Andrew McGibbon

It sure does feel good to be back at the studio even though the December break was AWESOME!
As an artist, you never really feel like you're working so it feels good to be back.

To kick off the year, I did a little test shoot for a old friend. I felt it woul dbe a god time to test out some new gear I bought. In particular, the Creative light Brolly Box by Profoto. It's used in image 3,4,6 & 7.
The light it produces is best described as silky. It's really nice and I plan on using it way more this year.

The images below show a typicle portfolio shoot. Depending on what the girl/guy want out of modeling we give them a veriety of looks. In Shae's case, it was Sporty, Commercial and editorial.

Feel free to add your comments or ask questions regarding lighitng.

I plan on doing a lot of gear reviews this year, as well as tutorials so keep an eye out.

~Andrew

We recently had the privilege of working with the team from the Kloof SPCA on their 2012 ad campaign, below are some of the behind the scene images and a bit of what it was like.
To view the final images please click HERE

First off we see Matt, my trusty assistant sitting in for the light test. If you're a photographer, you might wonder why the two clip lights are not fireing? Well, simply, we were building our light pattern around the subject one light at a time and in this shot we were tweeking the back light peeking over the back drop.
In total we used four lights - Key light was the amazing Profoto Beauty dish (white), back light was the just as amazing Profoto Magnum reflector (Love this thing) and our two clip lights were straight up profoto D1s with their built in reflector.

A lot of people say that working with children and animals is really tough and frustrating but we didn't seem to have the same experience. Sure you need to be patient but if you've planned well and have a good team (We had an animal behaviorist on set as well as a vet) it all seems to just fall into place.
It's definitly something I would love to do more of - Can I hear someone say 'Animal Planet' ad campaign?? :)

(Please note that the utmost care was taken in handleing the animals and even though some were a little stressed out (goose!) they are all just fine.)

 

Trying to coax the tortoise out of his shell with a peach. by the end he was letting me scratch his neck :)

Lara Mallory was our animal behaviorist on hand - She did an amazing job!

 

The goose having a little freak out at the flashes.

This shot doesn't really do justice to what the paper roll looked like after wrap. Needless to say it was cut off and thrown away... Goose poop an all.

I am very proud to announce that Anderw McGibbon Photo is now represented by SJ Artists in Cape Town.

Headed by the dynamic Shani Judes, it's an artists managment company with some really cool artisst on their books from photographers to street artists.

 

I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes of it.

 

Check out their site here

 

Well, it's been awhile since I got to post something on my blog! I've been busy with some exciting projects and will hopefuly do a post on some of it soon.

For now though I want to draw attention to some of the web exposure I've had latey. Most notably was being featured on PhotographyServed.com and Trendhunter.com. Both featured my 'Super Colour' Work.
It really feels great to get such nice exposure and to see the responses.

Trend Hunter Here
Photography Served Here
Cosas Cool Here

I hope to continue to make images that others want to see and share!

Thanks to everyone who supports and encourages me with your comments. I appreciate it!

~Andrew

 

Talking about responses.... A Tumblr blogger named 'Cosas Cool' posted a image I shot the other day and within a few days it had been re-blogged 1926 times!! Wow, that's awesome!

 

 

It's been a really busy week, with one hair salnon campaign, one designer shoot and really fun collaboration with a local make-up artist.
It's been one month since I moved into my new studio (Experiment lab as I like to call) and it sure has brought a huge freedom to my energy on shoot. It's space where we can get messy and throw paint around, which I have become quite fond of doing.

Below are a few images of what we've been up to! I hope you enjoy.

First up is make up by Candice Mac Nicol from Durban. She really is very talented at what she does. I'm really looking forward to working with her again.

In case you missed it on the original crop, here you can see my custom made star light in our models eyes.

 

Channel for ICE models getting her paint on!

 

Sky from ICE getting powderd.

 

Amy had really great hair for our Hair salon shoot.

 

Ludwig Bezuidenhout never fails to bring really striking garments to the table. I was excited to use my new pink paper roll and think the results are awesome! What do you think?

We ended the day by painting our model, Jade from ICE, with cupcake powder!

Next weeek is looking like a calm before the storm, with a retail campaign kicking off in October, two new album covers, a mobile creative platform shoot and hopfully (it's not confirmed) a trip to Angola for Fortune magazine! (hold thumbs)

Until then,
Andrew

Hey!

So I thought it time to do a bit of a giveaway! I have a Diana+ Lomo that I've used a few times but i definitly don't utilize it like others might.  So,  I will be giving it away! I will also throw in two rolls of KodakE100 slide film that fit neetly into the amo belt camera strap.
You can enter from anywhere in the world and I will ship it to you (Unless you live somewhere strange where shipping costs the world, then you'll help pay for shipping)

If you would like to enter to win the camera, follow these steps;

1. Retweet one of my contest tweets during the next month on my Twitter stream.  Or you can tweet this line, 
“Win a #lomo #Diana with   @DrewMcGibbon – View here to enter  http://tiny.cc/4523m . #AndrewMcGibbonGiveaway”. 
2. Follow my twitter feeed.
3. Head over to my FaceBook page, LIKE it and you done.

