I had borrowed this armor bikini from my good friend Tony Swatton, owner of Sword and Stone. He makes a lot of armor, swords, knives, and other REALLY COOL stuff for film and television. Over the years of our friendship, he has been incredibly generous in lending me some fun props for shoots.

 

My friend Jewell was competing in a bodybuilding competition at Muscle Beach adjacent to Venice Beach. In between her appearances on stage, she put on the armor and we hit the Boardwalk for a quick photo shoot. It was a warm day and quite crowded. I chose this spot as it is a recognizable spot on the Boardwalk which says “Venice Beach”. I also wanted the crowds of people in the photograph.

 

I was using my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L series lens, my hope was to shoot at the 200mm end of the lens to compress the background up against Jewel more and increase the bokeh, but unfortunately when I backed up far enough to use the 200mm the crowd closed in and got in my way. So I ended up shooting at 70mm.

In photoshop I decided that I wanted the photograph to look like it was shot on Kodachrome film, I think I got pretty close. The software I used in addition to Photoshop was the On1 plugin. The On1 software offers a lot of different “film look” options both color and B&W. What I really like about On1 is that after applying an Effect you can use multiple sliders to fine-tune the effect to exactly what you want. This makes it possible to create effects that are specific to your artistic vision. With On1 there are no limits to your creativity!

 

As you can see in the photograph I captured this look by shooting closer to the ground. I believe I was on one knee. This is a more interesting and flattering angle for this type of photograph. If it hadn’t been so crowded I might have tried taking the photograph from laying on the ground. Next time.

 

I chose to have Jewell on the left side of the frame so I could include the FootLocker employees in the frame and the distinctive structures on the right that are iconic to Venice Beach. (And if you are ever on Venice Beach and looking for an ATM machine you will know where you can find one.)

 

On a side note, Jewell came home with two medals from the competition!

 

Here are the camera details for the photo: 1/2000 sec, f/2.8, ISO-160. The lens I used was the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L series lens.

 

Here is a link to On1 if you would like to check it out.