Luke Copping Photography Blog

Required Reading – Back from Holiday

Luke — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:30:19 +0000

Back from a short but relaxing holiday in a self imposed exile from work, emails, and doing anything that wasn’t relaxing or fun. 3 days spent with my girlfriend eating barbecue, hitting some bars, and visiting family. The weekend culminated last night when we spent the evening together exploring one of Buffalo’s most beautiful waterfront parks. It’s the first time I have walked the entire length of the grounds, and found a few treasures. The first is a huge concrete slab that served as the foundation/parking lot of a former outdoor mega club. The slab is slowly being reclaimed by nature, cracking and splitting with strong plantlife coming up through the fissures. The next was several huge blocks of white marble of granite (I couldn’t tell) laid out in a pile and nestled up in the shadow of a small green hill. It seems alien for them to be laying there in the middle of such an empty space, these cyclopean blocks of stone that just seemed so out of place, but they were laid out so beautifully. The evening ended with us eating some of Buffalo’s finest tacos. and then early to bed for me so that I could get up for an ASMP breakfast.

Heres some links that I cultivated over the weekend for you.

• The phone call is a dying art in some circles, but its still one oft he finest marketing tools around. Leslie Burns thinks so too. and her opinion is one I trust.

• Clever use of Google AdWords nets a creative a wish list job.

• Richard Branson, long touted for being a publicity hounds, says that entrepreneurs need to build for the future, and that sometimes showy projects and stunts can be calculated experiments in disguise, not grabs for the headlines. Here are his five tips to running a successful business.

• From Ryan Freitas – 35 Lessons in 35 years

• Take your freelancing to the next level. become a thought leader and exercise some smart control and influence over your fans.

Pre-Takeoff Photos of the Netsetjet.com Crew

Luke — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 10:30:16 +0000

The crew from netsetjet.com leaves on their trip this week. Remember that you can follow them on their trip at www.netsetjet.com

More work can be seen at lukecopping.com

Behind the Scenes at the Netsetjet.com promo shoot

Luke — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:30:45 +0000

Behind the Scenes at the netsetjet.com shoot from Luke Copping on Vimeo.

Quick Cuts – Vaunt

Luke — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:30:41 +0000

Vaunt was in town briefly for a shoot with Auxiliary Magazine. I was glad to have a chance, albeit in an extremely limited window of time, to work with her in the few scant minutes of light we had left. It was a simple casual and fun shoot which resulted in a very rewarding image.

Required Reading – Attack of the Links

Luke — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:30:05 +0000

• Do your research kids. Adsoftheworld.com has a major collection of regularly updated top flight campaigns for you to keep up with whats going on in advertising. This is a must read site for me every morning.

• Boy, Girl, City. A video by Jake Lodwick, combining the feel of wiggle grams into a longer format video. These have a beautiful depth to them, and while brief, are quite stimulating

• The 99% wants to know, are you ambitious enough? Ambition should not be a dirty word.

• Photoshelter.com has a rundown for photographers on how to best protect your images online.

Sarah Shriver and Bryan Vomit

Luke — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:30:37 +0000

I am coming off the tail end of an extremely prolific week of shooting, ill be leaking a ton of new images out here on the blog over the next few weeks. I spent friday out and about with Zach Rose photographing the awesome alternative style icons Bryan Vomit and Sarah Shriver. An absolutely fun and heavy metal fueled shoot that left them covered in the styling secrets of the week: food coloring and cornstarch. These two were just a blast to shoot with, I can’t wait to work with them again. I loved working with such extreme styling in such a natural environment, creating an interesting juxtaposition that highlights their unique looks.

NetSetJet.com – Behind the Scenes

Luke — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:30:18 +0000

Some crew shots from yesterday’s shoot with the crew of netsetjet.com. These intrepid travelers are about to leave on a month long adventure across the country. Flying on Jet Blue’s All you Can Jet Pass and documenting their trip along the way.

Left to Right: Amber Rampino, Luke Copping (photographer) Dan Gigante, and Clark Dever

Left to Right: Amber Rampino, Will Ingalls (assistant) Dan Gigante, and Clark Dever

Required Reading

Luke — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:10:18 +0000

• Jake Garn discusses the importance of falling in love with what you do

• For all the up and coming photographers out there. I cannot suggest strongly enough that you pick up Leslie Burns new book Business Basics for the Successful Commercial Photographer

• Tim Ferris discusses Seth Godin’s move away from traditional publishing. While mainly aimed at writers it is an interesting discussion on the evolution of new media channels. And I certainly think there are lessons that can be learned in this article by photographers and other creatives.

• My friend Meagan Hendrickson, the fashion editor of Auxiliary Magazine, loves Elvis. So much so that on the anniversary of Elvis’ death earlier this month she ran a blog piece on the necessity of Elvis’ glasses as an important fashion accessory. …. staring me.

• Justin Colt’s East/West Cross Country project is a must see.

• Drowned in Sound has this great Mixcloud up right now, 25 Tracks: A Dubstep Chronology. Simply my favorite new soundtrack in the studio and when doing post work. Check out some of the sounds below, but make sure to stop by Drowned in Sound and read the excellent analysis of this mix.

25 Tracks: A Dubstep Chronology by Eighteen on Mixcloud

• I Found this Via Gala Darling’s site, and it is an interesting read. I have been a lifelong insomniac, sleeping very little most nights, a lot of these tips have been around for quite some time and work with marginal effectiveness, but I’m intrigued by tailoring my diet to include more sleep inducing foods. I’ll be looking into this notion more as the weeks go by. Especially since I seem to be having a tougher time than normal sleeping

• ASMP – Strictly Business – A New Path

A Dozen Pink Baloons – Quick Cuts

Luke — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:30:41 +0000

I have been continuing my collaboration with artist Nick Butlak that we stared on a few months ago. This collection of images is from our second session shooting together, its comprised of the some shots taken in a more natural setting but still juxtaposed against his use of man made and artificial materials combined with strong, candy tinted colors. The balloons on this shoot were a force to be reckoned with. It was a slightly more windy day than we had anticipated, and by slightly more windy, I meant that Nick was being dragged too and from by the balloons for the duration of the shoot. Even I was getting knocked around by them. We learned to be very conscious of the wind direction very quickly.

Other than the wind though, we were lucky to have absolutely gorgeous light and scenery on that afternoon to serve as a backdrop for Nick. These images will be for a number of promotional purposes and as part of the modeling/performance side of Nick’s artistic endeavors.

A Busy Week

Luke — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:30:45 +0000

Its been a hectic week here, just got back from a couple hard days on a set. But I’ve got a chance to catch up on a lot of new work that still needs to go through post production. Keep an eye out for new promo images of artist Nick Butlak that are coming shortly. Some new tutorials, and more news on a bunch of upcoming projects that are starting next week.