Shoot The Centerfold… second part

Hey guys, ready for a long reading?

On my 1st post about Shoot The Centerfold, I forgot to mention a ‘tiny’ detail that Jon mentioned at the beginning of the day and that already put everybody on a great mood. A really tiny present they have for us; you know, offering something for free it’s always good to brake the ice, you know like a pen with the logo of the company, or a mouse pad or waving the $495.00 fee for the next event in Vegas… What?

Yes, the next Shoot The Centerfold is going to take place in Vegas (Vegas baby!) and you know how much I have to pay? Zero, nothing, nada!!!

So, my group went 1st with Playboy Photographer Jarmo Pohjaniemi (if you want to make it to PB, you need to pronounce his name correctly on the 1st try). Jarmo is an amazing guy, full of energy and you can easily see, he is 150% invested on this project.

Jarmo had a set with 9 lights with everything ready to go, model included. The model was Ksenia Tsiulina (I think she was from Russia) a fresh face and a very good model when it comes to follow directions (she is not published as of yet, but you just wait). A very, very sweet girl, but at the end a new model. What? Not a PB super start? Man, this is going downhill right? Wrong again!

He started by taking one picture of the model and tethering this to a laptop and from the laptop, to a big screen so we all can see the results. He took a picture (just showing up, you know) and suddenly, silent was the master of the room. And with this, there was your 1st lesson and another myth going away: PB images only look good because they use all these plastic over surgery models with tons of experience shooting glam that know exactly what to do.

Now we not only hear that there was no photoshop on the images they had have shown us before and I mentioned on my 1st post, now we are seeing this happening live. If you see most of the images on this site has just a hint of PS, and no matter how much I said that, a lot of people will never believed me.

This was kind of happening there with some of the folks attending the event; this ‘in your face moment’ really surprised a lot of people. I can just only imagine what was going trhu the mind of these folks.

Then Jarmo turned off all the lights and proceeded to explain what was happening and how everything was done to the most tiny detail. During this time, he kept telling, actually almost demanding for people to ask questions. So people did, and things just got even better. Now we are not only learning everything he has prepared, now we are learning from different people questions and Jarmo giving us answers from his point of view. These were really good questions, as there was a lot of very high professional people on the audience. And when I said to the detail, I mean people was asking tricks for the pupil of the eyes… and getting a response.

If you were paying attention, and taking good notes, you can 100% redo what Jarmo had there step by step.

One note here: On all the years I have been working in photography, and in all the events I have participated with other photographers, one thing has been common every and each time: Photographers don’t want to share their “secrets” (I wrote “secrets” because sometimes I am like: really, you honestly think that you invented Rembrandt lighting?). But there was none of this at the event. Jarmo was giving out everything, and regardless of your level of photography, you were getting a lot from him.

Then he started turning on light by light, and explaining exactly what each light was for and the impact on the final product. Step by step, with explanations in between, until he was using all 9 lights. He also explained the modifiers that were attached to each light; some of them with 3 degrees honeycomb and a “___” (I don’t know how they called this big washer) to reduce the angle even more. This was controlling the light to the most ‘minusculo’ detail.

Then we got to shoot. Each person in the room, got to shoot this beautiful model on this beautiful setting with every light available and everything to be perfect. And here is where I notice the passion, enthusiasms and love Jarmo was putting into this event. Man, he was going the extra mile.

Jarmo Pohjaniemi, Playboy Photographer (staff) stayed behind each photographer (I think there were 25/30 in my group) and helping everyone to get the perfect shot. He was making sure that the guy behind the camera, was getting the shot he/she will add to his/her portfolio and leave there for years to come. Now, he was not taking the camera and shooting, he was there, looking at this little screen and telling you change this and change that, and let you go again. I can almost say for a long as it took for you to get your shot, he was there. For some, one or two shots, for others maybe 10 shots. Man, I am having a lot of problem explaining this and why do I think it was so great, but it was.

This is what I am telling you, and as I have my personal assistant, to my close friends the story goes like:
Yes, I went to Fl you know, to shoot this Playboy model, you know; she need it a favor and she asked nicely, so I said, ok, I’m nice fella, so I went, you know. I need it some help, ’cause I can’t do everything, right? So I looked for a ‘caddy’ kind of thing, you know, and this young guy happen to be there and got lucky, because I let him help a little bit with the lights and stuff. I think his name was something like Jargon, or Jarson, or Jarmo Pohjaniemi, something like that, you know…

Now, this is good enough for what they promise, right? At the end, you go to this event to learn these stuff and that’s exactly what we did so far. But there is some more.

One of the things that was really cool, was to watch Jarmo’s team in action. Everybody so prepared and so perfect of their execution, following the lead of this great photographer.

And man, were these guys talented!, not only because what they were doing at the event; I got the chance to look over the port of a couple of these guys and maaaan, very impressive. I think that Jarmo may have the job that we all dream about, but I would not complain if they give me one of these jobs as a second choice (hint, hint!). Plus, it was great to see this PB makeup artist also doing all the styling in the set. The make up artist? Mary Alejo, a model that have appeared in several images on the previous slide show and that has been published in PB publications several times. BTW, her super lucky husband was there too, his name was something like Jargon, or Jarson, or Ja… hahahaha!

So, anyhow the point is that you also got a chance to see this all this happening.

There you have it, the second part of the event and we still need to cover other two. Stay tuned.

By the way, being from Venezuela and a photographer with an accent when I talk, it was funny to me that a lot of people was getting confused between Jarmo and myself. So take a look at the picture and to avoid any confusion, I’ll explain how to know who is who: On one hand, you have this gorgeous guys, that doesn’t look his age at all, he is good looking and I don’t care to say it as he was even a model at one point in the past, he is a great photographer and has a lot of charisma. The other one is Jarmo 🙂

Enjoy,

Rocke
www.rockephotography.com