A little flash on the side?

A little bit of dramatic lighting can go a long way, especially when you are shooting outdoors or somewhere that studio-style lighting is unexpected.

This is straight out of the Strobist playbook...

With the setup of a hay bale, a beautiful young lady and one excellent mom/assistant we came up with some nice shots.

Equipment was simple ...
Canon Canon 430exII flash fired with Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers
Canon EOS 5D
and for the shot above, a 40" diffuser/reflector .

The flash is on a stand about 7' away to the right of the subject.  You can see by the shadows that it is overpowering the ambient light for a dramatic look.

Here is a wider shot showing the placement of the diffuser...


Here is another pose with the same setup.  Adding the flash allowed the sky to be darker, although with some low clouds, it wasn't as dramatic as I would have liked.

Monday Photo Roundup - Dec. 10. And a large green man.

I was asked to so some simple head shots for a new ladies' mentoring group at church.  Which means trying to get the most out of a simple set up in a small space.  White cloth on the wall, two lights and a reflector and I'm pretty happy with the results.


Being the official White House photographer would be a dream job, even though it is pretty much giving up four years of your life.  Apparently things get really crazy on overseas trips.

Petapixel has so many interesting things.. just browse around over there.  This made a neat series - Everyday objects as sea creatures.

Photo-geekiness alert.  Reuters selected their 95 photos of the year.  And here is a breakdown of cameras, lenses and camera settings that were used to get them.

I saw this creative baby belly series a couple of places this week... maternity photogs, top that!

The Canon 6D looks like an interesting combination of features and price.  I have been pondering a 5D MkIII to replace my aging original 5D, but the wifi control could be useful from time to time.

If you are looking for fun photog Christmas gifts, I heartily recommend Photojojo.  Because most photog time is spent at the computer, the most useful gift may be these.

Speaking of which, you are almost out of time to do photo Christmas cards.  And you will need to come with something pretty clever to top these.

It is time for year-in-review photo sharing.  The Atlantic's InFocus blog is a good place to start, in three parts.  One.  Two.  Three.

From the flickr blog... use your lenses and glass objects in a different way.

It isn't easy being green.

Quick Pic - Cliff

Former Tribune sports editor Cliff Gibson stopped by to say hello and stepped in to be a model for testing a light setup... Thanks Cliff.


Lighting is a single monolight (elinchrom 400bx) with a 10 degree grid slightly behind camera right for the spotlight shadow.

Quick Pic - Basketball with Strobes

Finally dragged out the big lights for some basketball this evening. I still need to work on placement and whatnot, but it definitely makes for more interesting photos. Not every game, but there will be more of this.

There are downsides too, but I will do a better blog on the experience soon.

Don J.

Volleyball

I was honored to be asked to photograph the THS Lady Tiger volleyball teams this year, with only one request from the coach. She wanted something "Different," especially for the varsity squad.

Last year they took pictures with flowers at the Dallas Arboretum, so I went the opposite route, looking for something a little bit rougher around the edges. The school maintenance facility had some nice surfaces for backgrounds including a loading dock, wooden fence and sheet metal siding, so I gave that a shot. The facilities director was super cool about it and even provided us with an extension cord. Thank you!

The varsity shoot was early in the morning to beat the bright sun. That said, by the time we wrapped up around 9:30 I was already using the lights cranked up to full power to compensate.



For the girls who wanted to do individual shots, the sun made a nice rim light as well.



Luckily for me, these girls were willing to put up with acting a little bit goofy for the camera.



Sometimes great things just happen during a shoot. This time, a gentleman parked across the street in a perfectly red classic Mustang. He obliged the ladies and let us include it in their photos, and the coach had the idea to fill the empty grill hole with volleyballs. That really made the shoot a lot more fun.



For the JV and Freshmen teams, it was a rapid-fire shoot in the gym during their athletics time. All told it was two team shots and some 21 individuals in about 45 minutes.

Even though it was in the gym, I still wanted a different look than you typically get from sports photos.

For the teams, I tried using the floor reflection, which turned out (I think) kind of neat.



I took some team photos closer as well to save detail in the players, but I like the reflection.

For the individuals, I used a large "T" that is made into the bleachers as the background. The subjects are lit with a 3x4' softbox pretty close to camera left and a silver reflector on the other side of the net to camera right. A separate light is on the background, which is at least 50' away.





This is in a fully lit gym. To kill the ambient light, I used a low ISO (100) and high-ish shutter speed (1/200). Here is what it looked like without the background light.. if I had flagged off the main light from the background, it would be totally black.



Obviously, too much fun. Thanks to the volleyball ladies for asking me to do this. This is what you will be showing your grandkids in 40 years!

Tech info.. these were lit with Elinchrom bxri500 and bx400 lights fired by skyports.

Don J.

Rayfield Wright visits FBC Kaufman

Certifiable football legend Rayfield Wright was a guest speaker at FBC Kaufman last Sunday. For me, it was a fun opportunity to capture another event at the church while working on photo ideas.

First up was a baptism, and I finally got to try putting a remote camera "backstage" for a unique view. I used a Strobist inspired 2-flash setup... 1 flash in a Lastolite EzyBox about two feet above the camera, and another on the other side of the pool firing directly back at the camera. I wanted a blast of light behind either the pastor or the boy who was being baptized...

Canon 5D, 24-70mm, f11, 1/200, iso400

Next time I will try blasting the whole back wall to white.

The remote was triggered by the camera I was using from the back of the room...

Canon 40D, 70-200mm, f2.8, 1/100, iso1000

Next up was Rayfield Wright... and he is a totally classy guy with a great message about living, faith and finding your way to a meaningful life. If you get a chance to hear him speak or meet him in person, you will be blessed.

I tried to be inconspicuous... but I had a hard time finding anything unique to shoot. There was Robert with a Tony Romo jersey, listening intently...

Canon 5D, 70-200, f2.8, 1/30, iso1600

Mr. Wright is an active and expressive speaker which is great for photos... unfortunately there are a lot of distracting things on stage that draw attention away from the subject...

Canon 5D, 70-200mm, f2.8, 1/30, iso1600

I did not want to be distracting with a flash, so even at ISO 1600/f2.8, I was still shooting at 1/25-1/60 shutter speeds. Leaning on the wall helped keep the camera steady, but I had to try to catch him with his hands still, which wasn't easy. I still like this one because the pastor is laughing and looking back toward the camera.

Canon 5D, 70-200mm, 1/25, iso1600

Finally I caught him gesturing, not blurry hands, just the red chairs in the background, and a nice bunch of attentive audience members in the foreground.

Canon 5D, 70-200, f2.8, 1/30, iso1600

With that, I was pretty happy.

This was the last of 3 services that morning, and Mr. Wright stuck around until nearly 1:30 signing autographs, selling his book and shaking hands. He put one of his SuperBowl rings and his NFL Hall of fame ring on the little kids for pictures... those rings are huge!

Canon 5D, 24-70mm, f5, 1/60, iso1250, Flash w/bounce card

Pro Football is a game for really big men..

Canon 5D, 24-70mm, f5, 1/60, iso1250, Flash w/bounce card

It was a fun morning to shoot, and great to hear a really inspiring man share his story, faith, and experience. He retired from football when I was 4 years old, but what he shares is timeless.

If I took your photo, you can find it here.

Back to photo basics next.

don j.