Photoshoot: Mo Sabri – The Overnight Classic
A long-awaited blog post. Introducing the super talented Mo Sabri, an up and coming hip hop artist from my alumni East Tennessee State University. But don’t let the small residing town of Johnson City, TN fool you. Mo has big dreams, with the ambition, raw talent, and of course songs to back it up. I admit I have to be picky when choosing photoshoots, and after listening to Mo’s lyrical genius I cleared my schedule to work with him. Mo takes his inspiration from Eminem, Blink-182, Kanye West, Blue Scholars and U2, but he’s not a copy-cat. I too take inspiration from other artists, and use it to fuel my future work. This post is about the photoshoot, I’m not a music critic like MTV, take their word for it. I just know what I like!
Mo Sabri – The Overnight Classic album cover
For the shoot, we decided on 2 different locations/looks. One would be in an open field with lifestyle photography. And the other would be a more stylized commercial look. With the sun setting, we went to the first location in the hills of Johnson City…. no shortage of grass and trees in Tennessee. Like that rhyme? I could be a hip hop artist too!.. (cough)
Then we headed to “downtown” Johnson City to do some low key night shots. The album title “The Overnight Classic” had already been determined, and I thought a night shot would be most appropriate for the album cover. Here it is without the title added:
His lyrical genius, good beats, and loyal fans skyrocketed him to the top 10 of iTunes World chart on January 1st on release day. Damn good way to start the new year.
Ferrari F430 – wallpaper
Nothing gets my heart beating like the sound of a Ferrari engine at full tilt. This Ferrari F430 is a “prop” for a shoot I did with hip hop artist Mo Sabri in Johnson City, TN. More to come on that later. The image is practically one exposure, lite using a single Alien Bee 1600 softboxed, then touched up in Photoshop. Enjoy!
Derrick Rose – 2011 NBA MVP
Last year I got the call to shoot Derrick Rose for Power Balance, and since it’s the start of the new 2012 NBA season I thought I’d show off a few images. Needless to say before Derrick was named the youngest ever NBA MVP, he had achieved a long list of accolades and I had to hold back my child-like enthusiasm for having Rose in front of my camera.
The location was the HAX Athletic Club basketball courts south of Los Angeles. Like most shoots with high-profile persons, this one was short. My lovely assistant Lauren and I had roughly 15 minutes of shooting from first shot to last. No worries, I had more than enough images to mess with when I got home.
Despite the short time-frame of the shoot, Derrick was very kind enough to personally come over to me while I was packing up my gear and say a genuine “thank you” and pose for a picture with me. Definitely a moment I’ll never forget. The Chicago Bulls instantly skyrocked to my 2nd favorite team, and DRose easily my favorite NBA player… C’mon I can’t be a bandwagon jumper, go Suns!
My Super Duper Versatile Desk
Put your nerd caps on, this blog post is giving you a tour of my workspace/desk/place-where-I-spend-12hrs-a-day. I’m a freelance designer/photographer, which basically means I work from home… A LOT. So having an efficient workspace is very important to me. Oh and no I wasn’t paid to write any of this (I wish).
For the short-attention spanned people out there, just watch the video below. Yes that’s right, you get to see me walk and talk (in High Definition at that). I bet you didn’t know today was going to be your lucky day.
NOW for the normal-attention spanned people out there, I’ll go in to a little more detail.
First of all it took much more time than I thought to find a good quality/sturdy desk that could roll. Simple to ask, hard to find. After some uninspiring hours of googling, I stumbled upon Anthro, a company out of Portland, Oregon. They have more options than a McDonald’s Big Mac. TONS of desks to choose from, and the one I got is the 60″ Anthrocart. Black, with 5″ caster wheels, and computer siderack.
Introducing the World’s FIRST rig shot from a desk.
It may look like a typical desk, but the quality of Anthro is top notch. You can just “feel” it. No flimsy parts here. Not to mention their customer service is 2nd to none. Ask for Doug Campbell if you give them a call.
My other quest was to find sturdy monitor holders that clamp to the back of the desk. I’m extremely impressed with the arms from Ergotron. Super snazzy, sturdy, and quickly adjustable on the fly to my heart’s content. The big 30″ monitor needed the MX model for the extra weight. For the smaller monitor I got the more compact LX model. Power Rangers eat your heart out.
See that big window in the background? That’s one of the main reasons I wanted the desk to be portable. During the day the sun can really beam down on the desk. No worries, just push it a few feet into the shade. I’d bore you with specifics on the computer. But to skim, it has 12GB DDR3 RAM, i7-920 2.66 GHz Processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 grahics card, SSD internal hard drive, and TONS of bullet proof back-up external hard drive space thanks to drobo. pew pew pew! Steve Demmitt helped me put all the pieces together, can’t forget about that.
And there it is. I’d bore everyone if I went over EVERYTHING associated with my workspace, so leave a comment below if you have any questions… Chances are I’ll be typing my response from this very desk!
