold on to the red and yellow flames.

No one was burned in the making of this photograph. I added a CTO (color temperature orange) gel to a nikon speedlight to add a little warmth to the face from the fake flames...

Yearbook Pictures Due

Scott Martinez — 2009-10-21T14:24:45-07:00

High School Seniors
Its that time! If you have not picked the yearbook photo yet, please take a look and send me the filename. I'll take care of the rest. There is no charge for this.

Take advantage of a 15% discount between now and December 1st and order your pictures ala carte. Package discounts will limit you to 2 to 4 pictures for the entire package. The discount will let you order whatever you want and at a better deal then my best package price.