The Ballerina

For some time I've been trying to figure out how to create a lighting effect I'd seen and had explained to me. Every time I tried it I was sorely disappointed in the results. However, in my preparations for my shoot with Sara, I decided to go for it anyway.

And, well, whatyaknow - the effect works best with white seamless paper! It has a different reflectivity than my white walls. I was quite pleased with the results!!

And very happy to be working with Sara!



We started with her going through her stretching/warmup routines as if she were about to perform. LOTS of great images, but this one is my absolute favorite. LOVE her expression!

See what I mean about the light?!



Next up, we get into performing and again get several great shots. And again, I found the perfect pose and expression. This series was fun, as Sara stayed up on point and simply tittered (best description I can come up with) left or right as needed while I shot away. In my defense, I told her to drop down and relax then go back on point when she was ready. It was her decision (really! No kidding!!) to stay up there. Blew me away watching her!!



Now, according to Sara, Ballerinas spend their time up and on their toes, rarely do they get down on the ground, but when I asked she immediately gave me this rather interesting pose. I won't tell you I tried to mimic the pose. Really, I'm not gonna, so don't ask me!



Switch outfits, play around and come up with this. Can you figure out how I did it???

Hope you enjoy...

Wrestling with ideas

I recently had an opportunity to help a photographer friend with an assignment to shoot 3 high school wrestlers for the local newspaper. We got the standard shots required, and then had some fun getting creative with our lighting and posing.

The local paper has a page they dedicate to showcasing high school athletes. They call it the poster page. They've been doing it for quite some time, and wanted to find a unique way to pose the 3 boys. The thing is, there's not many ways pose a single wrestler that is complimentary and hasn't already been done. So, we decided to let them hit some basic, standard poses, and change the background with the creative stuff we did.

Meet Josh, Vince and Seth:


We took action shots of the boys creating some wrestling moves, and zoomed in to specific parts of their bodies. We wanted to include each boy's face in the action shot, but Josh,(above) couldn't stay. So, instead, I took a tight shot of the arms of the other 2 in the "down" position they take to restart a match that's been interrupted. Made an interesting abstract for a basic pose.



This background shows another angle on that same starting position. Vince is focusing on the imaginary ref, waiting for him to start the match. It's his job to pin the other guy down, preventing him from breaking free of the hold.

Since we had put a blue spot on the background during standard poses, it seemed a good idea to include that blue theme into the background so the 2 images would blend together nicely.



All the boys were upbeat, friendly and in good spirits, but Seth gave us fantastic examples of his good nature off the mat and his intense focus on it. This is my favorite composite of the three.

I just wish we'd had more time to get some more shots for both parts of the composite (sigh).


Hope you enjoy...

Creative Light

Is a fairly new company that recently released their take on softboxes, umbrellas, etc. One box of particular interest to me is the 3 foot Octa Softbox. I first ran across this in a photographer's video (yeah, yeah - I WOULDA provided the link if I COULDA found it again!), went to CR's web site and watched some of their product videos.

For the first time in my photographic career, I had a very strong, positive vibe telling me to not hesitate, buy the thing. So... I did. Came yesterday, and I've had a chance to do one test setting, and I must say I LIKE IT!!!!

Here's a simple shot of the box hooked up to my Elinchrom strobe...



The softbox has 2 layers of diffusion built in, so I did a quick experiment with my trusty model Tammie. I set up the box 3 feet away from Tammie on a 45, raised so the center of the box was just above her eye line. Aimed it just past her right shoulder, and tilted down to have the hotspot (if there is any) hit her right about eye level.



Notice the soft, wrap-around quality of the light, and the diffused shadow behind her camera left. her shadow is large enough to just appear to be a gradient on the background. VERY nice light

Pull the outer diffusion layer off, and gained 1/3 stop of light, with minimal change to the softness:



Still VERY nice look, yes? Ok, so now let's remove the inner diffusion panel and see what hard light looks like with this softbox:



NICE!!! Again, gained a 1/3 stop of light. With the diffuser gone, notice how the shadow has shrunk in size to the point that it's clearly a shadow. However, for hard light, it's not as harsh as I was expecting.

With the diffusers installed, light is soft enough you can get away with bad placement. Once I shot without them, I saw the light was too low, and further to camera right than I wanted. So, I adjusted that, and while I was at it, brought in a Lastolite tri-grip with soft silver reflector to lift the shadows on her face. Here's the setup:



And here's the results without diffusers in the softbox:



Beautiful light, even with the hard edges in the transition areas. And I very much like how the shadows are falling after raising the softbox and moving it to shorten the nose shadow.

So let's see what happens when I put the diffusers back in. Instead of stepping up one at a time, I put both back on and got this:



Quite a nice shot, yes? The shadows are soft and subtle, giving dimension to Tammie's face without being obvious. I think this just might be one of the best images I've created to date.

NOW to do it with an actual live-type-person of the animated variety..... (grin!)

Hope you enjoy....

So we're not the only species

That puts our foot in our mouth!!!

One thing I have to do with Journey is to sneak shots - as soon as I get up to grab my camera Journey walks over to check things out. So, I end up keeping it by my side and waiting for opportunities like this to happen.

This is not a rare activity for Journey - he regularly sticks his foot in his mouth!!!



Tasty - essence of yard grass and yellow snow!



Oops! Guess I really DID step in it!!


Do you see the humor here?!


What???

Hope you enjoy...

iPhone behind the scenes...

Wanted to share this sequence of shots I just made while playing with some new software for my iPhone.

No, the pictures were not taken with the iPhone... or, rather.... they were not taken BY the iPhone. My Canon 5D took the pictures, but my iPhone controlled the camera remotely... without wires... How cool is that?!

Photogs will notice that I'm a bit blurry, and so is Journey on occasion. Shooting with just the room light, high ISO and wide open aperture. This was just play time with the remote SW so I didn't worry about perfect pictures... (thwump!!!!) ... ... Ok, who fainted?!?!


And yes, the old fart is me (sigh)....


Hey, that's a bone! Gimme Gimme Gimme!!!


Journey: Hey, what's this button do?
Skittles: Off the iPhone Pal, I'm not ready!


John: You did good Boy!
Journey: Eh... not my best side (sigh)
Skittles: yeah, yeah, great shot - LOVE this bone!


John: I LOVE technology!
Journey: Oh brother, we'll be at this all day!
Skittles: ummph, crunch, slurp


Skittles: Cool!!!! We be in the hood Dawg!!!


Journey: Stylish and sporty, I like it!

Hope you enjoy...