Tag Archives for photography

Bundles of Badass

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Romp DMC? LL Cool Legs? Justin Bib? Cooli’Onsie?! Ice Tee?!? SNOOP LEGGY LEGS?!!

I mean, what part of those product names sound anything less than *HELLA TIGHT*?

I had the privilege of creating the print design, logo design and photography for my very excellent friend Sarah’s new babywear brand, Milk Riot!

Mad kudos to her for keeping the fabric organic, the dyes natural, the production local (Aussie designed and made), and the vibe epic. Tell all those nasties to get on their bike.

Check out some pics from the shoot, starring my extremely handsome godson and his outstanding group of pals.

 

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From the Vault: Criminals and Cabin Crew

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Back in 2010 I was cast in Josh Finch‘s feature film Australian Enemy. Here’s the synopsis:

Chronicles the epic rise and fall of Angelo Morello, a young Calabrian who finds himself entering a life beyond his wildest dreams from small time gambler in the 1960s to controlling the Australian cannabis trade during the 1970s.

I played Tina Morello, a flight hostess and Angelo’s wife. Great script. The whole project was a lot of fun (apart from the time I fell down the stairs running out of a slippery bathroom scene and ended up in the Royal North Shore Hospital emergency ward. More colourful language has never been uttered. A story for another time.)

So we wrapped principal photography on the film and I got antsy for a poster so I offered up my services of art direction and graphic design. Only problem was, I needed to be in the poster, so I couldn’t shoot it. Oh, and it needed to be shot from directly above. On a bed.

concept sketch

concept sketch

Oh how the stars aligned.

No more than a week after I had drawn the concept sketch (when I should have been doing architectural CAD drawings at work), mum informed me that there was a huge scaffold at her house as the ceiling was being painted. Bingo. I called my mate Tristan F-S who shimmied out on what was similar to a pirate ship plank setup over a bed sheet and some pillows that we hand thrown on the ground, and we shot that weekend.

If you find yourself in San Francisco this Sunday evening at 6pm, and you’re as jazzed on indie filmmaking as I am, come on down to the 9th Street Independent Film Center in SoMa and catch the super-ultra-mega-advanced-screening (aka. sound and colour isn’t done, but we have a picture lock) of Frisky – my feature film directorial debut! A lot of legends helped make this project a reality, so bloody get there! Tickets available here: https://friskyscreening.eventbrite.com

Ethereal, Botanical.

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How civilised am I? Spending my Sunday riding my bike… well Klaus’ bike, up to the Golden Gate Park botanical gardens with my housemate KatieK (who was on my bike) for a macro photography session? Bloody civilised.

I rented a couple of nice lenses (Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM, and Canon 85mm f/1.2L II USM) and thought I’d try my hand at some macro photography using an extension tube (Canon EF 25 II)… which I had never done before.

As soon as I slapped that extension tube on there… something shifted. Figuratively, but permanently nonetheless.

I tested it all out at home on a vase of dead flowers leftover from shooting Frisky… pretty stoked that I had neglected to chuck them out as they are great in all their shrivelled glory. I also tested on KatieK’s asparagus that she was in the middle of consuming for dinner.

Before extension tube
With extension tube
With extension tube
With extension tube
With extension tube
With extension tube
With extension tube

Next day, KatieK and I hopped gracefully (nope) upon our respective bicycles and headed to the park where I cracked open some dreamy floratography (not a real word).

All these shots are exactly as they came off the camera (except reduced for web). I’m quite chuffed.

Boobs and Bridges

Frisky Film Movie Poster

Talk about Northern exposure… Or NorCal exposure…

Slap your eyeballs all over the poster for my feature film directorial debut, “Frisky” (director/writer/producer).

Frisky is a comedy feature film about two twenty-somethings who move to San Francisco to chase their career, but end up chasing tail instead.

Very high brow stuff, as the poster implies.

