|
| In the toiletSometimes ideas for photographs come from the strangest places.
I was standing over the toilet yesterday and was looking at the outline of my head in the reflection and couldn't help wonder if I would be able to see detail in my face were I to directly light it.
A quick light test proved that this was indeed the case.
So out came the tripod and a curious room-mate who couldn't believe I was taking photos of the toilet.
A few compositional tests and lighting tests later and I had what I wanted - a very different and almost gross self-portrait. But certainly one that would invoke a lot of strong reactions from viewers (which is what we are after in the business of photography, right??)
Here is the resulting image:
The challenges to overcome in this image were
- getting the camera angle right to where enough of the water was in view to permit me to have the reflection.
- getting the light to not flare the lens
- positioning my head so that the reflection of it could be seen by the lens. I originally stood straight over the bowl but then remembered out the whole "angle of incidence" concept and moved over to the left.
| | |
| A day in the lifeI thought it would be fun to share with you a bit of what I've been up to lately.
I have photo assisted Mike Mclean every day this week so far. I was supposed to work today as well but the client canceled the shoot last minute so here I am.
The Concept:
We have been shooting images for a new publication called "Texas Nurse" which will be in print as of the month of August. It is a smaller publication that will probably not be in news stands but mainly delivered to hospitals in Texas. Our assignment yesterday was to photograph the chief nurse for one of the local hospitals. There are a million photographs of nurses in scrubs. So the concept was to take the nurse out of the hospital and have her doing something different. This particular nurse likes to ride.
The Location:
For a shot like this where there is going to be copy printed over the image you need a fairly large section of blank space where writing could go. The text was going to be black, so that left out anything dark like trees or roadways. About a block from the building where the nurse works is an old Italian restaurant that is vacant. The alley behind it was perfect for the shot. Empty tan walls.
Mike originally set out to get a location in the shade so that we could have more control over the lighting. He had originally set up a time for the shot where the wall would be in shade, however when the time of the shoot got moved we were left with directly sunlight. It happens...
The Props:
The shot was to be of her standing with a bike, scarf blowing in the wind. So Mike procured a Harley, and we set up the date/time for the shoot. We were planning to use a fan for the wind effect, but God generously provided quite a gale-force wind for us, so that was not needed. Only other thing we needed was a scarf. After a few phone calls and a trip to a fabric store we had a few choices and settled on one that would work for us.
Getting the bike into place was not a fun task. It is a heavy machine
and the little lady riding it was not altogether able to do quick
maneuvers to get it where we needed it.
But after a few minutes we were where we wanted to be and ready for some test shots.
Lighting:
Lighting for this shot may seem pretty complex when you see the lighting images, but really was fairly simple. We had the setting sun as our primary light source. It was about 6pm when we started shooting so it was pretty strong. We started with two Nikon speedlights on lightstands with pocket wizards. Both were set to 1/2 power to equal one full-powered light.
The reason you would use two lights instead of one is for faster recycle time. For example, a Nikon SB-800 may take 2-3 seconds to recycle (be ready to fired again) between flash bursts. However, drop that to 1/2 power and you are looking at 1-2 seconds recycle time, maybe even less. May seem like a trivial difference but when you consider that the batteries are used less it means you can shoot faster and longer than if you just used one single light. Plus, every second counts when you are shooting something with motion.
After a few minutes of shooting I took it a step further and added two more strobes to the party. We started out with two Nikon SB-80dx speedlights. I added my SB-28 and Canon 540EZ to the mix. The reason behind this originally was so that I could shoot without having to use Mike's flashes. If I got a shot off right before him, the lights would not have had enough time to recycle and he would get very little to no light. I set my pocket wizards to a different channel and thought that would do the trick.
However, what I had forgotten was that his sb-80dx's are set in slave mode, which means they fire if they see a pop of light. So every time I fired my lights, his also fired. That meant i was still using his lights, and my shots were super hot (over exposed) where the lights were hitting.
So, I went back and lowered all 4 lights to 1/4 power and put all the pocket wizards on the same frequency. 1/4 power has a much faster recycle time so that if I did get a shot off right as he was about to, the chances were pretty high that he would get a good amount of light out of the flashes. Problem solved. So we ended with 4 lights at 1/4 power (still essentially equaling one light at full power).
It was essentially unnecessary to have that many lights, but man did it look cool 
Oh, and we had faster recycle times. It's all about the recycle time!
Later on Mike had us split the lights to either side of the bike as he had changed angles and had the nurse change poses.
The Results:
This is just one of my shots and I'm sure Mike got a much better one but I thought I'd show you what all of that put together looked like.
Thanks for stopping by!
| | |
| Milestone dayToday was a day to remember for me! It had a few ups and downs, but on the whole it has been a great day so far.
This morning I went to meet a friend to view the interior of a home I will be photographing for her company next week. I got there early and was met with a great surprise... I have been searching for a location to do a bridal shoot for a few days and happened to see this across the street from the house I stopped at:
I can just envision the bride in this shot with the flowing dress! PERFECT!
So now I have a few locations set up.
Also, Mike took me with him to Arlington Camera where we were able to get Pocket Wizards for a really discounted price! YES THAT'S RIGHT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! I HAVE POCKET WIZARDS NOW!!!
i'm pretty fired up about that last little statement. (as if you couldn't tell)
Slowly but surely my equipment is going from crap to quality.
I almost bought a 70-200F/2.8L USM used from a guy, but when i put it on my camera (thank GOODNESS i brought it) the thing wouldn't auto-focus. So he is taking it back to the repair shop yet again to have that fixed. He was trying to sell it to me a few weeks ago and discovered something was loose inside, so he had me wait until he could get it fixed.
The lens's exterior is in pretty bad shape, but the price is really good. Still trying to figure out if I want it or not. I have never seen one of those for such a good price, which is what is making it hard.
well, there is the update on my life.
OH, almost forgot. The new website is up.
everyone go check it out!
www.radiantsquares.com
| | |
|
