Classic Specs Shoot

And Other News…

New York City. 2011. It’s been pretty hectic, to say the least.  Landing here on January 3^rd during the worst winter NYC has experienced in at least 60 years wasn’t easy for us wimpy Californians. Four days after moving here my good friend Richard Ruiz and his business partner Andrew Lipovsky of Classic Specs ask me if I wanted to share a studio space with them in Williamsburg. 1300 SQ FT and way cheaper rent than in the City, I jumped on the opportunity and Tyler and I found our workspace home. Two weeks after moving here I started booking jobs. By the end of February I had shot for Ralph Lauren, Nike and Jimon Magazine and had traveled back to Los Angeles for a job. Meanwhile, David and I were acclimating to the new NYC lifestyle: no car, belligerent cab drivers, exhausting subway ordeals, ordering groceries from the market instead of actually going there, doormen, no yard for the dog and work. Work. And more Work.

I’d be lying if I said it was smooth sailing. In fact, it’s been challenging. Losing Lulu in the process, as I previously posted about, just added to the stress BUT truth be told, I really fell in love with NYC pretty much immediately. I mean, bi-polar weather and pushy people aside, I cannot begin to describe the caliber of talent available at my fingertips here: MODELS. Hair and Make up artists. And damn….some of the most amazing stylists I’ve EVER worked with!!! It eradicates any and all of the above aforementioned annoyances. Having access to such an incredible pool of great resources, I’m in heaven here. And I’m here to stay!
So let’s catch up and then we can move on to bigger and more interesting posts in the near future. For one, I’ve hired on some new assistants here in NYC and I’d like to introduce them to you. First off: Meet Brian, my new personal assistant and the new Forum moderator for my blog.  This guy shreds on the internet which was on the top of the list of job requirements when I was looking for a personal assistant. His job description covers everything from casting Siberian Huskie’s for a fashion shoot to handling my bills, filing my receipts and helping me brainstorm for a proposal letter. What’s really important to you guys is that he’s now taken on some blog admin duties including moderating the forum which was sadly ignored and needing some very TLC. Brian is ON it now and making sure all of your messages are answered and the spammers are kicked off.  Since his last job was personal assistant to Marilyn Manson, I knew he’d be just fine working for me inside my crazy world! And as it turns out, he has admitted that I’m just a tad easier to deal with than MM! So if you have any questions or need help with the Forum, contact brian@melissarodwell.com. He’s your man and he’s on board to help out! Also, the Forum has been updated so don’t forget to check in and sign up for a membership if you haven’t already!

My New Personal Assistant

Did I mention that Tyler Mitchell, my first assistant from Los Angeles, made the move to NYC with us?  I mean, I’m not about getting rid of this guy any time real soon. Through Tyler I met Michael Tessier AKA Mikey T. Mikey and Tyler went to Hallmark Institute of Photography together, graduating in the summer of ’09, shortly before Tyler started working for me in October of the same year. I gave Mikey a test run on Day 3 of my Nike shoot and I was really pleased with his work. So I hired him on as my second assistant here in NYC. Here’s an inside tip for all of you who want to assist me: make friends with my assistants. They’re the ones who are going to refer their friends to me who are usually also assistants.  If you get in with them, you’ll have a better chance of getting in with me. That’s how it works! (BMX, skateboarding, snowboarding abilities are a plus too, it seems).

In September we are launching something incredible. You’re just going to have hang tight a little bit longer to see what we’ve got up our sleeves but trust me, it will be worth the wait. We will announce it soon so look for the information on the blog in the next month! We’re also going to have a launch party in NYC late in September/early October, so if you’re tentatively thinking about coming to NYC sometime in the next 3 months, maybe plan to be here during that time because all of my readers are going to be invited and it’s going to be huge! After the launchI will be traveling: going back to Dubai to shoot for Harper’s Bazaar and then off to India, Turkey and Greece for more editorials shoots.
Next post will be about my Nike shoot which was an incredible job that I can’t wait to tell you all about it. In the meantime, here’s a little shoot I did pro bono for my aforementioned dear friends, Richard Ruiz and Andrew Lipovsky from Classic Specs. Classic Specs is a Brooklyn based Eyewear Company founded in 2010. Classic Specs sells vintage styles frames including prescription lenses for $89. 6% of every sale is donated to New Eyes for The Needy, a non profit organization dedicated to helping those less fortunate obtain the gift of sight. Classic Specs are sold exclusively online at www.classicspecs.com. Awesome, right?

This was kind of a two-part shoot. One day we did a “guerilla style” shoot, driving to Dumbo and walking through the quaint little area to find the primo shooting spots to place our models in. I shot the shoot with my Nikon D3 and I used my 24mm and 50mm lenses, depending if I wanted to get more skyline in the background with the 24mm or crop in a little tighter with the 50mm. We used “real people” as opposed to models because Classic Specs wants to appeal to everyone. Sometimes you’ll have a client where they get a little afraid of using models; they think they maybe might deter some people from buying their product because they’re too pretty or too thin, etc. I worked with the models they casted for this shoot and also told them I wanted to shoot some of their eyewear on a model to show them the difference. On the “real people” shoot,  Tyler held a SB 800 off camera to add a little flash fill with our natural, available light. I shot the whole story at F9, 1/125 sec. People were very generous letting us shoot at their ice cream shop or out inside their nicely lit, beautifully reflected restaurant window. I have found that if you have a small production and not a lot of money for location permits, just being polite and asking people if it’s okay to shoot at their location works most of the time. Like I said, as long as you’re polite and not disturbing their customers, they usually are pretty agreeable. The shoot took about 2 hours and we ended our day back over in Williamsburg at The Levee, finishing our last shot and then having a few beers with the crew and models and of course the guys from Classic Specs.

For our Real Model shoot, I was actually shooting a beauty editorial and at the end of the shoot just popped on a couple of different frames on the model and used the same lighting I used to shoot the beauty story. This was also shot on the Nikon D3 at F 9 at 1/125 sec. I used a white Profoto beauty dish with a grid and a sock over the dish on one of my Profoto mono-lights at about half power, which would roughly be around 300 watts. Of course, I’m a fan of the model (see first photo) shot! But both work for the different demographics, so I get where they are coming from. Any way, if you wear glasses, you should check their eyewear out. I own a pair of the reading glasses and so does Tyler. They’ve even named our particular styles after us: The Rodwell and The Lazer! You can follow them on twitter and like them on Facebook. They’re a great bunch of Brooklyner’s so spread the word and show them some love! And I’ll be seeing you all next week as I write about the fab Nike shoot that also had Annie Leibovtz shooting for the same job as well!