On The Road Again
I've just returned from teaching in Boston for Nikonians and a week of teaching for Maine Media Workshops. I managed to squeeze a couples days at home and today I find myself on yet another plane. My flight tonight was full, all 15 of us. I'm headed to Sidney, MT for a 3 day assignment shooting pipeline work.
This social media thing is great, the client I'm shooting for find me through my blog. This is actually the third job I'm shooting for him. Rick has been a long time reader of my blog, he like my industrial work and my use of small strobes in cleaver ways.
Sidney, MT is a small town, so small that I was unable to find a hotel room available in town. I'm having to drive about 50 mile south to the town of Glendive to find a room. This is going to add an additional hour on both sides of the day, sunrise and Sundown.
You might be interested in how these sort of assignments come about and how much direction I'm provide. This is the third time I'm shooting for this client, they found me by reading my blog. Isn't social media great!
The company I'm shooting for is a pipeline company, they are in the process of laying pipe in the ground somewhere in North Dakota. My client has provided me with a short list of activities going on associated with the project that they would like photographed. They have also provided me a contact at their local office in Sidney, MT.
I phoned the local contact to introduced myself a few days ago and again today. It is important to me to make this call, get to know the sort of person I'll be dealing with. It is also my opportunity to find out more specifics regarding what is actually happening on the ground. I also take this opportunity to assure them that I know what I'm doing and that I have all my own personal perfection equipment.
Through these photo conversations with my local contact, I've learned that the crews working on the pipeline start about 6:30 AM and end at about 4PM. This tells me that if I want some late sunset images with people in the photos, I'll need to arrange a few guys to hang around as models. This is where a couple of 6 packs come in handy.
I've made arrangements to meet my contact at 7AM tomorrow morning, I'll have to have the mandator safety meeting before we head out to see the project. It will be during this time that I make GPS notes where certain activities are taking place, I want to be able to return on my own to photograph as I wish. I prefer to shoot without an escort, I think it's boring for them and a waste of their time to hang around. We'll see how things go. DT
Super Soft Light
Once again, I'd have to say "I love my FourSquare™". Sometime ago I made mention about this particular technique, using two umbrellas on the FourSquare™.
During my March SSBR workshop in Denver, I photographed Andrea using this technique. The take the FourSquare™ block and I slide a 60" umbrella and a 43" umbrella into the umbrella shaft holder, there are two. As you can see from the image above, the 60" umbrella is used as a shoot through and the 43" as the bounce. The 43" has the black cover over it and as mentioned, the 60" is close to the subject in the shoot through position.
This is an incredible light, large, soft and just plan beautiful. In the image below you can see the quality of light produced from this set up. My WB in the camera was set to Daylight for the image below.
Thanks Seattle and Urban Light Studio
It has been a busy few weeks around here. As you know, I was in Seattle recently for two functions. One was a SSBR lighting workshop as well as my nephews wedding not far from the Seattle area. For those of you living in the Seattle area or those of you traveling to the area, you need to check out Urban Light Studios! This was the location where I held my workshop, what a great place.
The studio is more like a really cool house in a sense. Kevin Law, the owner of this place actually has two studios on site. The main floor has all sorts of neat places to photograph, room decorated in various themes as well as a full kitchen. The studio downstairs is more of your typical type of shooting space. By the way, they not only rent the place out to photographers, they rent there space out for all sorts of functions. Check out there space HERE.
On Wednesday evening, the 18th, we had a social meeting and slide presentation at Kevin's studio. Thanks Kevin for all the snacks and wine your provide for the evening, your very kind. We had about 45 folks there for my presentation, it was nice meeting so many wonderful people.
The next we had a nice group of participants at the workshop and a very nice young lady to model for us. Simone, you were charming and thanks for participating in the workshop.
Here is the set up for the following photo. I used a single SB-800 in my FourSquare and a reflector place just below the frame. I shifted my color balance to tungsten and than placed a full CTO on the flash for a normal skin tone. I might add, I always have an 1/8 CTO on each of my strobes. That 1/8 CTO is placed on everyone of my flashes, I feel that this 1/8th CTO brings my flash to a normal looking light. So, with that said, I actually have 1 and 1/8 CTO on the flash in this picture.
Here is another image of Simone using this same shift in white balance to tungsten and CTO combination. I used a sliding plastic door as my light source. The SB-800 was place behind the door and was fired using a Pocket Wizard.
In this next photo, I placed a single SB-800 outside with a full CTO and aimed it through the window. Once again, it is actually 1 1/8 CTO on the flash. My white balance was daylight.
In a later post, I'll show you some of the images I took at my nephews wedding. DT
Driving Down The Ambient
This past April I held one of my Small Strobes, Big Results workshops here in Denver. We had the opportunity to photograph outside in open shade with our model Gwen. I found a section of wall that had a corrugated metal siding next to a bright yellowish wall and thought it would make for a nice background surface.
For this particular photo, I used only one SB-800 strobe fitted with a set of barndoors. Let me go through my process here on how I shot this image.
My first step was to shot the scene as my camera would have indicated. That result is seen below.
The top photo is exactly as I had envisioned the final photo. From the point where the camera indicated a correct exposure, I then shifted my WB on my camera to 3030*K and under exposed the image to my personal taste. That exposure is shown below. Shifting my WB caused any daylight to shift to the cool tones in the image. The corrugated metal siding was reflecting open sky or "daylight", which results in the blue you seen in the image.
I than had my nephew Ian, hand hold an SB-800 with a full cut CTO on the flash and the barndoors shaped in such a way to produce the angle of light I wanted.
You can view more workshop images created during various SSBR workshops HERE This link will take you to a new web site I created at SquarSpace, I hope you like it. As a reminder, I have space still available at the Denver July 31st workshop as well as the August 19th workshop in Seattle DT
Seattle Workshop and Speaking Engagement
I'm very excited to be coming to Seattle! I'll be conducting my Small Strobes, Big Results workshop on Aug. 19th and a speaking engagement on the 18th.
I'll be speaking and showing some work at the 
in Seattle on the evening of the 18th. This event is open to the public, however you need to RSVP if you plan on attending. You can RSVP at info@urbanlightstudios.com We only have space for about 125 people so please RSVP early.