Giveaway ends September 20th, and the winner will be announced Friday Septemeber 23rd

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

"The name Big Nuz comes from Big because they are doing big things and NUZ is the license plate of one of the biggest townships in South Africa, Umlazi, situated in the south coast of Durban. Big Nuz consists of 3 guys Mandla Maphumulo aka Mampintsha, Mzi Tshomela aka Danger and Sbu Khomo aka R Mashesha." So it says on the website HERE

I had never heard of these guys when their record label 'Afrotainment' approached me to do the shoot. It turns out, that they are pretty much the biggest band in South Africa, I just fall in a different demographc so I wouldn't have heard them. It's pretty cool getting to know your country through the eys of others.

The image they were after was going to be pretty tough to achaive as one single shot, due to the fact that we ad very little time on location (only a couple of hours), we had no control over the time we shot (It needed to be a night time image but we had to shoot in the day!) and we wanted very similar light on each subject (Not really possible unless you light them all seperatly... which is what we did)

Below I have laid out the basic progression we went through to get the final image.

This first shot shows the four plates shot, including one for the car ( I actually shot a few more, lighting the car in different places but four pics work well in this demo)

 

 

The second image is the four shots put together.

 

 

 

Then we change the sky and car from blue to black.

 

 

Next comes a bunch of filters to make sun lit buildings and people look moon lit.

 

 

 And last but not least, some street lights, a bit of a doge, a bit of a burn, a little smoothing of the car door, and the image gets handed over to the design agency (BornAndBred) for the rest of the cover design.

 

 

I really hope this has been informative and interesting. If you have and questions or if compositing is something you would like to explore in your new album/advert etc, please feel free to get in touch.

 

~Andrew

 

•••UPDATE•••

And now..... The result!

There was a lot of fan fair building up to the release of these guys double disc yesterdat 24th August. (I had never heard of them seeing as I'm a white boy form the suburbs and they are hadrcore black guys form Umlazi but as far as album sales and awards, they are one of the biggest acts in South Africa)
Anyway, my wife and I went down to the pavilion for half price movies and half price sushi (we didn't actually know that everything we wanted was going to be half price!! Score!) and picked up a copy of the disc at musica.

Here are a few pics of the images we made for the band as the final product. The designers at BornAndBred did a pretty good job and even managed to get a A3 fold out poster so fans can put on their walls. It's pretty cool that thousands of screeming Kwaito fans will have my work pinned up on their bedroom wall!

 

 

I have never really enjoyed natural light (although it can be used really nicely, and I do use it sometimes) but have always enjoyed lighting the heck out of my images so they are sureal in the sense that you simply cannot see this kind of thing with your natural eye.
It's always fun on shoot, when the day is grey and grim and the location seems like nothing special, and you show the client the camera screen after your first test shot and their response is one of amazement and shock!
On shoot we create that which didn't exsit and the more we add to the image the more challenging it is and the better the satisfaction.

 

I have been working on a new style/series/expression that I have decided to call Super Colour, and it basically takes what I just said above to a new level for me. We use four lights with coloured gels, super cool models/artists and add water, lots of water.
It's pretty tricky to get all the elements to come together (and you feel kind of bad throwing bucket after bucket of water on them) but when it works you just feel so pumped!

 

Here is a few behind the scene shots of what our set up looked like on the Motion Dance Super Colour shoot and of course a few of the results.

 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The studio of Andrew McGibbon is running internship / assisting posts.  It is unpaid but you will learn a TON and normally get fed. (I am also known to give small cash bonuses)  The job could see you on shoot as many as 4 times a week to as little as 0 times week!  As is the nature of our business, you will however need to be available on short notice. We request that you have your own transportation (mileage will be reimbursed for any business related errands while on the clock.)

We are looking for an intern who is passionate about commercial photography, but previous experience is not at all necessary.

Applicants must be professional, self-motivated and physically able to lift heavy equipment.  Internship duties will include working as 2nd or 3rd assistant at photo shoots, work related errands, and assisting in pre-production of photo shoots.

Please submit a short story about your life and what you would do if you won a million rand to info@andrewmcgibbon.co.za  We will contact you if we wish to arrange an interview; no phone calls, please.

 

 

 

As a second assistant on shoots you will be working under Matt (he's the guy holding the pollyboard)

Hi and welcome to my first blog post on my new website!

 

I really hope you enjoy the imagery and explore for awhile.

I will try blog often about how I light my subjects to how I composite images together.

 

To kick this blog off I will re-post the last post form my old site "Compositing Mbongeni Ngema"

 

Mbongeni Ngema is a pretty big name in the African community, made famous from his play ‘Sarafina!’ and well loved for his current music and musicals. We did this shoot in Embo, a township just outside Hillcrest, KZN, South Africa and when he arrived in his Sl 500 mercedes the people who were milling around went nuts! Kind of like if Justin Bieber rolled into some junior high school! haha. well probably not quite but you get the picture.

 

It was fun doing this shoot and I’m pretty pleased with the result.

 

 

The above image shows the four separate plates that were shot. Each one to light the four ‘subjects’ 1.The axe men 2.The girls 3.The chickens 4.Ngema.

 

 

The above image shows the final composite image with all elements merged.

Enjoy!

 

~ Andrew