The film is a patchwork of my own experiences (or things I witnessed others doing) throughout my move from Sydney to Los Angeles for film school in 2009, then again to shoot a pilot in 2011, then for love from LA to San Francisco in 2013. Only it’s just one story. And it’s heaps good. For serious. And the writing. Also good. Like this paragraph. But seriously, it’s going to be a ripper of a film, so stay tuned for more very shortly.

As for the poster, The finished product holds true to the original concept sketch that I drew on the back of a script to pitch the idea to Christiana, the film’s cinematographer/DP and the poster’s photographer. I then fiddled for more time than what is reasonable with the graphic design in Photoshop to produce this beauty!

concept sketch on someone else’s script
concept sketch on my script
alternative style

We’re hella legit. Even IMDb reckons so... So keep an eye on our Facebook Page for the San Francisco screening in late March 2015.

Oh Snap!

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Oh snap! It’s my brand-spanking-new photography website! And it has a clever wordplay in the URL just like the title of this blog post… What a treat!

Feast your eyes upon www.claudiapic.com

Here’s my pitch:

Do you have an appalling LinkedIn profile pic of you draping yourself over a work colleague (tastefully cropped out) in a shiny paper party hat while clinging onto a glass dirtied with the remnants of a piña colada? Call me for a headshot.

Are you a brilliant actor, singer or dancer who has been photographically jibbed up until now? Does your agent constantly say “For the love of all things holy, Susan! Get a decent gosh darn headshot instead of this headsh*t!”? Call me for a headshot session, Susan.

Do you own, or have designed a house or building that deserves to be immortalised and publicised? A structure that demands documentation, so that it may finally bathe with its peers in the lofty glory that only the architectural works of Rem, Zaha and Frank have known until now? Call me for shoot.

Does your pet blow your mind? Ever wondered why none of your friends can see why? Put an end to all those underwhelming ‘doesn’t-do-fluffy’s-good-looks-any-justice‘ images that you keep posting online: The ones with the ill-placed shadows and out-of-focus stares. Stop being a tightass and invest in what you love. You need to call me.

Do you have a rock on your finger that’s weighing down your hand like your inability to decide on a sensational wedding photographer is weighing on your conscience? Call me, and let’s do this romance thing right.

Call me Claudia, call me Claud, call me Thedarclaud, call me whatever you like… just make sure you call me. Actually, it’s just email listed on the site, so do that. It’s the 21st century for heaven’s sake.

P.S. Can you believe the freaking Golden Gate Bridge shot with the bird?! That thing is straight-off-the-camera, no editing, right-place-right-time, mother-nature-meets-engineering-masterpiece, pure photographic glory. I may never take a better photo than it in my life. Fact.

Poster Rollercoaster

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My favourite part about wrapping production on a film is blabbing about it to EVERYONE (as long as post is going smoothly). And what better way to blow my own trumpet than to make a killer poster, and slap it on every last inch of the internet?

In the week between wrapping Winning Formula in Los Angeles and me moving to San Francisco, I bought a shockingly cheap photo studio setup – 3 softboxes and a backdrop rig – and got the entire cast to come in and have their character photos taken for promotional purposes.

During this session, Prudence and I shot the poster as per my concept sketch.

concept sketch
photoshopping
… kinda shite

… Or at least what I thought the poster would be. I saved all of this work at very low resolution to my google drive, then promptly had my laptop and camera (with backup images on the SD card) stolen, as you well know, faithful follower of my blog, Klaus.

So there I was with a film poster that was unprintable. Bloody useless for all the good people at Sundance and Canne who will be champing at the bit to get their clammy hands on a full size 27″x40″ 300dpi poster for my micro-budget slapstick comedy. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that those good people love micro-budget slapstick comedy.

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Prudence Vindin and Claudia Pickering with George Clooney leaving Canne in a limo in the future. He has really enjoyed Winning Formula. They are indulging in Moët mimosas.

A new poster was needed. Lucky for me, Pru was back in the United states a few months later, and we still had access to our costume headdresses (which were later stolen, so this really was our last shot at it).

our studio
our studio

We strung up some white fabric in Cassie’s (the costume designer) house, and with the help of Klaus, we reshot a poster far superior to the original. YEW!

Winning Formula Film Poster