Clay Cook began his creative career in the music industry, and after 10 years, his passion had leaned towards photography, cinematography and graphic design. Constantly collaborating with designers, national models, filmmakers and other photographers, Clay has built a reputable name as an award-winning internationally published photographer and filmmaker, specializing in fashion editorial and advertising photography. Clay’s work is featured frequently on world-wide photography blogs including Fstoppers, B&H Photo & Video, PetaPixel, SLRLounge, ISO1200 and BorrowLenses among others. Clay has been published in USA Today, First For Women, ProSales Magazine, Modern Salon, American Salon Magazine, Louisville Magazine, The Voice of Louisville, NFocus Magazine, STORY Magazine and Dark Beauty Magazine. Check out his website here. 
Have you heard of this bad little lady? If not, let us introduce you to Baddie Winkle. Baddie is an American internet personality who became a sensation at the age of eighty-five. Recently, our featured photographer Clay Cook had the pleasure of collaborating with her.
Bright blues and yellows are great colors to incorporate for summer-themed sessions!
Photographer Clay Cook recently shared this awesome Photoshop tutorial with us that shows off an extremely quick and easy way to eliminate dirt and footprints from white seamless paper in Photoshop. We all try to put in extra effort to keep our white backgrounds looking white, but at times, footprints and dirt are inevitable. Even though the soiled portion of your white seamless paper can be cut off and trashed after a shoot, you’re still left with the task of editing out the dirt from your final images. Check out this video tutorial from Clay and let us know if he’s changed your mind about your current method of cleaning up your background in Photoshop!
For the first time in my photography career, I walked into a collaborative photo shoot completely clueless. No tearsheets, no mood board, no pre-lighting, just a strong team and a small studio. No planning, no preparation and somehow we came up with a shining set of imagery, all due to bright colored Savage seamless paper. That was the piece of the puzzle that made it a picture.
Recently, I stumbled upon a stream of advertising, in which they used a slew of muted colors as the backdrop for a winter campaign. Inspired by the campaign I set out to create my own editorial using shades of color that aren’t on the “bestseller” list. My goal was to create a moody series with top notch high fashion styling and an experienced model that could compete with the model seen in the colorful marketing campaign.
Over the past year, I learned to love subject separation and black never gave me the contrast I wanted in a photograph.I decided to give black another shot and setup a test fashion shoot to compare black vinyl to black seamless paper as well as hopefully reduce the anxiety and revitalize my passion for shooting on a black background.
