Behind the Scenes on last month’s triple location Opera Ads

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Kevin

Excuse the number of images, this was just such a fun shoot and great crew. For the second year I photographed the opera’s campaign of the three performances being staged for the upcoming (2012-13) season. One scene created for each opera, each at a different and iconic location in SB – The Tea House at the Botanic Gardens for Madama Butterfly, a 1920′s Montecito Mansion (Casa del Herrero) for Don Pasquale, and the ruins of Knapp’s Castle at 3,000′ in the hills for Aida. Huge thanks to the creative staff, models and crew!

I’ll post the final images soon, these are just the fun snapshots.

Opera Week(s)

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Kevin

It’s the middle of a busy few “opera weeks” as we get ready to stage shoots at multiple locations for three different operas set for the 2012-2013 season: Madama Buttterfly. Aida. Don Pascuale. While those epic visuals are being sketched, cast, and logisticisized we’ve just finished shooting location scenes for the last production of the 2011-12 season: Orpheus & Eurydice.

Shown below (top left) is the final ad shot from our fun night exactly a year ago (April 18) for the story of Orpheus. Now that the actual actors are in town rehearsing from all over the US we carve some time out of their schedule and re-stage a few scenes for PR and promotion. Almost always verticals for covers. And so the gates of Hades have moved from underneath Stearn’s Wharf to the side of the SB Mission.

Motorola MOTOACTV – Olympic Athletes

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Kevin

Chris Carmichael on the left, Mari Holden on the right

Kevin Steele - Motorola MOTOACTV Shoot Olympic Athletes

Chris is a serious coach. An Olympian (’84 cycling) he’s been Lance Armstrong’s coach since forever, George Hincapie’s coach (5 time Olympian), cycling hall of fame, Olympian Coach of the Year and since 2000 has been training world class athletes at Carmichael Training Centers.

Mari is a serious cyclist. Silver in the 2000 Olympics and a World Championship the same year. Six U.S. championships and the first women to knock down three championships in a row. And still super-active on the cycling scene.

A little over a month ago a call came to shoot their portraits and capture the behind-the-scenes stills for a Motorola campaign of a new training sport watch / garmin-killer called MOTOACTV. Here are the some of the photographs, fittingly cropped to anamorphic 2.39:1. The crew was 30 deep, shooting RED Epic @4k, laying dolly tracks, lighting on the fly, making it happen with planned synchronicity. The resulting video can be viewed here at the MOTOACTV site.

Tumblr – day one – a companion to this blog

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Kevin

My new Tumblr site is a freeform companion to this blog and my portfolio. From outtakes to iPhone snaps to favorite images..you can get to it from the menu at the top of the blog. check it out! I’m already inspired by the flow of what I see from others.

Solstice: Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Kevin

Setting up this evening for the 2nd annual SolsticePeople shoot tomorrow. Shot with the Hasselblad H4D-40 full frame on top and a 1:1 crop view of the same image below that of Meg, my intern that just graduated Brooks Institute last week. Happy girl!

Opera SB Campaign for 2011-12

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Kevin

This was a great series of images to shoot – creating scenes from three upcoming operas in iconic Santa Barbara outdoor locations. The brochure was revealed Sunday at the Opera’s fundraising gala and the images will be used for their print, web and broadcast ads as well as playbills and posters in the theater.

For La Boheme, a tragic love story, the courthouse tower at twilight became the icy garett in Paris as they first fall in love.

The topiary gardens of the LotusLand estate serve as the playful backdrop for mistaken identities in the humorous garden scene in The Marriage of Figaro.

And Stearn’s Wharf, that is the underside of the wharf, became the gates of hell as the hero emerges from Hades with his love behind him – he can’t look at her or she is doomed to return to the underworld…you can guess how it ends.

Below are some outtakes from the shoots and a behind the scenes look at the great cast and crew!

Some previous outtakes and awesome light tests were posted earlier here.

EDIT: 30 sec commercial :-)

great locations, talented crew, awesome light tests.

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Kevin

We just finished a great shoot yesterday that needed three iconic locations to literally set the stage for some classic characters. I’ll fill in the details when the campaign is revealed late next month. Meg, a Tulane graduate and soon finishing her photography degree at Brooks Institute has been helping me as intern / assistant and totally rocks the Sekonic meter on the pre-shoot light tests (click the image to see larger).

Here is most of the crew, kicking back waiting for the light in the courthouse tower which we have all to ourselves after hours. Models Steven and Kaita (David not shown here), Meg the intern, Daniel (behind-the-scenes & video), Miller (costume/wardrobe) and Heather (hair/makeup). It all came together really well :-)

Big Sur – Behind the Scenes

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Kevin

Mother Nature played havoc with us last month and this assignment almost wasn’t – can’t say for who or show more images but I got the OK to show some behind-the-scenes and provide a bit of the story. A hard deadline of April 1st was looming and I had a few weeks to gather a team of runners and crew and coordinate the shoots in Big Sur, one of the best parts of the California coastline (I also really like the Mendocino coast).

Making Plans: The day after the ides of March, the slope collapsed under the only road that runs through it – Hwy 1. As I write it is still closed and could open up again in May. It slid on the northern boundary of the coast, blocking access for San Francisco southbounders. A side benefit for us (bad for cafes and cabins) was the disappearance of traffic and tourists. Sarah (awesome runner) and I made plans for a first trip a few days later. I had another assignment for another client to shoot portraits of an elite marathoner (with a unique story) at the start of the LA Marathon on the 20th. We would head up right after that.

On Sunday the 20th a rainfall record was set. It was cats and dogs at the marathon which made for epic shots (love water sealed cameras) but also made for an epic drive up the coast, past swollen rivers, washouts and lakes of grapes. We drove through it and six hours later found ourselves on the backside of the diminishing storm. The above frame was twelve minutes into shooting. It got better. More on that in a few months.

We got back late the following day and I started plans for the bigger crew the following week.

Whoomp. Another mudslide, this time cutting us off from the south on Wednesday. Big Sur inhabitants were on their own island now. The road was targeted to be cleared by the weekend. Saturday – still closed. Then a rumor that there will be 3 one-hour openings on Sunday. We hop in the cars and head up to meet the middle time-slot and are in. We are in heaven shooting the following few days. Perfect sunshine, blue skies.

The day before we are set to head back south: Whooomp. A bigger mudslide, this one will take a week to clear. Fortunately it is further south than a seldom used back road that winds up and over the mountains, then inland through an Army base, past coyotes and tanks in fields. It would have been fine if that road had a mudslide too. We all agreed another week in Big Sur isolation is not a bad thing…

Here are some behind-the-scenes images from photographer/runner/assistant/model Matt Dayka and a few from myself.